happy birthday, interwebs and happy birthday, great depression!

Yesterday was the fortieth birthday of the Interwebs. Meanwhile, polar bears are on their way to extinction, according to the television.

There's no point to combining those two facts, but doesn't it add power and meaning to this random blathering?

...cos any time it's gonna get any better, it's gotta get worse for a day.

Rhode Island has been one monsoon after another since approx when Dracula started, and oh how it's just gotten worse. Monsoon number one took place on the trek through downtown Newport to get pockets and Starbucks between shows on closing night. Monsoon number two was definitely this weekend after closing night of the One Act Fest, the adventure to Gillary's. Ah, Monsoon Saturday. That one was the best. Thames Street literally flooded, oh yes. Finally, Monsoon number three was yesterday - People slipping all the way down the hill that leads to our apartments like the good old days, me showing up to rehearsal looking like my best impression of a drowned rat, shivering with a half-spilled cup of minty green tea in my hands. Yes, it was a thing to witness.

Whatever, kids. After living in Rhody for over three years now, I think I'm mostly at the point where I can brush it off as hilarious. It's a part of the culture when you live on a bay. Just gets frustrating when I really want to go ride my horse or I just got my hair looking half decent. But that's life.

Also, been drinking Emergen-C again like it's my jorb. Flashbacks to the monodays of last spring, aka how I got through Midsummer.

'Smile, Kristin.'

'I'm smilin, boss.'

tonight.

kill bill vol 2. playing guitar. icy cold bottle of shock top. excitement bout new gig. rehearsal reports. ready rice. thoughts...

I'm constantly missing things.

Missing people.

Missing places.

Missing feelings.

Missing moments.

The past five months have been such a blurry, turbulent, amazing collection of experiences, adventures, and moments that have only escalated more and more over time. And though I wouldn't trade a second - At least not one of the good ones - I kind of wish, for once, a person, a place, a feeling, or a moment could just stick around. You know? Just...stick around. For once. Or twice.

But I always can count on nights like this - My guitar, a beer, and a movie on the tele I've seen a hundred times. In an ideal world, nights like this would feel just as special as the ones I miss.

Til then.

new soundz&new threadz&[final dress].

I love Urban Outfitters oh so very much. 'Tis a love that shall'st never die.

Bought some new things [online!] from them last night. I was totally gonna wait for my next paycheck/next time I'm in the city [whichever city that may be], but I could not take it anymore! The wait! And the wonderful things on the website! I went for it. And it feels like I just had a deliciously healthy meal after not eating anything but crap for weeks - Oh wait that basically did happen.

And speaking of, if I haven't mentioned it yet - I miss last week! I even miss dinners consisting of peanut butter crackers and energy drinks from Cumby's, followed up by booze for dessert. Yes, I indeed miss it.

I never realised just how kind of lame our light board is - With its silly one monitor which is not touch screen. Oi.

Oh, but jumping back to Urban Outfitters - I never realised that the twenty-five streaming tracks thing they do is for free download. I do love me some free tunez [pronounced 'toooonz' not 'toon-ez' for all you sassy musicians out there]. I got [...what's twenty-five times two...] fifty! Last night. for free. Which means a ton of new bands! I am currently sampling everything I got and it's making me giddy. Music has a way of doing that to me.

Last night was first tech for 'Catastrophe.' Holy crap. I never get that much anxiety stage managing! Directing is such a ridiculous world. I love it and hate it all at once. Still, I don't think I had this much anxiety last year during 'Southern Belle.' One more night, and it's just running the entire production as a whole...It's gonna be a long night.

theatresomnia.

Surprise: Still Awake.

'Dracula' closed last night and I might be able to start sleeping again. No more late night light programming or musicians with booze keeping me up - It's actually even sadder than it sounds. That gig, two weeks long as it was, felt much longer than two weeks - And in the best possible way, too. Love the show, love the company, love the people I met, love the experience, love the Ion, love last minute electrics troubleshooting in an uncomfortably cold mansion and flipping circuit breakers in mold-sheds or beyond a maze of dancers while struggling to translate staticky messages from my stage manager over walkie talkie. I miss all those things. I miss Belcourt! And I really miss that light board. So glad I worked that show, on so many levels, for so many reasons. Okay.

One show down, two more to go. My heart's only half in 'Catastrophe.' A good 80% more is dedicated to 'Machinal.' But still, I miss professional theatre. So much. And a wonderful world outside of university. So much. I crave galas and formal introductions! [see: paragraph one.] Anyway, looking forward to this week being over and sitting back for a bit just working on one show.

In other words, I'm functioning again. It took a while. Needless to say, Mikey's death has hit me hard and made every inch of me drop. Good friends and new friends and lots of work and fun work and time and strength has shoved me on through it, and things will never be the same, and I'll never be the same, but I think part of that is good - It shows what an impact Mikey had on me in such a short period of time. I won't write straightforward about it anymore. It took me long enough to get back on here and there's no possible way to write in a way that can cover the tragedy of the situation.

Anyway, Missed you, blorg.

for mike.

i call your bluff, brilliant boy,

the light was always in your eyes

and lit up mine for days and for life

for the fleetly passing passing since we met-

i would have loved more offcuts of memory,

longer and more bracing than our fragile time,

but the door opened and shut

before i could pass through.

your shadow leaking

forever through the frame.

rest in peace mike altieri 1986-2009 the best smile ever.

always with love. i vow to always coil cable properly, own at least two copies of the backstage handbook, smile through it all, and raise my glass twice for you every time i drink my jack. there'll never be another quite like you.

back in the saddle..

'Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion. It seizes a person whole and, once it has done so, he will have to accept that his life will be radically changed.'

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

..and it feels so good.

Schooling Gem tomorrow, officially starting with my boy Rico Monday morning.

Filling up the gaps in my life like slappin' on the spackle.

Is there such a thing as being too busy? I don't think I'll ever find out because if there is such a thing, hell, I shan't ever accept it.

friday.

New movie: London, John Keats, BEN WHISHAW. MY LOVE. Yes yes yes, finally, a bunch of movies coming out that I want to see, and lawdknows I'll probably see none of them til approx years from now.

Still absorbed in the fact that I have a film treatment due Tuesday. I've taken one more step: I at least know the central image I want in it: My goat puppet, yes, solely because he's very photogenic. Somehow, I'm finding a plot to roll with it. None have come to me. Just blurbs of ideas like German phrases and painting stones and silly stories from the London Paper's 'lovestruck' section and all sorts of things that don't involve dialogue, which is very nonsensical considering it's for a Screenwriting course. Hm.

Another day, another headache, another handful of malted milk balls.

impenetrable unself.

As I was completely, utterly absorbed in Beckett's complete short prose, which has been doing an Okay job at distracting me from the horror of the evening, I found a bookmark I had evidently made in high school. On it, I'd drawn a brontosaurus eating a twig. I only vaguely remember drawing it and somebody finding it adorable, but it was finally something that made me smile.

Somehow, remembering self is so genuine and fulfilling when it seems like all that's left to remember is the unself.