Between work and being tired, blogging has still been on my mind. I usually just send some mental vibes to here, but they never seem to post...
After finishing up work this past week, I'm back home in WDM for one last weekend before I move on Monday. It's just nice to be somewhere that isn't filled with boxes and goodbyes. I've been coming back about every 2 weeks so it feels like I've spent a good part of my last summer in Iowa at home. It's hard to believe that I've called this state home for 2 decades now, and in 72 hours, I'll be leaving this all behind. Part of me is very excited for the move and to start a new life, and part of me is apprehensive. It's going to be a huge culture change and I don't have any friends down there like I did when I went to Iowa. At least I have Darin and my dad, so that will help.
I've been saying goodbyes for months now and the hardest was to say goodbye to Paperback Rhino. They became my friends and probably the main reason why I would have stayed at Iowa. They are the best group of people I could ever surround myself with. I love each and every one of them, and was honored to be a part of the group as long as I could. It's hard when saying goodbye because I don't when or even if I'll see any of my friends again. That's a lot to swallow.
As a few of you know, I had to locate a new home for my cat, Espresso. She doesn't get along with Daisy and she just gets stressed out. In August she will be moving in with Joe and Vanessa of PbR in Iowa City. Choosing to give her up was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. But she was my cat, as where Daisy belongs to both Darin and I.
Darin and I leave on Monday evening to drive to Georgia and start our new life. I just hope that it works out and I'm not moving into a huge mistake. But the longer warmer weather and geographical features of the south are a huge plus. It's weird to think that I could be living there for 10 years- a whole decade yet to come.
I hope every one's summers are going well and know that I will miss you all very much, even if we are spread out all over the Midwest. Iowa will always be my home but it's time to start a new chapter in my life.
~Until Then
PS- I'll try not to come back over break with an accent.
Friday, July 23
Wednesday, March 31
A Most Excellent Weekend
So as most of you know, last week there was a mime show. For many of the readers of this blog, (in fact I think all of them), coming back and supporting the show as an alumni is almost as much fun as actually being in the show, without all the work. This is the last show for me that not only do I lose 90% of all connections to people in it, but it was also the last possible year for me to see. I don't think I'll be coming up from Georgia to come see a mime show (sorry.) This year, the people that were apprentices my senior year we're finally graduating and so it was important to me to come and support them.
When you go to a mime show, it's so much more than just sitting and watching a show for an hour. It's a clusterfuck of everything that rocks in this world. People of all generations come to watch the show, (when I was at HuHot that afternoon, there was a woman who recognized my logo on my shirt and asked if I was a member. I told her that I worked for the crew and was back in town as an alumni. She told me that she was a mime 20 years ago. How cool was that?) and if you're not a student at VHS any more, you get to reconnect with people whom you probably haven't seen since graduation. It's great! I managed to get into town earlier enough that day, that I was able to hang out with the techies before they went out to dinner. Things have changed since my time in the booth, but overall it's relatively the same. As tradition, we always go out to Monterrey's and be as loud, obnoxious, and unsafe as possible while in a motor vehicle. There were ~16 of us at dinner, and on the way home I had 11 people (including myself) riding in my car. I do believe that's a new record.
After we got back to Valley, things kind of wind down and people do their own things. The mimes are busy getting ready and the techies start milling around back stage, the seniors being more quiet than I remember them in the past. We'd played heart beat, and I inserted my domination in both rounds. It was great to be back. Two years ago, before I graduated, I bought a book that I meant to start writing in to pass down to the techies still there, finally I got to write in it, along with Kyle, and Emmy. Two years ago, I probably would have been more gushy and sentimental, but I think this is a more edited version.
Cue the dance party! Thirty minutes prior to the start of the actual show, is when the house opens and the music booms. I had so much pent up energy from just waiting for this show for over a year, that I was just off the walls! I felt like my old self again. Feeling like that was amazing, if only for a night. People trickled in and mass orgies of reunions happened. I recognized most of the alums, but really only talked to a few that I haven't reconnected with in a long time. The show overall was fairly solid, a few mistakes here and there, but a great show. Hung around until most of the people had left before finally going home. I had a great time and am glad the last show I saw made me feel alive again.
On Saturday I had coffee and eventually dinner with a former teacher of mine from elementary school. My art teacher, Mr. Whitehead, was the first most influential teacher I've ever had. Maybe it's because he was my teacher for 6 years in a row and he's known me since I was 6 and we still talk to this day. I don't know. Last year as a freshman, I sent out letters to a few of my teachers that I had when I was growing up, and he was one of the few that responded and kept on responding to my letters. We've sent about a dozen or so letters each, and it's kind of a distant therapy. You don't have to meet face to face and there is enough of an age gap to where you can just let the other person's problems just vent out without making them your burden as well. It's a nice thing. He's just as stressed as I am at times. In a way, it's also like a story that you have to wait sometimes as long as month to continue it, but in the mean time you can go back and piece it together from former letters. I like writing, and this means more that just writing to a pen pal that you've never met and probably will never meet, (although I'd like to try that sometime I guess.)
When you are no longer a student of a particular teacher, and out of the grade school system, the relationship changes. There's not the restrictions of what you can and can't talk about as there were when you were a student. We swapped stories of getting in trouble, and finding out our limits when it comes to alcohol, and other ups and downs of life in general. It's also interesting, because he remembers more about me, than I do of him. He's like the grandparent I never had, and there's the same value of that kind of relationship, as there is with this one. It's amazing that 4 1/2 hours go by so quickly when you're constantly talking and swapping stories.
There's one hurdle that I will probably never be able to overcome, and that's how I address him. I don't think once during our conversation, I actually addressed him directly. He was at the coffee shop before me so I didn't have to say anything. In his letters he always signs as his first name, Tom. When I respond, I call him Mr. Whitehead. That's just what I've known him as for 13 years. When I got to high school, I dropped the prefix on most of my teachers names, especially the ones that I became very close with. Sometimes, I would even shorten their names to just one syllable if it worked. I feel as if that's even more informal than calling teachers by their first names as most of us do in college. I don't know, he just always going to Mr. Whitehead. I've always had a close relationship with teachers, and maybe that's why my desire to become one is so strong.
It was an incredible weekend filled with some great memories, and I don't think that there are many that can come close in comparison.
~Until Then
When you go to a mime show, it's so much more than just sitting and watching a show for an hour. It's a clusterfuck of everything that rocks in this world. People of all generations come to watch the show, (when I was at HuHot that afternoon, there was a woman who recognized my logo on my shirt and asked if I was a member. I told her that I worked for the crew and was back in town as an alumni. She told me that she was a mime 20 years ago. How cool was that?) and if you're not a student at VHS any more, you get to reconnect with people whom you probably haven't seen since graduation. It's great! I managed to get into town earlier enough that day, that I was able to hang out with the techies before they went out to dinner. Things have changed since my time in the booth, but overall it's relatively the same. As tradition, we always go out to Monterrey's and be as loud, obnoxious, and unsafe as possible while in a motor vehicle. There were ~16 of us at dinner, and on the way home I had 11 people (including myself) riding in my car. I do believe that's a new record.
After we got back to Valley, things kind of wind down and people do their own things. The mimes are busy getting ready and the techies start milling around back stage, the seniors being more quiet than I remember them in the past. We'd played heart beat, and I inserted my domination in both rounds. It was great to be back. Two years ago, before I graduated, I bought a book that I meant to start writing in to pass down to the techies still there, finally I got to write in it, along with Kyle, and Emmy. Two years ago, I probably would have been more gushy and sentimental, but I think this is a more edited version.
Cue the dance party! Thirty minutes prior to the start of the actual show, is when the house opens and the music booms. I had so much pent up energy from just waiting for this show for over a year, that I was just off the walls! I felt like my old self again. Feeling like that was amazing, if only for a night. People trickled in and mass orgies of reunions happened. I recognized most of the alums, but really only talked to a few that I haven't reconnected with in a long time. The show overall was fairly solid, a few mistakes here and there, but a great show. Hung around until most of the people had left before finally going home. I had a great time and am glad the last show I saw made me feel alive again.
On Saturday I had coffee and eventually dinner with a former teacher of mine from elementary school. My art teacher, Mr. Whitehead, was the first most influential teacher I've ever had. Maybe it's because he was my teacher for 6 years in a row and he's known me since I was 6 and we still talk to this day. I don't know. Last year as a freshman, I sent out letters to a few of my teachers that I had when I was growing up, and he was one of the few that responded and kept on responding to my letters. We've sent about a dozen or so letters each, and it's kind of a distant therapy. You don't have to meet face to face and there is enough of an age gap to where you can just let the other person's problems just vent out without making them your burden as well. It's a nice thing. He's just as stressed as I am at times. In a way, it's also like a story that you have to wait sometimes as long as month to continue it, but in the mean time you can go back and piece it together from former letters. I like writing, and this means more that just writing to a pen pal that you've never met and probably will never meet, (although I'd like to try that sometime I guess.)
When you are no longer a student of a particular teacher, and out of the grade school system, the relationship changes. There's not the restrictions of what you can and can't talk about as there were when you were a student. We swapped stories of getting in trouble, and finding out our limits when it comes to alcohol, and other ups and downs of life in general. It's also interesting, because he remembers more about me, than I do of him. He's like the grandparent I never had, and there's the same value of that kind of relationship, as there is with this one. It's amazing that 4 1/2 hours go by so quickly when you're constantly talking and swapping stories.
There's one hurdle that I will probably never be able to overcome, and that's how I address him. I don't think once during our conversation, I actually addressed him directly. He was at the coffee shop before me so I didn't have to say anything. In his letters he always signs as his first name, Tom. When I respond, I call him Mr. Whitehead. That's just what I've known him as for 13 years. When I got to high school, I dropped the prefix on most of my teachers names, especially the ones that I became very close with. Sometimes, I would even shorten their names to just one syllable if it worked. I feel as if that's even more informal than calling teachers by their first names as most of us do in college. I don't know, he just always going to Mr. Whitehead. I've always had a close relationship with teachers, and maybe that's why my desire to become one is so strong.
It was an incredible weekend filled with some great memories, and I don't think that there are many that can come close in comparison.
~Until Then
Monday, February 1
It's like a really ugly $7000 hooker bot.
I think Bender would be appalled at Douglas Hines' latest unveiling of the newest craze in sex without a real woman. Sure, it can carry on a conversation with you and respond to your touch, and it probably doesn't have any built-in STI's, but still. a $7,000 pleasure device? I hope these men don't have any kids, and if they do, I hope they don't want them to start calling Roxxxy, Mom. What is the world coming to?
~Until Then
~Until Then
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