beautiful, funny, sad & true

My head hurts from laughing so hard.

Just got home from rehearsal for the plays. I say ‘plays’ because in about a month, we’re going to be having a night of six short plays, for your pleasure.

I say ‘we’ because I will actually be playing accordion and piano (and maybe cello or something) as incidental music between the acts, actual music for one of the actual plays, and I’m actually playing the actual accordion in one of the actual plays (in which I even have an actual speaking line!).

I say ‘pleasure’ because that is the feeling you will be overwhelmed by if you come to see this show. Allow me to elucidate.

There are six plays in this particular show:

One–written by a member of the reading group–involves a writer’s struggle to create; one explores the nature of how much information is too much to share with a new love; one is a touching story of a father and a son; one–written by another member of the reading group–explores the nature of predator and prey, and involves both goldfish and marijuana; one is the story of the hijinks that ensue when staunchly feminist Amazon women encounter a handsome male ‘diplomat’ in the jungle; and the play I’m in is the story of a girl who wears a coat that’s made out of meat.

If all of this doesn’t sound enticing to you, then gawd help you. I’m honored and thrilled to be a part of this production. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that this is Theatah At Its Finest. The show will be on April 12th, and costs a mere ten dollars. Contact me by any means necessary if you’d like to come. If you leave a comment here on BFST, I’ll have your e-mail address.

And now I’m home, eating dinner and enjoying what I like to call a Crash Day, where I stay home and completely unwind after an insanely busy couple of weeks of work, rehearsals, gigs, and socializing. Special thanks to Maddy for making the trek down from Seattle to come to the awesome Stephanie gig last night, and for bringing me some DVD’s of a show I’ve been wanting to see for a year.

And now it’s time to start watching said DVD’s of said show. The Crash begins now.

Oh, and hey. . .here’s the first actual incarnation of OneYearAgo!

Well, this weekend surely was an amazing one. Here are the stats:

Number of great friends I spent time with: 3

Number of songs I recorded parts for: 3 (On Song #4, we all decided that it already sounded great.)

Number of instruments crammed into my car: 12

Number of instruments that weighed over 100 pounds: 1

Number of pieces of gear that were also crammed into my car: 8

Number of sleeping bags and pillows crammed into my car: 1 each

Number of Spinal Tap quotes inscribed on the studio wall with a Sharpie: 1 (“Have a good time, ALL the time.”)

Number of brilliant Miles Davis DVD’s viewed: 1

Number of creaky sofas attempted to sleep on and then abandoned: 1

Number of birds named Lucy who didn’t keep me awake because I moved my sleeping bag upstairs: 1

Number of floors slept on, and number of drum sets slept next to: 1 each

Number of amazing meals eaten: 3

Number of offers to work there in the future: 2

Number of frickin’ awesome albums I’m very excited to co-produce this year: 1; Andrea’s.

Number of great memories and experiences accrued: a multitude

The weekend was great, but today I’m struggling a bit to keep my head above the metaphorical waterline. I got some troubling news from a friend yesterday, and some even more troubling second-hand news about another friend today. I’m a bit anxious about all of this, and I hope everything turns out okay with both of them.

Both of the gigs this past weekend were fantastic, and very different from each other. Breanna’s was one of the few where I finally felt really good about my cello playing, after doing it for three and a half years now. Crystin’s was really fun because it just felt like coming home again. Everyone who performed was a close friend who I haven’t seen in months, or sometimes even years. The gig was even at the MississippiPizzaPub, which is where Crystin and the band cut our proverbial teeth, and played more than anywhere else. I’ve probably played there with her at least fifty times. One of my friends from Seattle came to the show, and as a surprise she brought some of my other friends from here to the show as well.

In other news, I spent much of yesterday doing some more research for my 80’s Röck series, which is to say I dinked around online for most of the day while I did a few loads of laundry. I think Yacht Rock has got to be one of the funniest things I’ve seen in ages.

I’m looking for a typewriter to use. If you have one, and I can use it, can you please leave me a comment or something? I have an idea for a picture, and it involves the use of a typewriter. Please and thank you!

Had an interesting discussion the other night about introverts vs. extroverts. One guy was saying how he used to be such an extrovert that he couldn’t even relate to introverts. The other guy–who turned out to be a missionary–said that he would never dream of hiring an introvert for a missionary. . .um. . .position. (I swear I didn’t intend to write that!) After thinking about it for a while–I am an introvert, after all–it occurred to me that C.S. Lewis is possibly one of the best-known and best-loved missionaries (of a certain type) of all time, but he certainly wasn’t an extrovert. He just quietly wrote stories and novels that explained his viewpoint, which then sent beautiful ripples throughout the world. So I guess what I’m saying is that there’s room for all types.

Religion–even this tiny bit–is a very rare subject for me to write about here, to be sure. Enjoy it while you can.

This is a pretty intense weekend.

Last night was a Breanna/cello/violin gig, and it was incredibly fun. A couple of friends who either haven’t been to a show in ages, or who have never been to a show came out last night, including TossedIn. Nice night, all around. On the way out, I ran into one of my old friends from my previous apartment building, which was a great surprise.

Tonight is another Breanna gig–minus ViolinistKarlee–down in Salem, which means I’m going straight from work and driving in rush-hour traffic to try to make it down there by 7:00.

Tomorrow morning, I’m meeting my dad and stepmom for breakfast over here at Milo’s, one of my favorite spots. From there, I have a recording session with TheShinsEngineer at noon. From there, I have an gig playing accordion on what will very likely be the last Crystin Byrd gig for quite some time, because she’s very pregnant. From there, I’m meeting one of my oldest friends–should I say ‘longest friendships?’ It’s not as if she’s ninety years old!–who is down here from Seattle to visit her Stumptown friends. It promises to be quite a long and interesting day.

I don’t know what it is about leap year that I find so intriguing, but I do. Perhaps it’s the lunatic (as in ‘saturnine’, ‘martial’, and ‘lunatic’) connections that it has with the moon’s cycle; I don’t know. Maybe I don’t need a reason. Maybe I just find it intriguing. I’ll have to do a little bit of investigating. Is it unusual to have a lunar eclipse so near to the leap year?

Answers another day.

I came across this this morning, too, and thought it was beautiful. It was in one of those ‘bulletins’ that doesn’t tend to stick around for very long, so I wanted to capture it and share it here.

When we view our fellow human beings, we should look as we do at rose bushes. All have flowers and thorns. Some are strong rooted, some weak. Disease weakens some, while others are healthy. The environment from which each bush grows helps shape its life, but none is all flowers, and none is all thorns. Love helps us to understand the function of the thorns and to appreciate the blooms.

Please understand my thorns.

I know, I know. I could so easily tie it in with the 80’s Röck thing if I were to just say the simple phrase, “Every rose has its thorn (yeah, it does),” but that would trivialize and ruin such a beautiful sentiment, and I would never dream of doing that.