owie

So, I have the WORST sunburn of my entire life. And it's almost exclusively on my RIGHT arm. I guess I spent most of the day facing north, or something, because my right arm is COMPLETELY covered in 1st and 2nd degree burns with massive blistering and raw skin. OWIE.

OK, enough of grossing you out, fair reader. Now onto more interesting things. I've made up my mind that I'm not gonna live with Tom after I move out of 124 Lyon. Instead, I will get my own place in Kentucky, close to both work and Cincinnati, so that I can have my own place to go home to after work. Also, I can have a kitty. And Rachel can come stay with me without bothering anyone else. I've been looking at apartment sites online, and I found one actually that actually looks really nice. Has a big living room, bedroom, full bath, and a washer/dryer right in the unit along with a full kitchen with stove and dishwasher. Rent is a little higher than what I'm paying now, but we're also splitting a four-person rent five ways right now. And while that's nice, it's also clearly limiting in some ways. Namely, there are a lot of people around this place telling me how to live in my own house.

SO... the idea of my own place is kinda exciting to me, now that I've made up my mind. If you wanna see some pics and floor plans, the place I'm thinking about has a website on the property manager's site: here.

That's all I got for now. I'm gonna go spray on some more aloe gel and try to get some sleep.

the final total is......

...59 hours put in last week. That was a long week for not being out on any productions.

Also, Rachel came with me when I made a pickup at Riverbend sunday night, which was a lot of fun. I think she liked riding in the mack truck. We went to dinner at Dewey's in Newport, and then we saw Evan Almighty at AMC. It was a very funny, and obviously rather improbable movie. But the company was fun (teehee) and I had a nice evening with my baby.

While I'm on the subject of movies, allow me to mention one of the most heart-warming movies I've ever seen. I saw it on TV a long while ago, and I recently rented it from netflix so I could re-enjoy it. Door to Door is the story of Bill Porter, a salesman for the Watkins Company, who suffers from Cerebral Palsy. It's an amazing movie, and William H. Macy, one of my favorite actors of all time, plays the lead role.

Anyway, it's late, and I'm sleepy, and those are both good reasons to go to bed. Gnite!

exhausted

I'm not even entirely sure yet how many hours I worked this week. I know I'm WELL into overtime, and I think very close to a 60 hour week. It just got SO busy, and there were two rather large, very last-minute shows I had to pull, and another big one coming up this week, plus lots of side projects for the company, and for the owner, Tim Matthews.

Things got really crazy with Rachel this past week, too. I'm not sure when it started happening, but we've been on edge recently, and I've been getting more and more depressed the more she decides to stay away, and so when she does finally come over, and I want her to stay longer, it upsets her, and she gets mad at me. Kind of a downward spiral. I'm trying to be better about it, but I don't know what to do. I'm so in love with her, though, I don't want to screw things up.

UPDATE: Rachel called me back late tonight, and we talked and figured some more stuff out. We're still gonna go to the zoo tomorrow, so I hope that this is a sign of better things to come.

clarity

Today at work was kinda crappy. Not for any particular reason, just lots of things were getting on my nerves today. I finally had a talk with Tom about how he needs to respect me as the shop manager, even if I am the junior member of the team. Got a lot of work done today, and the shop is starting (and I do mean STARTING) to look reasonably organized. There's just only so much you can do in a day, and organizing usually falls to one of the last things on the list, and Tom left the place such a mess, and so unkempt, that it's hard to even know where to start.

Anyway... I realized some things today, and kind of found a little bit of inner peace in some of the small things I saw and thought about. I really like my job, overall, and the people I work with. I like what we do, and what I do as part of it. I didn't really talk to Rachel today, she sent me some txts, but nothing about what we talked about last night. I dunno. I guess that'll just come up in conversation another time. I just feel like I'm pulled in two very different emotional directions right now. There are some things in my life that are so very good right now, and some other things that just drag me down all the time. It was nice to gain a little bit of perspective and clarity today.

Oh, also, on a VERY happy side-note, my EMS classes were approved as academic electives, so I will, in fact, be graduating with my BFA as of this Spring, not for Fall graduation next year as I had feared. So, I am, of course, elated, and EXTREMELY relieved about that. Mom was happy to hear it, too. :)

futility

I know I'm not the smartest guy in the world, and I have a lot of trouble expressing myself sometimes, and I don't always do the right thing, but I try, really, REALLY hard just the same. I guess sometimes I just see the futility and hopelessness of the world sometimes. Don't read too much into my posting this song, for those of you reading, it's just the song that comes into my head when I feel like this.

Suicide is Painless
Johnny Mandel - M*A*S*H Soundtrack

Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see...
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger...watch it grin, but...
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
Is it to be or not to be
And I replied 'oh why ask me?'
And suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
...and you can do the same thing if you please

label cloud

I am *SO* pleased with the new label cloud hack I just found. If you want to set one up in your own Blogger, go here:

http://phy3blog.googlepages.com/Beta-Blogger-Label-Cloud.html

The guy who wrote the script for it is very helpful if you run into any problems. (I didn't, but from the page and comments, it looks like others have in the past.) Works especially well if you integrate it with your existing CSS tags, but you can manually style it too.

post-graduation post

Hehe... I'm so witty.

Um, anyway... for those of you just tuning in, you read that title correctly, I am a college graduate! There's one last string to be tied up with Dean George about an academic elective, but I think it's taken care of at this point, and so I should be home-free. I've been working full-time at OnLocation for a month now, and I'm having a really good time. Things with Rachel are good right now. She got the gig she was hoping for, playing in and co-writing a play for the Indianapolis Fringe Festival. It's called Crazy Quilt and I am *SO* proud of my baby for working hard for her audition, believing in herself, and getting the role she wanted and deserved.

So... I guess graduation was pretty exciting, and mostly uneventful. Gramma, Mom, Dad, and Ilana all came down for the CCM ceremony, which was nice, but not quite what I expected. We all went to dinner with the Feig's that night, which was a really fantastic dinner at a place called Embers up near Kenwood.

I feel very weird about leaving this house. 124 Lyon has, for the most part, been very good to me. I would feel better about it if I knew where exactly I was going to be living next year. By this time freshman year, I already had a lease signed. Tom has been RIDICULOUSLY lazy in trying to find a place, he won't do anything about it at all. He's just focused on helping Milena move to Virginia. That's all fine and good, but I still need a place to live. I hate to think that I might end up having to find my own place with out him if he doesn't get his act together soon.

So, I guess that's a pretty good update. I'm gonna try to get some sleep so's I'm not all tired at work tomorrow.

fringe festival 07

So, Rachel is the venue technician at InkTank in OTR for Fringe Festival 2007. She's having a great time doing it, and the shows are halfway decent, to boot. She called and woke me up today asking if I was gonna come see her venue today and stay for a couple shows, and I gave her a non-committal answer, because I *needed* to get my capstone papers written today, and wasn't sure how long it would take. Fortunately, they took less than an hour each to write, and I was able to get to InkTank and surprise my baby. As luck would have it, she was standing in the lobby right as I walked in the door, and seeing her face light up when she saw me come in was such a wonderful feeling.

I know that we have our ups and downs, but days like today make it all worthwhile. I love my baby so much. :)

pic from indy

This is a great picture of rachel & me: