I Heart "Top Chef"

Since I had an opportunity to interpret culinary school for about 6-7 months in the last decade, I have been fascinated by chefs (see Chef Ramsey posts).  One of the first times I went to visit my friends in Sacramento, they were watching one of the final episodes of "Top Chef" and I watched with them and I was fascinated.  I have been looking for the show on DVD since then.  Finally, this year, when I remembered to look, there were DVD sets available.

I have watched "Top Chef: New York" and am currently watching "Top Chef: Chicago".  I LOVE IT.  I love a show that displays and expects the highest levels of talent to shine through in extraordinary circumstances.  I find most of the food disgusting, but I learn a lot about food and cooking and personalities.

Anyway, I am 5 episodes from the finale and while I want to watch them all really quickly, I also want to savor them. It is so nice to have DVDs to watch so that I don't have to put up with the dreck that is on network television in the evening.

Don't Break Your Own Rules

I realized last night that I have my little "Jean Rules" for a reason. I know that sometimes they seem fussy or silly or unnecessary to others, but they are my rules for a reason.

Here are some of the rules:

1. Don't put yourself in a position to have to eat in a hurry.
2. Always arrive at an event at least 45 minutes before curtain or the beginning of the event.
3. Never go to an event without knowing exactly where you are going.
4. Always have a parking strategy and a plan B.
5. Don't join in an activity or event if your first reaction is that you don't want to.
6. Never go into a movie theatre (or regular theatre) in the dark when the movie (event) is already in progress.
7. There will be no climbing over other people to get to your seat.
8. No matter how much money you spent, the anxiety attack you will get from breaking these rules is not worth it.
9. Go before you go.
10. Don't be afraid to give yourself a timeout.

Last night, every one of the above rules (maybe more) were set into motion. Some were broken, some were artfully avoided.

I left work and it was the worst weather we have seen in weeks.  The freeway was backed up, so I took a surface street and that was backed up, too.  As I approached Burnside, I could see all the lanes merging for construction, so I went up to 20th...then down Burnside. Many detours and roads closed off. Parked while it was pouring rain in big, thick drops.  Went to the restaurant (my friends had ordered for me already).  The food came at like 7:15pm (show starts at 8pm...you can see where this is going...).  Food super hot (good food, but too hot to eat), took a long time to eat, but worried about the time, too. Went to the restroom (but had drunk 2-3 glasses of water) and took off into the rain again (7:32pm) to go to Cirque du Soliel (sp). I know WHERE it is, I just wasn't sure how to get there. One of my companions showed me their GPS and the streets that stood out were Harbor and Sheridan. Unfortunately, there isn't a clear sign to Harbor from Naito Parkway and there are SEVERAL parts to Sheridan.  By 7:45, I am sitting in a line to try to get into a parking lot. By 7:55pm, I am still sitting in a line trying to get into a parking lot and I see my friends walk by.  Finally, I skip the line to park and go to the next furthest parking area (but not the one with the shuttle).  I get out and shlog to the show, umbrella in hand, just in case.  When I get there, it is after 8:00pm. I hate that.

When I enter the tent, they tell me that there is a lock out until 8:15pm.  At 8:15pm, I see one of my friends who directs me into the theatre when it is time, but on the wrong side from my chair. We go up the wet, slippery stairs and enter the arena where I see that in order to get to my seat, I will have to climb over at least 10 people. In the dark.  I can't do it. I'm completely overstimulated by now and all my worst anxieties come to the fore. What if I trip?  What if one of the people won't move their feet so that I can get through?  What if I get to my seat and I have an anxiety attack (uh, duh)?  What if I get there and I have to suddenly go to the bathroom and I can't get out? What if I try to get out and trip on someone and then I have to leave because I am so humiliated that I can't come back in?

Meanwhile, the poor guy who is ushering me is saying, "This is the best time. It's going to get dark. You should go sit down ma'am."   I can't do it. I can't climb over the people.  My heart is racing.  I just tell him I am going downstairs and I make my way back down the wet, slippery stairs and watch the first act on the television screen. My stomach is in knots. I'm so glad I'm not trapped in the middle of the aisle because I feel like I could be sick in a variety of ways.  The crew come and offer me chairs. They ask if they can do anything for me. I smile and decline, embarrassed that I gave into my panic, but happy that I knew enough to take care of myself.  Right before intermission, I go to the restroom and I get ready to go to my seat during intermission.

My friends were worried I had left, even though I had signed to them that I was going to watch on TV.  They were worried that I was mad.  I told them, "I am old enough to know when I need to give myself a Time Out.  I was overstimulated and I just needed a Time Out.  It's all good."  We enjoyed the rest of the show (more about that later) and saw the full moon, in addition to a rainbow earlier in the evening. It didn't rain on our walk to or from the show, so that was good, too.

Now I know. Don't break your own rules. You have them for a reason. If I had followed my own intuition at any point prior to last night, I would not have had to give myself an Adult Time Out. It was a good lesson, though.

Social Butterfly??

Tonight is my second social engagement in two days (yesterday was a duty-bound "family function"). Feels kind of extravagant and then when I think about it, I realize that I used to be out and about on weeknights ALL THE TIME. Now, I just want to go home, curl up with my blankie, read a book and watch the "American Idol" results show. No such luck.

Tonight will be fun - a friend's birthday and a trip to Cirque de Soliel (sp). I am just feeling run down...not sure what illness I had yesterday, but the tiredness lingers.

More later.

**When I posted this yesterday, I hit SAVE DRAFT instead of Publish Post. Sorry about that.

Middle of the Night

So, perhaps put the strangeness of my last post down to not feeling well. I woke up at 12:53am feeling crappy and have been up since...Hopefully, my stomach will calm down and maybe my brain will, too.

Anyway...I was just thinking about it...was tempted to delete the post, but then I would have to find something to replace it. Meh. Not so much.

Black and White Monotony

I have, indeed, been a lucky person. My life has been colorful and filled with interesting people and places and stories. I never imagined a time when I could understand how poetry and art and color could be stripped away from a person. "They just aren't looking for it...they have given up...they aren't as special as we are..."

I was wrong. People who are lucky enough to have color, art, stories, people and places are lucky, not special. Certainly, a certain personality type will look for and find these vital elements in life more easily, but I can understand how people lose their way, their will, their care. Sometimes, the monotony of "sign this form", "fill this out", "read your email", "let me send you the spreadsheet" is enough to make me rip my hair out. To have a day like that, when the most innocuous of questions makes me want to scream, helps me understand how it requires action and energy and purpose to avoid the sucking drain of black and white, the ease of a television filled night to block out the voices of the day, the sameness of my actions. I have to actively seek instead of letting it just flow over me naturally.

I have been lucky in my life to have different jobs, to be an interpreter, to use my brain to tap into language and culture and color. I have been lucky enough to work as a freelance interpreter and go to a different place every day, meeting different people, interpreting new topics and learning something every day. These experiences live in me - whether they live at the top of my consciousness or whether they are just in the flow of my brain every day. In those moments when I get close to the edge, I can pull out those colors, ideas, experiences and it eases my mind. I know that this is just the island I am on now. I will travel somewhere else someday, if I should ever want to.

Lots of mixed metaphors, I know...just a jumbled brain looking back at a long, exasperating day and trying to make sense of it all...there are pictures and thoughts swimming around up there, but I can't quite get them to come out the way I want.

Profound Words about Truth

I found this video at Jamie Ridler Studios yesterday.  I love a good storyteller and I love a good teacher and I love theatre...when all three are combined, you can't lose.  This is Patsy Rodenburg in a piece titled, "Why I Do Theatre".  Thanks for posting this, Jamie!



**Seriously? Now the YouTube videos don't fit on the template? I can't catch a break! I am trying to figure out how to make it SMALLER, not BIGGER. I know enough to get myself into trouble and not enough to get myself out, apparently.

Discovering Maya Stein

At Christmastime, I found/was given a poem by Maya Stein and I immediately fell in love with her words.  As the months have gone by, the poems I have been most attracted to have been by Maya Stein, and yet, I have not pursued her words or attempted to gather any information about her.  Maybe it is due to time or busyness or distractions.  Or maybe I just wanted to keep her at a distance because her words speak to me deeply and I feel a yearning to find my own words again when I read her.

This morning, as I made my way through the blogosphere I have gathered around me, I stumbled upon Maya Stein again.  Of course, it was 37Days that gifted me with another poem called "don't forget to write". There was a link to Maya Stein's blog where I spent some time today.  Again, I felt the pull of words and self-expression. Not that the blog isn't a great place for self-expression - it is just different.  I'm not sure what this is all leading me toward, but I know that when something touches you so much, you are bound to happen upon it again and again until you do something about it.

As always, I struggle to find a balance. I tried working on the Art Journals today, but I have some kind of block happening.  I can't bring myself to the place I need to be to really create something personal.  I'm sure I am close to some kind of break-through or epiphany...that's what these moods usually bring.  I think it is my own judgement holding me back - what if it isn't good enough?  (what does that mean, exactly?) What if it doesn't come out the way I want it to?  (does it ever?)  I hate that these speculations/fears inhibit the creativity...the whole point of creativity is freedom and yet the mind can be such a powerful prison against it. 

Anyway, just some things I was thinking about today.

Two Days off

I didn't realize how much having two days off means until the last couple of weeks when my days off have been split up by illness, shows and special work circumstances.

This weekend - two days off in a row.  I can't wait.  I'm so ready to just have a couple of days to myself.

It was a long, long week. Nothing bad, just long.  

"Band Candy" and "Top Chef"

Tonight, in celebration of the fact that I had no other commitments that would distract me, I watched Episode one of Season 4 of "Top Chef".  I think most of the dishes they cook sound really disgusting and I wouldn't order any of it unless someone was paying me a LOT of money and yet...I find this competition fascinating. I love watching the people cook and I love hearing them talk about why they made the dish they made. The first person to go was sent away because she put so much salt in a dish it was inedible... Yikes.

And now, off to try to finish an episode of Buffy that I have been trying to watch for three days... "Band Candy", one of my favorites.  I keep turning it on and then I fall asleep. Last night I didn't wake up until almost 4:00am.  Hopefully, tonight, I will get a little further through it.

Finally, three cheers for FRIDAY!!

Bah, Humbug

"Stairway to Heaven" on "Idol Gives Back"?  Really?

Annie Lennox does a moving story about a little 7 year old girl who has AIDS and in a few short months went from weighing what a healthy one-year-old baby weighs to being much healthier and having gained a healthy amount of weight.  Then "Stairway to Heaven".

Don't even ask me about the Black Eyed Peas performance. Unfathomable.

It is for a good cause, but it was so clear the celebrities who got it and sang appropriate music for the occasion and those who came on for some other reason.  I was a little saddened by the whole thing.  I hope the charity organization gets a bunch of donations (I will be doing my part) and I hope that they look at which parts bring them the most calls and donations and adjust accordingly for next year.

Maybe I'm just grumpy.

And then they didn't send Aaron home. :(

My Mentor, My Friend

I will not be able to do justice to what I feel in my heart towards this man - Alan Champion.  He is a mentor and friend - one of those people with whom I felt an instant connection.

In 1999, I attended the "Interpreting for the Theatre" Intensive workshop (master class, really) in NYC that was sponsored by the Theatre Development Fund's Theatre Access Program.  I think there were 17 of us (?) studying in New York with Deaf people who were so theatre savvy and so articulate and so open to working with us and these interpreters!!!  Incredible. I had never seen interpreting like this - so stunning and so impactful. When I left, I couldn't help but think that I should stop doing theatre because I couldn't do THAT.  Later, I realized that we each have our own way and that I can only aspire to be the best ME that  I can be.  I committed to learning how to do that.

Later that year, I saw Alan and Candice Broeker-Penn and Lynette Taylor interpret "The Lion King".  The house was packed and I was with a friend who was Deaf.  I had been talking about the interpreters incessantly and finally, he said, "Stop it!  They aren't going to live up to what you are saying and it will ruin it for me." So I stopped.  Then we saw "The Lion King".  I am not a person who weeps when watching sign language - it is a beautiful language, yes, but it is functional, visual, communicative.  I use it every day (with a hearing accent, but daily, nonetheless).  I teared up watching Alan interpret "Endless Night" - so powerful, so full of emotion and meaning. Not just meaning like, "Oh that song meant something to me" but meaning as in "THAT is what they are talking about in this song - he nailed it...perfect!"  I felt like a dork and tried to surreptitiously wipe away my tears when I noticed my friend weeping. "You ok?" I signed. "Beautiful, " he replied.

In 2004, I was supposed to attend the program again but had a sudden surgery delay me. 
In 2005, I went back and had an even richer, deeper experience. Just being around a master, listening to him talk, interacting with him, watching him work, listening to the questions he asked, the way he elicited a response...amazing.

Please don't misunderstand me - all of the instructors are amazing in the program...it's just that this post is about Alan because of his wonderful interview below.

Here is a great video interview of Alan about being a Sign Language Interpreter in the theatre.  Enjoy!

American Theatre Wing's "In The Wings" with Alan Champion

Art Journal Catch Up and Dividing a Script

I finally looked into Blogger to find out what the heck is happening with photos on this Blogger-in-Draft. The "in-Draft" program is cool in that it allowed for the groovy new template on the blog, which I am totally digging right now. It is not cool in that I can't get it to upload my photos...until now.

So, I am posting several photos. A couple are from a couple of weeks ago when I was going to post a glimpse of the division of "Dreamgirls" for my partner and I to interpret. Every pair does it differently...right now, this is how we are doing it.

 Here are some photos of more recent Art Journal pages...Some I really like, some I'm not so fond of...I am looking forward to actually using a couple as journals soon...I only have a couple of pages left in the first one I made, then I can start scribbling away in it. I'm kind of excited.  While the blog is a great place to record thoughts and ideas, there are some that shouldn't be online or shared with the world, if you know what I mean.  So this will be good.

 I love the vibrant orange on this page above...It doesn't show up as well in a photo, but it is bright and alive and I just love that sense of energy that it gives.

 If my life is a book, I better start writing a more interesting story...

 I call this last one Zen Dog.  Hee hee.

Not in Her Demographic, Apparently

Can someone explain the phenomenon of Taylor Swift to me? I just don't get it. I have decided to put it down to being out of her target audience...

She can't sing. She's personality-free. She is completely uninteresting in almost every way. I even thought she might be able to prove me wrong as an actress and she was terrible in "Valentine's Day".

What is it? I don't get it.

Bonus Post - Videos!!

I am watching YouTube videos because I can.

"Anthem" from Chess (recording session in 1982 with Tommy Korberg (dots above "o" that I can't produce on Blogger)


"Nobody's Side" with Elaine Paige (one of my favorite Chess songs back in the day) (nice 80's hair, btw)


"Endless Night" from "The Lion King". Jason Raize sings on "Rosie O'Donnell"


"Easy as Life" from "AIDA" sung by Heather Headley


"Bring Him Home" on "The Tonight Show" in 1987


Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Holliday sing "And I Am Telling You, I'm Not Going" in concert


"The Color Purple" - highlights


"I'm Here" from "The Color Purple" sung by LaChanze (audio only)


"I Still Believe" from "Miss Saigon" with Lea Salonga

Update on the Freak Out

Well, even though I had to get up at 4:45am to go to work today (which is actually getting up YESTERDAY in my world), I am feeling calmer and better today.  I worked all day and got quite a bit accomplished and then I came home and took a 2 hour nap and I am feeling much better.

While I have a couple of things I need to do this weekend, my overarching goal is to do a couple of things that are solely for enjoyment. It has been pretty stressful since the end of February and I pretty much tossed out all the things I do to de-stress - not consciously, but I realized it this week as I was floundering in anxiety.

I'm going to work a little in my art journal, maybe read some, watch a movie. Who knows? I might even leave the house. :)

Anyway, I think my freak out is over for the time being. Maybe it was a holdover from the antibiotics. hee hee

Perspective

A little sleep, a nice breakfast, hot shower and the world looks like a really different place. AND it's Friday (even though I have to work tomorrow).

Show Done, Some Disturbing Thoughts

The show is done. It went as well as a show can go when you have 9 songs that you never even heard until 2 days before the performance. I wanted to be brilliant, but I wasn't. I think I did pretty well, but not brilliant. Not "ON".  I'm still tired from the cellulitis and working on Saturday and long days with evenings of rehearsals.  It took pretty much every ounce of energy I had tonight to get through the show.  When I left, I felt like I was dragging 1,000 pounds of rocks in my bag with me.

On the way home, I saw a firetruck, lights flashing, on its way silently to an emergency. I had a flashback to the night my dad died. Then a whole bunch of other unpleasant memories from that time. I think it is so interesting how these things just sneak up on you - I see an older gentleman walking down the street with a certain jacket or a certain slouch of the shoulders and I think of my dad or I see someone walking with a certain bounce and I think of Roby. One of the curses of having a vivid memory and seeing "movies" in your head is that you have vivid memories and you see the "movies" over and over - sometimes, these are not movies you want to see more than one time. I often relive the deaths in my life and while I truly believe that I was supposed to be there for them, it is really difficult to manage those memories so that they don't become a problem.

As if that wasn't disturbing enough, I had a day filled with anxiety of a different kind. I'm pretty sure that it is related to being tired and not quite recovered from being ill...  I just wanted to cancel the show, crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.  I wondered if I could convince my doctor to put me on medical leave for stress or for my actual health problems or for just feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to come up for breath. I know it will pass, I'm just not used to this level of anxiety. In some ways, I miss the days when I would get anxious, get a migraine from it, vomit for a few hours, sleep for a day and then get back to business. Now, I feel all the anxiety and for some reason, today, it just seemed like too much. I actually thought about quitting my job, quitting theatrical interpreting, hiding in a cave, walking out in the middle of the performance... these are not thoughts that are normal for me.  So, I'm thinking that booking my vacation has moved up a couple of priority pegs.

I'll keep you all posted on my progress - not only on my vacation booking, but on the rest, as well.

Dreaming of a Getaway

For the last couple of days, thoughts and images and memories of my vacation trip to the coast last year have been popping up at unexpected moments.  I'm thinking that I'm overdue for at least a couple of days at the coast for some R&R.  It takes some careful planning so that I'm not gone during scheduling or on a payroll day or any of a million other things that stand between me and a good book, my feet up and the roar of the waves outside of my bedroom window.

I guess that is the next item on my very long list of things to do...but I think priority-wise, it is at least in the top five.

I was going to post a picture from my last trip, but I still haven't figured out the photo situation on Blogger AND it was taking way too long to upload all the photos from the blog so that I could just repost one of them. Sigh.  Add it to the list.

Change for Change's Sake

If you are going to change something that is already near-perfect, you better have a good enough improvement plan to make it BETTER.  Cramming 1/2 baked songs and songs that don't belong and changing the lyrics and cutting up the show does not make it BETTER.  It loses a little heart and it definitely loses the human connection.

The performers in the show tonight were very talented (the music was a little overpowering at times, so their voices were drowned out), but I just couldn't connect with the show emotionally.  I'm so disappointed because I have been looking forward to this show for YEARS and now, I just can't wait to be done with it. Bummer.

Don't let my irritation deter you if you are going - like I said, the talent is enormous. And, most people haven't been listening to the Original Broadway Cast recording for more than 1/2 their life.  You probably won't even notice that it is different. I'm a purist. It's a curse.

Recognizing the Good

Here is a "flash mob" event that took place this past Saturday up in Seattle.  It is a "Glee" themed flash mob.

Speaking of which, here is a video of the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution flash mob.

Good clean fun!  I think it is amazing what people can do.