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

It takes me back

So this past Saturday I went and watched a dress rehearsal of my sister's mime show at Indian Hills. As I was sitting there for about 20 min before it all started, I was thinking (something that I try to do on occasion) and realized that this is where it all started for me 5 years ago. Sure I did some theatre stuff in 7th grade, but it wasn't until 8th grade when it really took off. I met Joanna, Thomas, Jordan, Mary, and Brittany during mimes. These people I still consider to be some of my close friends. I felt awesome hanging out with all of you and just creating a show. You guys were the basis to my theatre foundation for the rest of my secondary education. I felt like I fit in with you all, and that's something that I never really found any where else before. I was excited to see my sister up on the same stage where I was only a few years prior wearing mime white, a leotard and pants, with the same boxes from way back when. I was exited, this is where the rest of her life starts. That moment for me, defined everything. I really hope she gets everything that she can out of what she does.

The skits were cute, not thought provoking at all. There were some skits that were similar to the show that I did for Silent Majority. Chaotic Classroom, Tug oh' War, and a few others that I can't really recall off the top of my head. It was weird being back at Indian Hills at 9 am on a Saturday morning. I miss those days, what a blast. I was so proud of her when she was done, I really hope that she sticks with theatre and finds her own place.

~Until Then

Mime Show

"Now the seats are all empty, let the roadies take the stage. Pack it up and tear it down. They're the first to come and last to leave working for that minimum wage. They'll set it up in another town."

~Jackson Browne

I did not have the time or energy to write a post like Thomas did; but I will. But until then.

IHSSA Love

Few know that mimes are known to have sweet dance skills.










I feel like we should be walking into the sunset. Montage anyone?


Last minute crappy improv.






I wish all my imaginary friends were real.













^I love this photo.
<---Hard work paid off.
Heroine anyone?