Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Starving at Midnight, with a Beautiful Opening Show!

Yes, I am absolutely starving! I have gotten sick of being soft around the edges, ever since I turned 18 I gained about 25 lbs and have maintained between 155-165lbs, so now I'm watching what I eat! More on that later. To the main event, my show Hello, Dolly opened tonight! Yay! I'm so freaking excited, it was awesome despite a few mishaps, my hair was gorgeous and people came that I knew and I absolutely love love love being on stage! I forgot how good it feels to be part of a cast, telling a fantastic story. Storytelling is built into our blood as humans, we tell stories to remember and to learn, also for entertainment. I can't describe the euphoric feeling when I'm on stage having done something really well or in the middle of a performance, it's like flying!

As mentioned in my previous entries, I have 5 costumes, which was expanded to 6 tonight as i had to step in for someone who wasn't there. It was ok, we made do and I got to dance an extra song! I lost one of the props I was supposed to bring on though, a roller chair that is absolutely crucial to a song, and I only have about 5 seconds between taking a table off and bringing the chair on that I can afford to spend. I spent about 2 minutes looking for this stupid chair in the dark backstage though, meanwhile they have started into the courtroom scene and Horace is sitting on the steps without his chair! Finally I found it, some bright soul decided to put the thing onstage BEHIND the huge group of people crowded to stage right. I snuck on, got it, then came out and placed it on stage for Horace to sit on, Phew! Later I was told that in my rush to find the chair, my police outfit didn't get buttoned up and my tie was on crooked so I really looked like a mess. Stuff happens though and it was definitely worth it!

About 2 months ago I streaked my hair bright pink thinking that it would wash out by show time. It mostly has, there are 2 or 3 spots where it is still highly visible in kind of a flamingo pink. I curled my hair in little tight ringlets and when I was done, there were three curls of pink! Nothing I could do about it though, so I was the slightly pink-haired cast member. No one could tell from the audience but my cast members found it highly amusing!

I love being on stage, there is absolutely nothing that compares to it. I think you either love or hate performing in front of people. Now, there's a big difference between speaking in public and performing in front of an audience. Most of that is preparation time, but I have a deathly fear of public speaking. there's a point though, when I've rehearsed enough and suddenly the butterflies are gone, and it's like soaring. I guess the best way to describe it is when a huge bubble rises up and bursts little rays of sunshine in your chest, it's just amazing! I wish I could sing better, there are so many musicals in Utah that if I could sing well enough, I'd have parts coming out my ears. It was awesome though to be in the ensemble and to have people tell me afterwards that I was like a ray of sunshine onstage, the others were smiling but I was beaming and I kept drawing people back to look at me. I love it, and I guess it shows!
Now I'm hungry and still wired. This is a really long blog, but what ev's, love ya'lls and let me know what cha think of being on stage!

Oh, and in hungry news, I just watch what I eat and maintain enough calories per day to lose about 1.2 lbs per week, which is all I can really lose because of my sedentary job and I'm not supposed to eat less than 1200 calories per day. If I don't exercise, about 1350 will let me lose 1 lb per week and somewhere around 1500 is maintaining. If I exercise, I can eat more (although I found I tend to triple the amount of calories that I burned through exercise if I don't watch this, don't know why) My biggest thing is I tend to overdo dinner and then go back for midnight snack. I'm learning to put my food on a plate so I can see how much I'm eating exactly, and to eat a larger breakfast with snacks so I don't get to starving mode and want to scarf everything. Harder than it sounds after a rousing rehearsal, but I ate 3 brownies already and if I eat anything else, I will be over my calorie limit, and I've already eaten so healthy today! Oatmeal and a lettuce sandwich (lettuce instead of bread, still had the meat and tomatoes) and home-made ribs so they're healthier and a potato and asparagus salad. So delicious and healthy! Just gotta watch those evening and late night scarf sessions!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Review



The Dark Knight causes things to fall from skyscrapers
in bat-like formation
I saw this movie at the 12:01 am showing on Friday the 20th, dressed in a Batman shirt, a long black cape, and a painted-on face mask that took 10 minutes of scrubbing to get out of my pores. No I'm not a nerd....

I haven't been a long-time comic book or movie fan of the series, but Nolan's movies garnered good enough reviews for me to finally decide to see Heath Ledger's Joker. Once I did that, I was hooked. I could probably now quote for you all the different Robins and their plotlines as well as give you a basic rundown of the number of times Superman and Batman have interacted! That's in the DC comics anyway.

For the movie itself, a big detractor was seeing it from midnight to 3 am. That's the time I'm usually asleep as my job dicates I should be awake at 6 to be on the road for work by 6:30. (I work from 7am to 4pm and it takes half an hour to get there). Some of the hugest moments were detracted from by the simple fact that I thought I might be hallucinating at one point or another due to my tiredness. But down to actual business...
Great Movie, Fantastic Actors, Long Plot: The movie itself was beautifully and artistically done. From the gritty detailing on every set to the beautiful lighting that highlighted moods and the gorgeous music, this is a movie worth seeing on the basis of its artistic reasoning alone. Christopher Nolan doesn't mess around with CGI when he can avoid it and the attention to detail shows. Everything was designed to suck you into this movie and carefully lay out the desolation and despair of Gotham, which it did. I remember being concerned when Anne Hathaway was cast as Catwoman, but between watching her flip backwards out of a window to seeing my first glimpse of her in the catsuit, all doubts vanished and were replaced by something like:
Point made


She sure is flexible, and how could she not be Catwoman, she's perfect!

Yes, I understand the reasonings that Michelle Pfieffer was better, but seriously, Hathaway's Catwoman fit perfectly into the Gotham that Nolan created.
Okay, apart from all that, the movie was really long. I mean, 3 entire hours of death and destruction it took to lead up to a happy ending for most of the characters involved. I really wanted Bane to be the all around bad guy, and no one answered how Bruce Wayne survives the liver splitting knife attack by Talia Al'Ghul. I guess we're just supposed to assume that he magically got to a surgeon and a hospital in time to get that along with his radiation treated. Also, what about that bomb? A bomb that by all accounts had only 20 seconds to be flown far enough out to the ocean so no one got hurt. Not even the Batman could escape at least severe radiation poisoning. That's just the magic of comic books I suppose, makes you forget about all the dead fish and mutated whales out there.

No Time Except the Lunch Hour, and more Bruises

Part of being an adult is that you work up to having no time for hobbies
Perhaps I'm generalizing here, but I used to love to read, run, bicycle, hike, play mild sports, do theatre, and pretty much anything that was new and sounded fun. Now I have time for my job (it's not a career, but a job) and whatever I make time for. Right now, that's a theatre show which is currently crowding out a social life, exercise, writing, sleep, food...yep, that about covers it.

I have a new bruise from rehearsal though, which is kind of cool. I was working on a new dip with my swing-dancing partner because we had one that required me to lean most of my body out over the edge of the stage, let go with one hand and pray I didn't hit the floor before his teenage muscles realized that they were supposed to be holding me up. I decided to do something else which ironically resulted in the injury (trading falling off the stage to falling onto the stage, I guess one is marginally better) It was supposed to be a simple dip down in which I would bend my knees, go almost horizontal with the ground, and all he'd have to do was keep me from hitting the stage. Of course, the first time we practiced he didn't realize that if both of our arms were extended, I would go down with a resounding thunk.
"Okay, you ready?"
"Sure"
"Just keep your arms tight while I go down and then pop me back up."
"Sure"
"Okay" *thunk*
And voila, lovely black and blue shoulder blade! I call the condition my swing dancing partner has, jell-o arms. He puts absolutely no tension into his muscles, preferring instead to let me lead his flapping arms where they are supposed to go, which only creates a problem when that's supposed to keep me from spinal injury. I suppose jell-o could be nice to land on,  but it makes a terrible spotting tool.

Anyway, I digress, two subjects at once. Point being, I will be either living at work or on the stage for the next two weeks, neither of which is necessarily a bad thing. If I wasn't a responsible adult, I'd have my day free instead of working to support this strange theatre habit which my non-existent retirement fund begs me to quit. It's okay though, I'm still young and fairly stupid so I'll either figure out how to mesh the job and hobby to become career...or I won't.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

And the Culprit is: Food and Exercise!

I have discovered why I gain weight after working out. It is a combination of working out, drinking more water, being hungrier, and eating more. It sucks but after you work out really hard and are starving the next day, you can't proceed with larger portions and helpings to help get satisfied, otherwise you will undo all the hard work you just put in.
Being sick of watching the scale go up when I worked out, (I weighed myself this morning, 167lbs! That's the highest my weight has EVER been), I decided to do some research and kick this in the teeth before it finished getting started. (It being the fat monster) The general conclusion was that some weight gain could be due to muscle, but as I already have muscle and am not unused to working out. I have been upping workouts but that doesn't cause a lot of muscle gain if it's mostly running, yoga, and intensity strengthening. So, the only thing left is: I'm working out more, so I'm eating more.

Blergh, if I want to be in shape and be actually able to see all my slowly developing muscles, I'm going to have to eat about the same as I was before, maybe even less. I was originally on My Food Diary (myfooddiary.com) to help keep track of caloric intake and output, but left after 2 weeks when I foolishly decided I could monitor my own intake without the help of a machine. (And that was back in May) Truth is, I can't, my body wants to rest at the comfortable, soft 162-165lb level for some reason, and I know I can get into a better, healthier shape than that.

So here I go again, maintaining the workout but now I'm back to calorie counting. I don't have time or money to go purchase a whole bunch of organic fresh food, so my general terms are:
-Stick with fruits, veggies, and fresh stuff
-Avoid processed foods
-No sugary drinks or soda
-Don't overeat
-Rewards occasionally

And here it goes! This is probably the 20th time I've started a routine/fitness regimine, but it's the first time I've been actually watching what I eat at the SAME TIME I'm measuring how much I exercise. I'll keep ya'll updated.

That's This
To this!
Also I learned to tie a bowtie last night. It was a lot of fun!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Bruises Just Mean You Worked Hard



Yesterday was the beginning of what theatre people affectionately call, "Hell Week" for my show. For the uninitiated, Hell Week is the week prior to the first show and is filled with extra long rehearsals including 1st and 2nd dress and Tech. The characterizations of Hell Week are as follows:
     -Extremely long hours
     -Last minute scrambling for costumes
     -At least 4 meltdowns of various actors
     -Countless bruises and other injuries due to unsafe conditions
     -The losing and finding of almost every prop
     -Various other insane situations that cause the director to age 5 years before your eyes

While the cast of Hello, Dolly here at Farmington Woodland park is great, they are also inexperienced and young. This creates a perfect catastrophe when no one knows what they're supposed to do! Regardless, rehearsal was a lot of fun last night and I now have the following list of costume items (in addition to the two dresses and police uniform I already have!) to assemble by tomorrow:
     -Black bow tie
     -white button down dress shirt
     -mauve button down dress shirt
     -pantaloons
     -cane
     -mauve full circle skirt
     -white hair ribbon
     -police hat
I play 4 different characters and need at least 5 costumes for this show. Let's see if I can name them all. I'm Mrs. Rose, a Sunday Clothes dancer, a Swing dance performer in the Parade, a Waiter, and a Policeman.

As we were practicing the waiter's gallop last night, we have a toss right in the middle that scares the bejeebers out of most of us. I'm on the catching team, and my left forearm was repeatedly pounded by the poor girl being tossed through the air. I have a nice welt and a bluish bruise today that will undoubtidly continue to swell. I also have a skinned knee from slipping on the cement, torn dance shoes, multiple bug bites and you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Da SunDaY EdiTion: Workout Plannings

Today is Sunday and I'm at work. I really dislike having my day of rest being a day of work, but I needed this coming Saturday off for a tech rehearsal for my show so there you have it. I have tomorrow off ~ just in time for a dentist appointment! Yay me, I love the clean feeling after but actually going to the dentist is awful, and the last time I went there they drilled on my teeth and some of the fillings still hurt or twinge when I drink something hot or cold or too sweet.

I went running last night and viola, it was a lot easier than last time! I went running in my Vibram five-fingers though and every single time, I get enourmous blisters on the balls of my feet. The pain is kind of cathartic, I feel like I did something. I'm going out to run again tonight, this time I'm going to tape my feet to help reduce the friction from not wearing socks. You seriously can't not wear socks and expect not to get blisters. My training method is such, starting Monday I'm going to go on a short run/bike ride first thing in the AM, then a longer one in the evening. When I really got in shape that's what I was doing, and I only have a limited amount of time before my easy 3 miles needs to be an easy 6 miles. I can do 4 without dying, that's what I did yesterday but it's an endurance thing and the difference between 4 and 6 is huge when you have no energy left!

Okay, I'm going to put my weight on here, nobody laugh okay? I'm 165.4 lbs as of Friday June 20th at 6:23 am. I'm hoping to cut that down some, I'm just barely over the normal BMI to the overweight category, so I gotta get on that. I know I'm strong enough, just have to dedicate the time! Everyone, keep me on the right track will ya? (all you invisible non-readers I suppose). I can only bear to weigh myself once a week, otherwise I get depressed and say, "Screw this, I'm going to eat chocolate at midnight." So there's that.

I always gain weight when I start exercising but having been going at this seriously for 3 weeks, I know that now I should actually start losing weight instead of gaining it. I don't know why my body does this to me, but I suppose it's in reaction to thinking:
"Great, Charly's getting chased by zombies for about an hour every day. We better pack on the fat and muscle and everything else because who knows when she'll eat again!"
I don't know that my body says that for sure, I just imagine that's what my body says because it's much more interesting than:
"*synapse pulse*, exercise + healthy food = imminent starvation. *pulse* fat on lockdown".

Anyway, that's it for today. Cheer me on! And if you feel the burning urge to comment, how does your weight loss go when you try? I'm probably the only one that exercises and gains weight. It's pathetic.
Ah loves ya!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Thoughts of the day

So today I'm just going to ramble on for awhile. I have a lot of thoughts and it seems that they need to be put down on paper.

It's summer, and I'm working a lot and trying to fit vacation in. I have a lot of things I want to do like get in shape, learn to sing well, act, and write a book. I have come to the conclusion though that only rich people can do everything they want to do, because 90% of my time is at work or asleep, I don't really have a social life except for a few activities if I can manage to squeeze them in and people I talk to on the phone or Skype.

Thinking about dying my hair pink again, I had pink streaks before and I think I want a few more after my show, Hello Dolly gets done. It will be fun to try again anyway!

My show, Hello Dolly as mentioned above (Hello, Dolly! to put in properly) is running July 30, 31st and August 1-4 at Woodland Park in Farmington UT. It's an outside show, so come prepared with a blanket or a lawn chair, I think entrance is $5 and it starts at 7pm or something like that. I don't really know, I just show up for the rehearsals :)

I have decided that my body solidly protests losing weight, and I will always be a mildly overweight slightly pretty girl. I have worked out for 2 weeks and eaten healthy and all I have succeeded in doing is gaining 3 lbs. I can do that when I'm sitting on my butt doing nothing so lets see, to work out or not to work out... Options here seem to be pointing on not working out. Life is unfair in that way, I'm going to keep running and stuff for another two weeks and see if I get any results.

The Aurora, CO theatre shooting just happened, and that's scary. I was at the midnight showing of the same movie in a theatre far away, and it's just surreal to me. I have friends that live in Denver and Aurora, so luckily no one I knew was there at that time.

I say theatre because that's the proper theatre way to say theatre. Don't mess with me on this.

Finally, if you love someone, is that enough? I mean, say you really really really loved someone, but there were certain differences in your belief and wants out of life that were keeping you apart. And say that other person broke promises to you. Is love enough to fix all of that? I don't know, I actually don't think so, it's like love taunts me saying, "Look, you were happy and sad and stressed all at the same time, want to be that way forever?" Not really. If this is about you, I'm rambling, it's nice to say something and have fictional people listen. (nobody reads this blog anyway)

So yeah, that's my thoughts for today. Sorry for anything depressing, comments on working out, how to create more hours in a day, hair, theatre shows, and love are all appreciated. Comments on politics not so much.  Thanks!