Another dream

I dreamed the other day that I was a cosmetic surgeon. It wasn't actually cosmetic surgery, but in my dream, what I did was called that. And some young Somali girl was asking me about it. And I said some stuff as I walked down some stairs. What it was that I did, and what I told the girl, are totally murky.

Cleaning

The inlaws are coming up today, and I thought I better do some cleaning. They don't really care that much-- it's just a good excuse for me. I have Roomba'd the house occasionally, but I hadn't really truly vacuumed in a long while. Wow, the amount of hair and dust! I unearthed an old stuffed mouse from underneath the couch to the short-lived delight of Rimsky and Coco. (They promptly batted it under something again) I also thoroughly cleaned the downstairs and vacuumed up the numerous families of daddy long legs that had been prospering down there. I changed all the old trash bags, picked up poop from the yard, watered the garden, and I think I'm ready to take a shower now. After I put some wash in the dryer.

Anyway, there's a crisp wind outside and it's absolutely the most gorgeous day to be cleaning.

Catnip

The catnip was moved to a pot next to the house after being demolished by the neighborhood alley cats. Over the last month, the skeletal remains have filled out and it is now green, lush, and bushy. Every once in a while, we can see that it has been attacked in the night because there are ripped leaves and a bunch of cat hair stuck to it. But it's recovered now and since it's right by the back door, I always pick a couple leaves for the kitties when I come inside. So now our kitties are getting their drug fix every day. Whenever I come in the back door, they come and whine shrilly. And Rimsky starts to scratch the floor in anticipation.

What makes catnip so attractive to cats? Excuse me while I head to wikipedia.

Partial early morning dream

I dreamed that I was swimming in the Dead Sea and there was a place next to the shore that was so deep that I wouldn't have been able to see the bottom even if there was no water. Some people I was with had scuba gear and were diving to the bottom and looking around. I was terrified and didn't want to do it. Then somebody came over and said something about seeing a city down there and then three of the people I was with suddenly developed blue scales over their faces, and they grew scuba gear that fit over their mouths and eyes and then the three of them shot off into the sky like a blue flame, intertwining with each other. Then I did want to go down and look in the deep water, but then it was too late. So instead, I got out of the water and walked to the cafeteria with a little girl.

Fire

I had a dream that our house caught on fire and the top story burned while we were downstairs. All my clothes and documents were ruined. It was so strange though, because I was sad, but not really that upset.

I think it's cuz our bedroom door closed (probably Bailey) last night and the room was baking when I woke up. Dreams about heat.

Back

So the trip to Atlanta was very intense. One of the days there felt like it was years long, then the next day hardly felt like a full day at all.

There's always this pressure to try and describe a trip succinctly: "Oh it was great, very relaxing" or "It was terrible, I had no time to do anything" or whatever. But this trip, maybe more so than others defies my attempts at summing it up. It was totally mixed.

So first, the work part of the trip. I went with the cast of Katie Tomatie (Michael Sommers, Sue, Nancy, and Kyle) to perform Katie at the TCG Conference. TCG stands for Theatre Communications Group. I don't know much about the organization, and less about the conference except that it was called "Building the Future Audience". I still don't know because I only went to one talk. It was delivered by Anne Bogart (a celebrity only to people in the theatre industry-- not that I had ever heard of her before...) and she had some extremely insightful and inspiring things to say. As far as performing the show, we had only three performances, but all of them were very bizarre, each in their own way. I think the main problems were that Michael was freaked out by the whole thing, and the audience and venue was not what the show was created for. Anyway, with either tiny audiences or sizzling heat, the performances were brutal.

Now the play part of the trip. We rented a car and tooled around Atlanta. We ate amazing food at a variety of awesome restaurants: Nickiemoto's, Willy's, Naza, and Justin's Restaurant (owned by P Diddy). Nancy and I splurged on new dresses at Ann Taylor, we went to Starbucks twice a day and drank lattes like mad, and we talked into the wee hours of the morning about life, God, metaphysics, our soulless culture. Nancy, Kyle and I visited the historic Atlanta Underground to find that it was just an underground mall full of ghettolicious shops with the cheapest, crappiest, glitziest stuff ever. It was awesome. And you name it, they could personalize it. Hats, shirts, keychains, bracelets, everything. We could also get a photo taken with 6 parrots for 15 dollars. But we didn't.

We each had our own hotel rooms, so I could have slept on alternate beds every night. We had a kicking view and TV. I watched little bits of like 20 movies, especially at night since I couldn't sleep after all the espresso I had unthinkingly drunk throughout the day.

Anyway, I guess I can say it was a good trip. But it's also good to be home. I missed Jonner and the animals. Time to get back to work. My first task was catching up on sleep. The second is laundry.

Atlanta

I'm off to Atlanta tomorrow yall. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

Guess what song popped into my head today? I guarantee you'll be cursing me for putting it into your head. Boyz II Men's "End of the Road". It's so natural, ooo, you belong to me, ooo, I belong to you.

Rock Stars

You'll have to decide for yourselves whether they are really rock stars, but the people I mentioned in the last post are real. Here are some photos. (Maybe the Jayhawks or Mark Mallman will turn up at today's show. One can always hope)

Here is the glamorous transgender-ite Venus DeMars from All the Pretty Horses:













Here is Adam Levy from the Honeydogs:


















And here is Eef Barzelay from Clem Snide:

A good summer day

I was holding out for someone to write a comment on my blog, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. So I'll write something. Today we performed our first driveway tour show (go to openeyetheatre.org to see the schedule), and guess who was there?? EEF BARZELAY from Clem Snide! This tour allows me to meet some frickin rock stars! Two years ago, All the Pretty Horses came to our show, and last year Adam Levy from the Honeydogs came to a show. I always make a bit of an ass of myself because I get kinda starstruck-- especially with Adam Levy-- I admit I'm kinda crazy about him. Anyway, Eef was very cool. I hope he thought I was cool too. And the other awesome part of the show was that there were baby goats there too. Baby goats! They're so awesome.

We went to Sioux Center for a day to see Jonner's cousin's wedding. It was ok. The reception was the quietest reception I had ever been to. It was all hushed like in a museum.

Bailey was such a good dog this weekend. I love her. She had her head out the window when we drove home and her lips were flapping in the wind. It gave me joy.

Jonner made me a hamburger for dinner. Yeah, he's so awesome.