Author: Shawn

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PerBloWriMo

I’ve never aspired to write a million-page epic saga (I know, it might seem like it when I start rambling to my fullest capabilities on here), so I skipped out on November’s NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month.

However, it did inspire me work toward the title of this entry, which designates December as “Personal Blog Writing Month.” More than once, I’ve neglected this website for over a month at a time, which is just shameful. The best way to avoid shame under these circumstances? Write a blog entry every day for the month of December.

I’m hoping the holidays don’t screw up my plans, but I’m willing to give it a shot nonetheless. Write something—anything—from the 1st through the 31st and create a warm, fuzzy feeling inside of myself that doesn’t entail buying one cup of something that costs nine bucks at Starbucks.

Whether the entries will be of good quality… I’ve written good and bad before, so I’ll let you be the judge. In the meantime, consider this Day 1 of PerBloWriMo (it sounds kinda perverted when you say it out loud, so you probably shouldn’t). My first act (aside from writing this) will be to repost a bunch of entries from June 2005. I have no idea how it happened—maybe I got excited when I was putting all of my old blog entries onto this website—but almost everything from when I was on TV simply wasn’t there the last time I checked.

Thankfully, I’ve saved almost everything I’ve written in the past, though that’s another habit I’ve let lapse over time (yay for coping and pasting!). And now it’s time to get to work! Hope you enjoy! Hope I enjoy, too!

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Knowing your station in life

With such a long break between Sunday afternoon’s show and a Friday night performance, we had a brush-up on Wednesday to go through our lines—a brief and informal refresher, if you will. And it was definitely informal. Informal to the point of making up lines as we went along.

For example, an exchange might normally go “You shouldn’t do that” and “Oh, but I want to.” Wednesday night, we’d usually say something like “You shouldn’t do that” and “Okay, I won’t… oh, but I want to.” It was a hoot, but if it had been a group of strangers versus our cast, I could have ended up in a lot of trouble.

At one point, I encourage someone to go into the kitchen and she normally responds with a hesitant “Oooookay…” This time, she asked, “What do I look like to you?” The setup was so good, I couldn’t help but blurt out, “You look like a woman! Now go in the kitchen and get me a samwich!” I then proceeded to laugh myself to tears.

Of course, some people were insensitive enough to point out, “So that’s why you’re single!”, so maybe not all of those tears were from laughter.

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“Mind Over Matt”, opening weekend

Yeah, I probably could have written an entry after each performance, but I didn’t realize how drained I’d feel afterward. We all went out to dinner on Friday and Saturday night—when I got home, I didn’t feel like doing much beyond crawling into bed. Consequently… opening weekend instead of opening night.

If you’re curious, here’s the play’s official plot summary (in case you can’t tell, it’s a comedy):
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Ever argue with yourself? Ever said, “I don’t know what got into me?” This is the story of Matthew Lane. Matt is a successful illustrator with a couple of deadlines and several squabbling inner personalities who do weird and wonderful things. As Matt tries to gather up enough nerve to ask out the girl of his dreams, Matt’s egos, who all have their own hang-ups, lead him in one too many directions. When Matt’s overworked boss comes to believe that Matt has a crush on her, the conflicted egos manage to make a bad situation much, much worse.
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So I was indeed fidgety slightly past the point when the lights came up on Friday night, but things went pretty well. A few word slip-ups here and there, but the two times that I briefly forgot a line, I was already supposed to be flustered versus delivering an extended monologue, so no major flubs (I almost forgot to put my watch on, which is a pretty important prop… got lucky on that one).

Now that I think about it, we were uncomfortably close to a serious catastrophe. I have to make a few costume changes between scenes and there’s a limited time to do it. A few people are backstage and hold out the clothes for me, but when I was trying to change pants, my zipper got stuck. As I kept pulling on it and panic was welling up inside me—I’m not kidding, I was starting to freak out—I was wondering how much effort it would take to just tear my khakis off so I could put on my jeans. Thankfully, tugging the zipper up and back down got it loose, so I didn’t have to resort to any extreme measures. (I think I’ve popped a couple stitches as well, so whether the khakis will be functional after the final performance is up in the air.)

Saturday flowed even smoother than opening night, though at one point, Ashley (the girl of my dreams… but not really, since she has a boyfriend and Matt isn’t the kind of guy who would kill for love) is sitting on a stool and jumps backward suddenly. Somehow, her shoe went flying off the stage. And I mean flying. It reached the wall about 15 feet behind where she was sitting. Thankfully, there were stairs down to the floor on that side of the stage, so she simply walked down and retrieved it as we kept talking through that part of the scene. (As you would expect, the audience loved it.)

Sunday afternoon, she lost the shoe again, but it stayed on the stage this time. Overall, things have been improving every show, but that’s coming from my perspective. For all I know, some of the other cast members might be thrilled about the invention of adult diapers.

Along the lines of perspective, I can’t say much about the audience—it’s my first show in that theater, so if someone says it’s larger or smaller, if they’re louder or quieter, if they throw more stuff at the stage than usual… I have to take their word for it. Apparently, Friday was good, Saturday was small because the weather was really crummy and Sunday was okay, but the crowd wasn’t very responsive. Given how long it’s been since I’ve played for an audience, I thought they were all just fine.

Oh, and before I wrap this up, I’d like to give some kudos to my 93-year-old grandma. She came to the Sunday matinee and everyone in the cast and crew who met her thought she was adorable. Consider: when she bought her ticket, she asked, “Am I allowed to boo if the show is bad?” I love my grandma.

So that’s the scoop. We’re done with Weekend #1 and have three shows left next weekend. If you’re interested in seeing one of those performances, ticket presale info is still on the poster two entries ago. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry (assuming you laugh so hard that you cry, anyway) and we’re pretty sure you won’t ask for your money back. If you’re still on the fence, I’ll just point out that Grandma never felt the need to boo.

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Wherefore doesn’t “wherefore” mean “where”?

Someone pointed out to me that “wherefore” in old English actually means “why.” That’s not to say that Juliet is asking about Romeo’s parents picking out such a silly name (versus Hamlet, Othello, Lear, etc.). She’s a member of the Capulet family and is bemoaning that he’s a Montague—if Juliet’s family caught them during a romantic encounter, they’d lock her in a closet and gut Romeo like a trout. Wherefore, you might ask? Wherefore not?

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Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

Ye Gods, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything in here. Helps explain the title for this blog entry, doesn’t it? Plus it’s more poetic than “Where the hell have you been, douchebag?!” And as an added bonus, it also hints at the answer:

I’ve fallen in love with a teenage girl.

Wait… nope, wrong answer. It’s because I got involved with the local community theater and I’ve been spending more time thinking about the lines I’ll be speaking onstage rather than the lines I write on my blog. Is that a bad thing? Well, yeah, so I’ll try to make up for it soon. I wanted to do it now, but I’m a little distracted considering that opening night is… a couple hours from now.

Here’s a poster with all of the relevant info in case some of you want to come see the show:

Mind Over Matt

The local paper also wrote an article that you might enjoy.

I know there’s plenty of background to write—why I auditioned, interesting plot twists here and there—but I’m too busy trying to stay relaxed. (Results currently mixed, will get back to you later with future reports.) Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

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Crazy is crazy fast

I know, I need to write another blog entry about what I’ve been doing recently, but this story is way cooler. If you look back at this entry, you’ll note that my little brother Justin is a bad-ass adventure racer. And when I say “bad-ass”, I mean “crazy good.”

He and WEDALI do really well in races across the country to earn points—he and his teammates have been racking up lots of frequent flier miles—the points at races sanctioned by United States Adventure Racing Association accumulate until (hopefully) qualifying the team for the final race of the year. I think they finished fourth for total number of points, so last weekend was USARA Nationals.

Here’s a little blurb from the front page on the website:

“About The Race

“The USARA Adventure Race National Championship is the “Heart & Soul” of Adventure Racing in the United States. Co-ed teams of 3 compete in 45 USARA regional qualifying events across the U.S. for a chance to battle it out for the title of USARA Adventure Race National Champion.

“Teams are required to navigate a series of checkpoints using only a map and compass to guide them while transitioning between several disciplines such as: Trail Running/Trekking, Mountain Biking, Paddling and Orienteering.

“These teams will have to push the boundaries of human endurance and teamwork just to finish. Winning will require extreme willpower, mastery of all disciplines, and a little luck.”

But here’s the most important page on the website: the final results. That’s right, WEDALI didn’t think fifth at Primal Quest last year would be enough of a legacy. They had to go ahead and WIN Nationals this year. Daaaaaamn…

So to Justin, his wife Molly and their teammate Erl, congratulations. Lots and lots of congratulations. I got to see a picture of the trophies they received—individual and a team trophy—and lemme tell ya, whoever keeps the big one will need to reinforce the mantle above the fireplace. Big trophy for a big accomplishment.