Melinda's Moments Mmprh

I am joining the world of web blogging.

Woohoo! 

And now that I have a forum, I really have no idea what it is I just a few moments/days ago I thought was so worth sharing. Also, this is about my third attempt to sit down and write something… my other two attempts were thwarted by computer pixies and exhaustion. Therefore, this shall be a long post, several tries and days later… 

I just dropped Jerry off at the airport. We’ve had a wonderful few days, and we were both rather shocked by how ridiculously quickly the four days he was here seemed to go by. That is to say, generally his visits always feel unfairly short, but this one really felt like he was only here for five minutes.

All last week I was learning sections of an evening-length piece on a set called the Dreamcatcher. It us about 21 feet tall and is basically a giant, rotating (end over end, not rolling) ring/wheel (of doom!!)… It is by far the most ruthless apparatus I’ve encountered with Diavolo – and now I can fully appreciate all the remarks I hear from the seasoned company members about “just remember, it can’t hurt worse than the dreamcatcher…” I’m not sure if that’s comforting or not. I definitely feel way more badass after last week though, cause now I’m a part of that club, the one whose initiation is being flung from a huge metal ring into a wall. Just kidding. Kind of. 

That was a sidebar: the point was to explain why perhaps Jerry’s visit felt so truncated: I spent most of it in a zombified state of half-asleep recovery from last week’s rigor.

Regardless… Friday night after rehearsal I came home from rehearsal and promptly napped for a few hours. When I woke up I did a whole slew of things I had been unable to do during my busy week. I really felt way behind, even though it ended up not being to dramatic, I think just not even having the time to stop and think about what you’re not getting done is scarier and more stressful than actually knowing exactly what it is you’re behind on. (Another sidebar: to further illustrate the kind of week I had last week: after normal Diavolo rehearsals, most days I had rehearsals for Monica’s piece for the unplugged until 10pm. Yay for 14 hour days.) So in between napping and picking Jerry up, I paid some bills, ran some errands and made some long-overdue phone calls, most notably to Kelly and Sarah.

Finally getting to talk to Kelly for more than a few seconds, I asked her to be one of my bridesmaids, She said yes, and squealed, and I couldn’t be happier. I think besides the whole married thing, and the whole getting to wear a really pretty dress thing, I am so excited for my wedding just because I get my seven favorite people to surround me for a few days as my bridesmaids. I really couldn’t be more pleased, and I am super happy I decided to go with my gut and ask more people than usual.

Sarah, who has been in Hawaii for a few weeks, just moved to Vegas and just started her rehearsals for Bally’s as a showgirl. I can’t even begin to get into all the fun and exciting things going on for her… but it’s basically the coolest thing I have ever heard. She’s such a superstar, and one of the bravest people I know. I so proud of all my friends, and Sarah in particular is a stellar example of why. I miss her already, the one downside is that I don’t get to see her anymore. Hopefully Becca and I can steal her away for a bit while we’re in Vegas for the Honda industrial shows.

So, back to the timeline, I also cleaned my room, did some laundry, dishes, etc and watched (for the second time in my life) Sex and the City. I bought all the seasons from Mr. Ping, my probably questionable but always reliable Chinese DVD seller on eBay. I never got around to watching them, however, until last Sunday when Becca came over to spend time with me when I was super sick. It is her favorite show pretty much ever, and I will say it was pretty easy to get into the show and hooked. I’m not almost done with Season One, and, luckily, already have seasons 2-6 ready to go.

When I finally picked up Jerry, we went straight to In and Out and had burgers and Neapolitan shakes. I pretty much fell asleep immediately once my stomach was full.

I woke up the next morning having not taken out my contacts. That sucked quite a bit. We woke up surprisingly early, about 7am, and we watched the History channel until about 10, just enjoying being able to not have to immediately jump up and head out the door. Eventually, though, hunger got the best of us, and a plan was hatched to go to Ruby’s and to the Bridge to see one of a handful of movies we had been planning on seeing while he was in town. Ruby’s (the one in the Marina) was closed though – like, for real, not just for the night – which pissed me off. A lot. I loved that place. Instead we decided to go to Johnny Rockets, another post-WWII style diner, unwilling to give up on the idea of chili dogs and malts.

Speaking of which, I got a ‘Black Forest’ milkshake and damn that shit is good. Oh, snap. It’s cherry and chocolate and goodness all together in one glass. I’m going to have to make a point and go back there and get another before it is September and there is a new Flavor of the Month.

After a lot of food later, we were too full to fathom sitting in movie theater seats and instead opted to go back to my apartment and watch some Netflix we already had. Jerry had brought with him from his subscription the first disc of The 4400, a sci-fi show that was on USA last season. It was sooooooo good!! Good enough that after the first disc was over, we had no idea what else to do but go out and buy the series so we could watch the rest of it together, so off to Fox Hills mall it was.

Fox Hills is the Southcenter of my area of LA, and the crowd usually leaves something to be desired, but we always have so much fun there for some reason. We were both sad to see that the nice jeweler who had sized my birthday ring from Jerry had gone out of business, probably because he was too nice and gave everyone a good deal. We found our DVD and it was only $20, which ruled, but the season only had 7 episodes total, which sucked. We bought it though, and got Great Kahn’s Mongolian grill noodles to split and take home, and headed back.

We then watched all of the rest of the series except for the finale, because we had to stop in time to go pick up Becca and Pete. We were all going to go to Universal City walk for, what we later realized, was a double date. Universal City walk s interesting because by its very nature there is nothing to really actually do there, but you always seem to run out of time. We had great Chinese food at Shanghai and Mein and then ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. Other than the eating, we bought candy and visited a lot of weirder and more interesting store they have there, none of which makes sense that they’re there or really work in relation to one another. It’s mostly the neon and the atmosphere that make that place so much fun.

Sunday, Becca and I had appointments to have our hair done with a woman on Abbott Kinney in Venice Beach – for those of you who don’t know, that is the cutest street in the world. The salon we went to is in the back of an eclectic store and is really small and super fun. I got red in my hair in places, my who reasoning for changing my hair was to have a characteristic that would discern me on stage from the other 3 brunettes in the company. It sounds silly, but watching the tapes, it’s super hard to figure out who is who even when you know the people and they have really different bodies. Becca got her hair cut and dyed more blonde and copper. At first she hated it – like devastatingly hated it – but now she loves it. A lot of her trepidation was worrying that the Diavolo folks would think it was too short and that it really wasn’t what she had asked for.

Shockingly, the process of getting our hair done took seven – yes, seven – hours. Jerry was such a trooper, he stayed and hung out the entire time. I was super pissed it took so long because it wasted a ton of one of my days off with Jerry. After we finally got out of there, Jerry and headed closer to the water and had dinner at C&O’s tratorria, still one of my absolute favorite places to eat down here. We took our leftovers to the car and, since we had parked in the beach lot, decided to take the opportunity to walk along the beach and visit all the vendors and fun sights that pop up.

It was that beautiful time of night right before Sunset when it is warm and sunny, but not too bright or hot. Venice is such a beautiful beach. We saw the guitar guy who rollerblades along, but does not ask or accept money. He is often also at third street and Jerry and I have a fun sentimentality associated with his existence.

We bought fun watches and sunglasses – both vendors gave us GREAT deals, so we saved a bundle and walked away with more than we had hoped for. We also got a frame for the pictures I had bought once before from one of the photographers who sells his work on along the walk.

As we were walking back to our car, with our loot, and randomly, the world’s biggest soda in our hands, we saw a couple trying to sell the puppies their pitbull had just had. We had to seriously had to refrain from running to a cash machine and buying this one puppy, a little girl one who climbed up my leg and fell asleep in my arms nuzzling me. I rather don’t like dogs, but these dogs, even the parents were so chill and so loving and gentle. The one we liked was the color of apple pie and had seafoam green eyes. Sooo sweet.

On our way home we went to blockbuster, having exhausted our supply of netflix and got four movies. We came home and ate the rest of our mongolian grill from the day before and our garlic balls from C&O’s and watched Constantine and XXX: State of the Union. Constantine was good, I had seen it before, but Jerry hadn’t and Triple X blew. I fell asleep half way through it and never even thought later to ask what had happened. That’s how bad it was.

Monday I had rehearsal until 3 – we started learning Trajectoire, the one that looks like a huge, rocking boat – and then I cam home and showered. Jerry and I went to dinner at Baja Fresh, (because I can’t go more than two days without Mexican food). After dinner we bought two containers of ice cream at Vons (cherry almond fudge and rocky road… hmmm… now I want some of my ice cream… be right back…) and then came home to watch the rest of our movies: the last episode of The 4400 and Sin City. Sin City was okay. Jerry had already seen it and loved it, and I could tell he was sad I wasn’t as enthralled by it was he had been. Visually it was stunning, but story-wise, at least for me, it could have been on mute.

When the movies were done we watched the Daily Show and then went to bed – although I had a crazy, kick-the-walls, can’t-sleep, restless night. Today I had rehearsal again from 9-3 and when I got home, Jerry had cleaned my room and done my dishes, just because he is the cutest thing ever. He also caught up with me on an anime series we have both been netflixing, so after we went and got Taco Bell, we had a marathon of the next two discs of the series before I had to take him to the airport.

That part of the day sucked. It goes without saying, but I really, really hate having to say goodbye so often. I can’t wait until I live at home, and I hope that when that time comes it’s not because I finally had to choose to give something else up I love to make it all work. I wish Diavolo was based out of Seattle, or that Jerry’s band members could all move here.

I have rehearsal from 9-7pm tomorrow and Friday and from 9-10pm on Thursday. We leave for Vegas on September 5th, and the unplugged show is September 17th and 18th. I really hope we’re ready. I really hope I can at some point not feel so tired and bruised.