Disorganized and Disinteresting

Howdy Y’all! (Sorry. I hate Texan stereotypes, almost as much as I adore reinforcing them.)

Confession: I have a serious addiction to other people’s blogs. The fact that my Google Reader feed stayed relatively stagnant over the weekend due to some holiday celebrating the signing of some old piece of paper really depressed me. If only I were as addicted to my own blog as I am to the blogs of people I’ve never met (and/or met only on the internet).

So far my visit to Texas has been enjoyable. I finally feel like the wedding is actually happening soon which is both thrilling and weird and a little scary. My mom and sister took me shopping and spent way too much money on my wedding makeup, rehearsal dinner outfit, and a dress for the second part of the reception. You know, the part when I can’t stand having to wrestle the 1.4 million layers of tulle and crenoline that is my dress just to go to the restroom and decide to change into something more suitable for dancing, mid-August heat and port-a-potties. Oh yeah, there will be port-a-potties at our wedding. See, in true Keeler-and-Badger style, we chose a beautiful, gorgeous, perfect ceremony/reception venue– with no indoor plumbing. I promise it’s a classy barn with a classy bat infestation and classy port-a-potties.

After I acquired all of my extra wedding whatsits and such, my mom insisted that we all do a “test run” of our hair, makeup and dresses so on the fourth of July, before our celebratory annual viewing of the senior-citizen’s PBS Independence Day Special, Mom, Rachel (my sister/Maid of Honor/Made of Awesome) and I got all dolled up in our wedding gear. I practiced applying my overpriced department store counter makeup (with FREE GIFT) and Mom used her ninja hair dressing skills to make my otherwise un-exciting hair into a beautiful web of gorgeous. Did I mention that Mom also handmade my veil? She’s pretty awesome.

We all looked pretty great. I felt a little bit like a four year old playing dress-up in her mommy’s closet, but for a few minutes there, after pinning the silver tiara (aka Diadem of Ravenclaw) into my scalp with 76 bobby pins and before Mom pulled out her camera phone to take cheesy, pre-prom style pictures of Rachel and I in the living room, I actually felt bridal.

Earlier today, Rachel threw me a wedding shower in which I recieved a beautiful box full of old family recipes written on cards. These recipes are kind of a big deal in my family and very important to me, so it was really special. I also got to see a lot of old friends, drink earl grey tea out of china and eat adorable finger sandwiches and vegan cupcakes. In case you’re headed to a bridal shower anytime soon, please be aware that Target gift cards are apparently THE THING to give brides-to-be these days. I’m a pretty big fan of Target and exceedingly grateful for the cards, but I’m starting to think Target had a massive gift card giveaway I don’t know about . Or maybe they also give FREE GIFTS with purchase?

I’m enjoying another three days down here in the Lone Star State, drinking iced tea and counting the number of times I hear the phrase “bless her/his/your heart” every day. Oh, how I missed the South. See you when I’m back in yankee territory and can find something more interesting about which to write!

Hairbrush Wars and HIMYM

Since my last update, I’ve started about 452 blog posts and abandoned every one. Except the one about the monkey doing chin-ups on the subway. That I’m keeping up my sleeve until the world is ready to hear it.  Aside from the aforementioned primate-meets-elementary school gym class incident, the most exciting things that I have done in the past two weeks are as follows.

1) I got into an epic battle with my roller hairbrush. At least, I think it’s called a “roller hairbrush.” You know, one of those brushes that’s shaped like a cyllinder instead of a paddle? Anyway, it somehow ended up all tangled in my hair. Usually I’d just ask one of my roommates or my mother (if she were in close proximity) to help me pry the monster from my scalp, however I live all alone. It’s just me and the ghosts I sometimes imagine live on the fire escape. I know children read this blog, so I won’t go into any of the morbid details, but this wasn’t pretty. It was full on war. We both suffered numerous casualties– the brush lost many bristles at the point of my scissors, many of my hairs were torn out by the brush’s unyielding teeth. I was even forced to put a few sections of hair out of their misery and cut them off myself. Finally, after this long and tiring battle at 3am, I emerged ugly but victorious. I’m hoping no one will notice the uneven, slightly bald patch on the crown of my head.

2) I watched a TV show. Like, all four seasons of a TV show. In a week. This is huge for me because the last time I watched the entirety of a TV show, from its early years to its grand finale, it was during my “Boy Meets World” phase last summer. Before that I think it was either “The Dick Van Dyke Show” or “I Love Lucy”. It’s not that I have a problem with TV, I just have a problem with most of the things that are on TV. 99% of the time, I’m just not interested. Or I’m interested in the wrong shows. (Like many women alive during the early 21st century, I went through a brief, two month “Sex and the City” phase. I don’t like to talk about it.) Plus, I hate sitting still for too long and there are a great many things I’d rather do than stare at a TV screen. I know everyone hates that girl who’s always bragging that she doesn’t even own a TV, so come on and hate me. My computer screen works perfectly well if I feel the need to take an excursion into the lives of Rob and Laure Petrie or The Ricardos.

After much persuasion by my friends Leah and Quinn, I decided to give the sit-com “How I Met Your Mother” a try. It completely -changed my perception of what TV can and should be. Clever, poignant, well-written and brilliantly executed, this show grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go until I’d finished all previously-aired seasons. During and after my HIMYM binge,  I found myself obsessing about the show the way I usually obsess about a particularly good book. Conventiently, I even took a trip to McGee’s pub– the bar upon which the show’s creators based the fictional MacLaren’s– this week to celebrate Quinn’s birthday. We all “suited up” and continued making HMYM references all evening.

If you haven’t seen thiis show yet, please do yourself a favor and give it a try. It’s legen . . . wait for it . . .I hope you’re not lactose intolerant because the next word is. . . DARY.

Lucky for me, the show was picked up for a fifth season. After watching 90 episodes in 8 days, waiting a week between episodes like the rest of the world is going to be torturous. I don’t know how to be a fan of a show currently on the air.  I feel so CURRENT.

In unrelated news, I’m flying to Texas tomorrow to hang out with my family, swim, eat tacos and attend my own bridal shower. I’m going to try to update from “down south” but if I don’t, I’ll see you when I return!

Housekeeping and Housegetting

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have successfully completed a treacherous Exodus from Brooklyn.  I didn’t exactly have to part the East River or run away from scantily clad Egyptians, but we (Graham and I) overcame several other challenges to secure the apartment in the Promised Land (also known as Manhattan):

1)      Money.  This apartment is cheap by NYC standards, but you know, that’s like saying “this genocide is petty by Third Reich standards.” Thanks to the help of family, loans of friends and a lot of prayer, we finally managed to secure all of the necessary money for this place. (One month rent, one month security deposit, obscene broker’s fee.)

2)      Paper work. First, the lease we signed was incorrect. Then, the broker wouldn’t accept the checks I gave him. Then, it seemed a million other things went wrong. Eventually, something went right.

3)      Being identified as Mormons or Orthodox Jews.  This wasn’t so much an obstacle as just . . . funny. I mean, since we are getting married young and we don’t want to live together until we’re married, and I wear long skirts we MUST be Mormon or Orthodox. They seemed pretty surprised that we’re non-denominational Christians. The broker was like “Wow, I didn’t know Christians had such strong moral values!”  I’ve never been prouder of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

4)      Actually moving.  Graham’s dad and friend came into the city to help us move. I really love Graham’s father and having him here to help us was a huge blessing. The fact that none of us had ever really driven in the city however, did not help the moving process. We made it to our destinations eventually, but only after many U-turns and wrong exits. The car battery also died, but in true Badger fashion, Graham’s dad made BFFs with these guys from East Africa who jump started our car for us. Then he got their card and probably told them about Jesus. I really love my family.

Now, I’m all alone in this gloriously huge, old, gorgeous apartment.  We have views of the beautiful park, and castle-like museum across the street and the Hudson River is only a few blocks away. Also, the walls are PALE YELLOW with white trim, which is my favorite color for walls to be. No joke.  We have a full kitchen, enormous living room and bedroom big enough for a handful of Queen sized beds. Did I mention the two walk-in closets? It is far nicer than I ever expected we’d be able to find for our budget and we’re planning to stay here as long as we live in the city (which could be only a year, depending on where Graham goes to school). Graham is staying with our friend Quinn until after the wedding while I try and figure out how to furnish this place.

In other news, I’m reading a lot of young adult novels this summer. I also just finished rereading HBP in preparation for the movie. I forgot how brilliant Book 6 is, both as an individual novel and as a piece of a larger series. Jo Rowling breathes wonderment and magic. Seriously.

Wedding planning is . . .going. Yeah. Invitations are finally out. Venue is booked. Rentals reserved. I really suck at being a bride. I know I’m supposed to know exactly how I want everything,  that I’m supposed to have been imagining my perfect wedding since the age of 6. Honestly, my dream wedding involves Hogwarts and flying carriages. As long as things look pretty and I get to marry the person I love with all of my family and friends close by, I’m not picky about the rest.

More news soon!

God is the Great Tickler

While our peers drank themselves to a stupor in Lower East Side bars, Graham and I spent last Friday night sitting around my room listening to James Taylor, Miles Davis and piano arrangements of our favorite hymns.( Since we’re good, former Focus on the Family kids, I think there were a few D.C. Talk or Amy Grant hits thrown in the mix as well.) Somewhere between “Fire and Rain” and “Fairest Lord Jesus”, Graham decided it would be a good idea to tickle me. This wasn’t a gentle, flirtatious finger-against-the-chin tickle. This was a full on, double-handed, fingers-into-the-sides-like-daggers tickle.  He showed no mercy.  There I was just sitting on my bed enjoying some HOLY music, and without warning, a pair of hands I trust attacks me and turns me into a squirming, shrieking, ball of giggles. As I flailed my limbs wildly, trying to push his hands away from my ribs, Graham grinned maniacally like a taller, less psychologically disturbed incarnation of the Joker. Tears formed in my eyes as I screamed for him to stop. Finally, the tickling ceased and I regained my oh-so-refined and pulled-together manner. (Ha.)

I really hate being tickled. Sure, no one really likes being tickled. So few people enjoy being tickled that you can’t even Become a Fan of Being Tickled on Facebook. That’s pretty amazing.  But I hate tickling even more than most people.  In fact, IF Being Tickled had a Facebook page and IF you were allowed to “thumbs down” things on Facebook, I would thumbs down it 5,673 times. If Being Tickled had a YouTube channel I would flag it as inappropriate and SPAM its profile comments with hate mail and give every one of its videos one star. Why does tickling offend me so much? Aside from being physically uncomfortable, there’s nothing particularly evil about a tickle. It doesn’t cause any permanent damage it even makes its victims laugh. Can’t say the same for most comic book villains. The real reason I hate being tickled is that I hate losing control.

It’s not that I’m a control freak. Well, ok. Sometimes I can be a control freak, but only over my own life. I like knowing exactly what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it. I plan out my life years in advance. Most of the time, I get panic attacks or episodes of depression when things don’t pan out exactly how I imagine they will. My need for absolute control over my actions has resulted in bouts with eating disorders and absurdly high standards for myself academically. One of the more positive side-effects is my hatred of alcohol. The idea of losing any form of muscular or mental control over scares me to death.  Graham knows this. Graham knows that I hate being tickled. I sometimes make him promise that he won’t try to tickle me before I get close to him. Usually he complies, but last Friday he did me a favor.

After the tickling ceased, we returned to our familiar routine scrolling through iTunes, talking about what movie we wanted to watch and knitting patterns. Actually, neither of us knit, but wouldn’t it be cool if we did? Out of the blue, Graham stopped flipping through my DVD case and looked me in the eye.

“You know what?” he said. “I think you need to let God be your Great Tickler.”

If you know Graham at all, you know that ambiguous ,absurd statements escape his lips about every 7.3 minutes. I wasn’t especially surprised or intrigued by his statement.

“What?” I asked, expecting and explanation akin to the one he’d given the previous weekend when he suggested that Jesus is the Great Bread Man. (Apparently, Jesus was not human, but a giant loaf of bread.*) Instead, Graham did what he does best—reveal how he is at least 85% smarter and 112% more spiritually mature than I am.**

“You know, give up a little control to Him every once in a while.”

This is both exactly what I needed to hear and exactly what I didn’t want to hear. One of the most annoying things about Graham is that he tends to be right, in both the political-compass sense and the Major-Life-Lessons-Sarah-Needs-to-Learn sense.  As a church kid, I grew up hearing about how God had great plans for my life. I read all the bible verses about surrendering my life to him, not worrying about tomorrow, observing the Lilies in the field and all that jazz. As a proud AWANA*** member for 10 years, I memorized many of those verses and robotically repeated them to blue-haired volunteers  in exchange for stickers shaped like various pastoral mammals. Over goldfish and kool-aid, I vowed never to end up like Jonah who, according to the skit performed by the church youth drama ministry at Vacation Bible School, ended up inside a giant cardboard Shamu because he didn’t listen to God. Despite this phobia of aquatic digestive tracts, I never mastered the art of surrendering to the Lord. I never fully realized that when Proverbs  3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight,” it means, well, “stop thinking you know better than the creator of the universe, nitwit.”

It isn’t like God added an author’s note to the second edition saying “Psyche! You thought I actually wanted you to surrender control to me? I got you there, Sarah. I got you there!”  As far as I know, God isn’t a 1990s Disney sitcom character. God doesn’t say “Psyche” or “just kidding.” (Except to Abraham in Genesis 22 but that’s a whole different situation. Abraham was a Knight of Faith Patriarch with an awesome beard.)

It took Graham’s tickling metaphor to get me to start thinking seriously about whether or not I was letting the Lord make my paths straight. When you think about it, tickling is pretty good metaphor for the way God works in our lives. We think we’re great. We’ve got everything under control. Then along comes to mighty hand of the God of the universe. At first we’re taken a back. We try to fight it, get that weird sensation away from us, causing more struggle, strife and stress. Why, God? But in the end, we’re laughing whether we like it or not. And laughing is healthy, right? Clinical studies prove laughing makes you feel better. At least, I’m sure there is some study somewhere that proves that being tickled frequently is awesome for your health.

God’s tickled me a lot these past few weeks. I wanted things to go MY WAY when it came to securing and moving into our new apartment. For no reason apparent to me at the time, God decided that everything I planned would go all wrong. He sort of forced me to surrender control to Him, by reminding me that I am only human. I make mistakes. I don’t have all the answers. Only he does. Like the biblical Sarah, I laughed. Unlike the Sarah of Genesis, however, I laughed not because I didn’t believe God’s promises, but because I saw them fulfilled. God’s promise that he would provide me with a home (a gorgeous apartment in upper Manhattan) was fulfilled and I laughed at myself for doubting and with joy at the awesomeness of  the Lord. His way is the best way. From now on, I’ll remember Graham’s wise words and God’s unchanging, eternal Word. I’ll let Him be my Great Tickler.
*Note for the Christian Blogger Police: No, neither Graham nor I actually believe the savior of the universe was literally a loaf of bread. I mean, Jesus himself says he provides the Bread of Life, so  I think it’s a pretty good theory, but the Apostle’s Creed says “no”.

** For those not as familiar with Christian culture, “spiritual maturity” is a phrase often used as way to 1) probe or 2) gossip. For example, “How is your spiritual maturity these days, Sarah?” is a church-y way of saying “Why didn’t you come to last week’s potluck? Do you hate God!?”  Similarly, when someone says, “I am trying to really show Sarah some Christian Love, but I just don’t think she’s very spiritually mature,” they are saying something along the lines of “Sarah sits in the wrong part of the sanctuary and bakes better pies than me.” All in Christian Love of course.

***AWANA is a lot like boy scouts or girl scouts except with more Bible verse memorization and less urinating in the woods.

Bag Bottom Mining! Apartments! The Impending Underwear Apocalypse!!

Just before sitting down to write this, I performed what I like to call “Bag Bottom Mining.” A distant cousin of Public Fountain Mining and younger brother to Sofa Cushion Mining, Bag Bottom Mining combines the artistry of dumpster diving with the technique of scavenging and the theory of an ATM withdrawal.  Most often practiced by college students when they can no longer ignore the dirty laundry pile burgeoning across the dorm room, threatening an underwear apocalypse, Bag Bottom Mining should be conducted no more than once a month for maximum benefit. Even those who have graduated from university sweatshirts and quarter-sucking laundry machines can benefit from this stealthy practice. As hinted in my last post, Graham and I just signed a lease for the apartment we’ll share for (at least) the first year of our marriage.  Upon signing, I looked up from my illegible signature to share the moment with Graham. He looked exactly how I felt—bubbling with an unsettling combination of elation, anxiety and guilt. While we’d just secured our very first grown-up apartment together, we’d also drained our bank accounts doing so. Moving into an apartment is always tough, but in a city where “cheap” is anything with monthly rent below $3,000 and brokers often charge an enormous fee for unlocking an apartment door and asking for a check, it was close to impossible for Graham and me.  Until the paychecks start coming in again, I’m reduced to Bag Bottom Mining to buy a bagel or a new roll of toilet paper. Toilet paper in my apartment disappears so fast, I’m beginning to think my roommate dries himself with individual squares of Charmin after every shower.

Today I scavenged three separate purses and my book bag for exactly four dollars in quarters, two dollars in dimes, forty-five cents in nickels and six-three cents in pennies.  Math isn’t my strong suit, but I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that’s over seven dollars. Sure the bagel guy is going to HATE me for paying for my bagel with tofu cream cheese and small iced coffee in pennies and nickels covered in lint and that weird dirt that always ends up coating the bottom of my purse somehow, but hey, I’m hungry and caffeine-deprived and that’s SEVEN DOLLARS I didn’t have before. It seems like change just miraculously manifests in my purses for bagel purchasing purposes. The twenty-first century New York version of manna from heaven, if you will.

I’m so in love with my new apartment that I might post some pictures of it here after I move in. Also, if anyone wants to stay with me for a few weeks, you can witness Bag Bottom Mining in action! Because we’re old fashioned, conservative Christian folk, Graham and I don’t want to live together until we’re married, so he’s staying with a mutual friend in the city until we return from our honeymoon. This means I’ll be living ALL ALONE  for a good two months. Know what that means? I can have wizard rock dance parties in my underwear WHENEVER I WANT! It also means I will have lots of space for guests, especially strangers who stalk me on the internet.

In other news, I’ve been blessed enough to succeed in finding temp/freelance work copyediting and writing over the summer, so far. If you ever need anything written or edited or anything you should drop me a line and I’ll give you the SPECIAL BLOG READER DISCOUNT. Or you can pay me in hugs.

The wedding is officially ten weeks away and Ihavesomuchplanningtodoomg. I also decided that now would be a great time to have a “Eureka!” moment and embark on a new project that may be my senior thesis or perhaps something more. I’m hoping something more. I’ll blog the details when I know the details or when I’m allowed to blog the details—whichever comes first.  Happy summer and happy Bag Bottom Mining!

Boston, Harry Potter and Coming Home

I needed that weekend away. My four days in Boston wasn’t everything I expected it to be, thank God. It wasn’t worse or better, just . . .different than the way I pictured it in my head. I had no idea, for example, that the weekend would include World’s Largest Balls jokes, discussions about the luxury of zippers relative to the Amish culture or Autism. Seeing as I was at a Harry Potter convention, I expected all the talk about Harry Potter and literature but I had no idea I’d come away with a completely new perspective on the series I adore so much. If you were in Boston at LeakyCon this weekend, thank you. Thanks for continuing to teach me about love and what it means to make a difference.
Proceeds from the convention benefitted the Harry Potter Alliance and Book Aid International, two amazing organizations that fight the Dark Arts in the real world. It always amazes me how a group of people from vastly different backgrounds, cultures and experiences can bond over some books and together, challenge injustices committed in the world.
On a self-indulgent level, the city itself—Boston—was just what I needed this weekend. I finished my last term paper at 2am Wednesday and boarded a bus at 6, barreling past Connecticut countryside toward a Hogwarts-meets-New-England holiday. Boston glistens with academia and history seems to lurk behind every corner. Just strolling down one of the winding streets or through Boston Commons made me feel a little bit smarter. By the time my bus pulled out of Back Bay Station on Sunday afternoon, the last place I wanted to see was dirty, crowded, concrete New York. I especially dreaded returning to the underbelly of Brooklyn where I live.
The closer my over-air-conditioned MegaBus got to the city, however, the more my excitement grew. Seeing the Bronx — old men playing cards on the street ,yelling at one another in Spanish—made my stomach turn flip-flops. We rolled into Harlem and the sight of the subway entrance at 125th street made me smile like it never has before. I suddenly became aware of how much I missed New York. Despite its dirt and crowds and smell and god-awful summer humidity, there’s something so real about this place. Even in its most touristy neighborhoods, New York is authentic. So many people store their hopes and ambitions here that dreams seem to ooze from the sewers on 14th street—they may be revolting, ugly, inconvenient, but they’re always there, always real, always genuine.
Now that I’m home, in this beautiful, disgusting city, it’s time to get back to Real Life: dancing, moving, getting married, celebrating the fact that my fiancée has a job! I think I found an apartment . . . more info soon.

A Message from the Pit of Finals Hell

 Once I’m through with this semester, I vow to blog consistently again. Once I’m through with this semester, I will probably go streaking in Central Park. That’s how happy I will be. 

 

No, seriously. I’m currently finished with my one and only final, but every single one of my professors decided that it would be awesome if they assigned long thesis papers all due on the same day. They’re all started and one is mostly finished, but I still feel more that slightly overwhelmed at the amount of work I have to do before LeakyCon. 

OH YEAH. For those of you who don’t know (which wouldn’t be anyone reading this), LeakyCon is the very first convention hosted by The Leaky Cauldron, a venerable Harry Potter news site, in Boston next weekend. As far as exciting events in my life, I rank Harry Potter conventions as just under Harry Potter book releases, meeting JK Rowling and the day I was born on the OMGEXCITED scale.  I’m nerdy lucky enough to have attended three previous conventions over the past two years and each one offered me a unique, life-changing experience I wouldn’t trade for anything. 

LeakyCon is my incentive for getting through the next three days of college. If I jump out of a window in the next 72 hours, just blame it on Dante, St. Augustine and my own terrible creative writing projects.

13 Weeks

     Apparently channeling my dancer angst into a series of overly cruel and sarcastic posts about the open call audition process was not such a good idea. Never in the whole, sordid (not really) history of this blog have people so avoided visiting Words Can Keel(er). Part of me wants to go back and delete the last three posts at least, but that’s blogcheating and no one likes cheaters, except for Salazar Slytherin and he’s been dead a long time. 

     Truth? I have a self-censoring issues when it comes to journal-style blogging. The way I see it, if you want to know what I’m doing every second, of every day, you should follow me on Twitter, not expect me to recount it on my blog every week.  Unfortunately for stalkers, I don’t Twitter much anymore. I mean, I still Twitter a lot. Like, more than I should. One of my new year’s resolutions was to get less addicted to Twitter and so far, I’ve resolved. I only updated when I have something really pressing to say such as “Michael Buble is like vegetarian food” or “I have a lot of homework.”  The world needs to know. 

   So. Life. It’s pretty fantastic. Graham, my fiance,  has been in New York for over three months and spent the majority of those ninety days crawling around the city begging for a job. Good things come to those who wait I guess, because it looks like he has a couple of potential job offers on the horizon. I kind of feel like I shouldn’t have written that, like I just jinxed both job opporunities and we’ll be empoverished for the rest of our lives because I decided to update my blog. Anyway, turns out when you let God be in control of your life, He always comes through and provides. 

   Oh yeah. Have I mentioned I’m getting married in 13 weeks? August 15, 2009. Graham and I spent last weekend in Ohio, visiting the beautiful wedding site, deciding on the post-wedding hotel and tasting lots of cake. We also met with Graham’s pastor, who has agreed to officiate the ceremony. Because we’re only going to be able to visit Ohio one or two more times before the wedding, the pastor and his wife will lead us in pre-marital counseling via skype, phone and email for the next several weeks. Mainstream culture  often focuses so much on preparing for the wedding that it can be very easy to forget about preparing for the marriage. While I certainly have a LOT of wedding preperation to take care of before August 15th, my first priority over the next three months is making sure that I am ready to be Graham’s wife. 

   Looking awesome on my wedding day comes in at a close second. Okay, maybe not that close, but you only get married once, y’know? I’m absolutely enamored with my dress and while I don’t need to lose any weight to fit into it, I’m on a quest to shed a few vanity pounds before the big day. It’s so cliche–bridal boot camp, crash diets, tanning–but the pictures taken on our wedding day will be displayed in our house for the rest of our lives, shared with family and friends and TAGGED ON FACEBOOK. I don’t want to have to press “remove tag” because I look fat. I’m not going crazy, just working out a lot more and limiting my sugar intake. If I stopped consuming chocolate, I could probably lose five pounds in the next week, but what is a life without chocolate? 

     I don’t know how much you really care about my college news, but here goes: I suck at philosophy, I’m depressed that there’s no room in my schedule for me to minor in creative writing and I’m tired of studying religions at a secular college. I’ve only got about 40 credits left to go and then I’m free! Ideally, I’ll be able to dance in a company or shows for a few years before going back to grad school for a Masters in Theological Studies, but who knows. Graham may end up going to college in Virginia or one of those other non-New York places in which case I’ll either have to take frequent trips to New York for auditions and possibly live apart from him if I get work in a touring company or cruise ship, or find a dance company who will hire me in Virginia. Also, there’s the whole part about when we’ll have kids. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Lord knows what’s in store and I’m ready for anything.     

   I’ll continue to update with wedding information and news and lots of other less annoying stuff. Maybe even pictures. Like this one. The farm owned by Graham’s church where our ceremony and reception will take place: 

    

There’s a little pond and blossoming trees and a huge barn for the reception. Isn’t it perfect?

The Last Part of That Terrible Idea I Had

Continued from here, here and here.

 I mean, but really there’s only one thing you need to do to discover whether or not you’ve tumbled into the sweaty, lipstick filled pit of The Cattle Call: calculate the exact ratio of time spent dancing to time spent waiting. The more time you spend waiting in proportion to the amount of time you spend dancing, the greater the likelihood that you’re in the throes of a Cattle Call. For example, you might wait three hours and dance two eight counts before being told “Thank you very much. Go home,” or “Please stay for the next combination” after which you will either perform the walk of shame to the elevator or wait for another two hours to dance another two-eight count combination.

 

     Sometimes you just have to suck it up and be strong.  .  . like cattle.

The Cattle Call Awareness Guide: Part 2

Congratulations! You’ve survived the chaos known as the sign-in! But what comes next in the Cattle Call litmus test? Simply take a good look around. No, not at those girls trying to flirt with the audition monitor. The room! Look at the room!

What kind of room are you in? 

    At a typical Cattle Call they will call this the “holding room.” This room is often right next to or across from what they call the “audition room.” The holding room must always be the smallest room in the entire building. It must also always be above 90 degrees farenheit and preferably have few or no windows. If it does have windows, you will be commanded not to open them, LEST YOU ESCAPE. Don’t worry, there is a mirror. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to see the mirror. The 65 blondes who all arrived at 6am and are now reapplying their blush for the fifteenth time this morning will occupy 80% of the mirror space, while a few years worth of handprints will obscure your reflection on the other 80%. Don’t worry. Your hair looks fine. 

    If this is a real audition, you are probably in the studio in which you’ll actually dance later. There are probably people stretching all over the floor and looking nervous. That one girl with the too-tight leotard is standing about a foot from the mirror on the left side of the studio and examining her butt from every angle, but other than that the mirror is all yours if you want it. You’d better use this time to warm up, though because you’re actually probably going to get to dance in a few minutes.