BOOOOKKKKKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!

Random photo that I took of some signs in Florida,
the greenness makes me happy!

So, I’m writing a book! I think I like to start a lot of sentences with so….. Anyway! The working title is called Dreamscapes, and it’s going to be awesome. I’m having a little trouble fleshing out background characters though. All I really seem to want to do is focus on the main characters and their issues, but without side characters you can’t really have fully fleshed main characters, and anyway. My goal is to be mostly done by March 25^th. HA! It’s a lot of work, and I seem to be excellent at procrastinating. I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up, and I think that plays into it a lot. Blah.

SO! If you have any ideas what my characters names should be, let me know! First one to respond gets a sneak peak at my Chapter 1! It’s not actually chapter one, it’s pre-chapter one, but it’ll make you happy. Lol, no one’s going to read this, it’s just echoes in my mind. Hello…… ello…. ello… o…..o…o……. Yep, that’s about it. ANYWAY! Peace all, bu-bye!

First Week Down, 4 More to Go

Me as a zombie Thursday night, beautiful aren't I!!

Well, made it through the first week! Actually, almost, just one more shift tonight. I'm not worried about it though because I called Jimmy (my cast director) and asked him to put me as something easy tonight, as I've developed a severe cough, thanks to the over-exertion, little sleep, and the shredding of my throat throughout the week. I slept 8 hours last night and my body had almost forgotten how good that felt! I woke up at 2:22am, about 4 hours after I fell asleep in a panic, then relaxed and was able to fall back asleep. I realized that is what my body is used to receiving, which is why I woke up. I'm looking forward to 8+ hours of sleep every night for the next 3 days though and I know that'll help me recover. The end of this week may be difficult, but I'll manage. (I work at Wayfair through Monday, no weekend break for me there. If I can get enough sleep I'll swing the momentum through next weekend, so I'll survive. Hanging in there, it's fun, I've made a lot of friends, but I've gotten sick and am still recovering from being so exhausted. I'll keep this updated!

Don't Know if I'm Gonna Make It

One thing they didn't tell me when auditioning to work at the haunted house, how sheerly exhausting it is. It's late hours, on top of a second job. I'll get 5-6 hours of sleep a night (unless it's a weekend and then I get 4), luckily I will have time for a nap in the afternoon but still. My days in October will run something like this... up at 6am, out the door by 6:30 to be at work before 7. Get off work at 1, home by 1:30. Time to do whatever I've got to do like shove food at my face and do laundry and run errands and sleep, out the door by 5:20ish (usually 5:23) to pick up my passenger (she keeps me awake on the drive back and also works there). If it's a weeknight, I get in makeup, run around like crazy for 3 hours and then un-makeup myself and get home by 11:30. If it's a week end night, I run around like crazy for 5 hours after makeup and make it home by 1:30. Rinse and repeat.

One thing though, don't think I'd be able to do this if I was in school. Think about it, basically the same hours as what I outlined above, then worry about homework and extra-curricular activities if you're in them. All I have to do is put my body in certain places at certain times (of course, gotta be clean and supposedly dressed too)

So back to the physical exhaustion, it takes me 2-3 days to completely recover from one 5 hour weeknight, at least it did the first weekend. The second weekend I did two days in a row and I bounced back in 2 days so I was okay. This weekend I had two days in a row and I'm still recovering, here it is about 48 hours before I've got to head back. I've tried to nap but every time I fall asleep my heart starts racing and I wake up so I've given up. Gotta leave in an hour so I decided to do something a little less strenuous than sleeping (apparently). Not sure why the panic, but it might be something to do with the sip of energy drink I took this morning. I never drink that stuff, so it woke me up and I can't figure out why I'm still worried about this. I hope I get an easy character tonight, I really want something that I can just stand in a corner until people come along. I've been given the hard characters almost every night, a sewer rat who has to stand in a room filled with water and run around like crazy, a zombie in a huge room who is constantly on display and supposed to be moving, a clown in the clown maze, I just want something that is a pop-out scare.

I'm losing my taste for being scared, for watching horror movies, for things black and I find myself wanting to paint my nails pink for once, Pink, of all colors. It's weird, but I don't think I'm gonna want to even touch a horror movie ever again, it's like they put me in a quarantined house and I have to act a certain way to escape the evil that is there. So nervous. I hope I don't get the sewer rat, the strobe light room, the main zombie, anything with a full face mask. My skin is still recovering from the one night I forgot to completely wash everything off of my face, I am breaking out pretty bad although I think I've gotten it under control, just need to keep it healing. I had a huge zit on my chin that was so sore, finally it went to a whitehead and just burst when I poked it one evening. Disgusting I know, but there ya have it. Anyway, gonna go browse Youtube for a bit, no one reads this so I'm not worried about the zitage and the sleepage news. Have fun and peace out, think twice before you accept a job at a haunted house.

New Happenings

A lot of stuff has happened this month. I began a second job at Nightmare on 13th in Salt Lake. I was accepted to the University of Utah. My brother came home from his mission. My brother got engaged. I broke up with my boyfriend of 3 years. My old friend and ex from high school got engaged the day after my brother did.

I've done a lot of thinking and pondering this month, trying to cope with all that's happened and to direct my life towards a new and better future. I turn 24 next month, and I want 24 to be the best year ever, a year for me. That means no hiding things because I'm afraid of what someone will say or do, crushing my soul to avoid someone else's possible hurt or dissapointment.  I've been living with my head under a blanket, making my footsteps small, it's time to use these wings I've been given and fly.

This post will be short, but I'm ending it with a quote from one of my favorite songs ever.

"How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes.
I struggle to find any truth in your lies.
And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know
My weakness I feel I must finally show.

Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all.
Lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall.
Lend me your eyes, I can change what you see.
But your soul you must keep, totally free.

Awake my soul....
                                 -Mumford & Sons

Just working on a Saturday, GOALS!!!!!

So I'm at work, and I realized I start a lot of sentances with So, but that's beside the point. Anyway, after getting here late because no joke, a boat was literally having the lifejackets sucked out by the wind as it drove down the highway, and they were kind of a road hazard, I proceeded to go into work overload and finished 80 emails in 4 hours. That's really good, that's like 20 emails per hour. Consider that the minimum emails per hour (for bonus qualification) is 7 and you hit the max bonus at 12, I did 32 emails that I will never ever get paid for. fun.
That aside, I realize I get extremely bored with this, so I invent games with the emails to keep busy. There's the 12 per hour game, the 3 per 15 minute, the load 3 and see how quickly they can get answered, the 15 per hour if I'm on ADD speed, and then there's UK speed, which is turtle slow. No one will understand what I just said, but that's about my state of mind most days!
Here's what I want to accomplish in the next year:
Turn 24
Get my Biology degree
Apply for Physician's Assistant School
Start a haunted house
Write a book and submit it to a publisher (or self-publish as a Kindle miniseries on Amazon, which would take less time and might make more money, just get the book written)
Lose 30 lbs (I'll settle for 20 though)
Start a YouTube channel just for kicks (I'll do a Let's Play of Thief: Deadly Shadows. I need a better computer though....)
I think that about lays it out, I'll put more on here as I think of them. Yay!

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!

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.