I’m so excited!!!

Folks listen, I am here. I am at Starbucks, not to drink coffee (ick) but to GET ON THE INTERNET FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I’VE GOTTEN HERE.

Well, really I should be working on my speech on why people fall in love at Bible School cause even though I’m not giving it till Monday I wrote on my reading and study skills calendar that I’d get it done by Friday so if I don’t my reading and study skills grade will get docked.

Guess what I just did, guys? I totally changed my password so that I can email posts to Mom and she can post them. I’m so excited. There have been a million things I’ve wanted to blog about, like the above mentioned speech or the speech class associated with it or reading and study skills class or my BCF class or the people I’m meeting or….a gazillion things.

I decided before I came that I had to write everything down because I have an idea for a Bible School novel which may never happen but at the same time I’m trying to write everything down. So I kind of have the reputation of carrying a notebook around everywhere and writing down people’s quotes. Cliff, the administrator who let me in, is always making little remarks about me quoting him on my blog site. But I haven’t been able to do any of that because I HAVEN’T HAD ANY INTERNET ACCESS except, of course, for email.

My email address is Jemilys@gmail.com. Please email me if you want to contact me in any way.

Man, there are so many things I want to say that I don’t know where to start. So I will say this: stay tuned.

STAY TUNED PEOPLE!

And on that note, goodbye.

I’m going!

In the Denver airport at this moment, heading to Pittsburgh! SMBI, here I come!

SMBI, tomorrow?

Last night, around midnight.

Me: Man, you know how I was gonna apply to go to SMBI second term and then didn’t after all, cause I was so sick? I wish now I would have. It would have worked so perfectly. I’m done with my schoolwork and Annie and don’t have anything to do.

Dad: Well why don’t we call them in the morning and ask if they have any openings?

Me: Seriously?!!?

Dad: When does it start?

Me: Like, three days.

Dad: Oh. Well, I’ll call and see.

Next Morning

Dad: Do you have any openings?

Headmaster: actually, yes, we have one woman’s opening. Fax in your application.

!!!

Yes. So as long as I get accepted, I’ll be flying to SMBI tomorrow morning. Pray, people!

Moving Back to Oregon

I cannot imagine how someone could even begin to keep track of my life. I keep moving here and there and everywhere. Now what? After all my sojourning, it looks like I’ll be moving back to Oregon.

I don’t understand why I’m hanging on to Colorado so bad. I have 18-year roots in Oregon, and pulling them up was as easy as can be. And now, I can’t even fathom pulling up 8-month roots.

But it’s over. Unless a job unexpectedly falls in my lap this week, I’ll leave in nine  days.

If I get sick in Oregon I don’t have the slightest idea what I will do.

A wedding dress was falling apart at the seams and had a broken zipper. It was too big for me. For a long time it just sat in my cupboard and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. But the other night I ripped it up.

I felt like Cinderella’s evil stepsisters. I just ripped. Then I took a needle and thread and began sewing lace and fluff back on in random haphazard patterns.

The reason I told you that is because it is so hard to try and explain my feelings right now. So I thought maybe if you can imagine the feelings that would cause someone to rip up a wedding dress you can imagine my feelings. But maybe that isn’t exactly true, cause I’m not divorced and my fiance didn’t dump me at the alter or anything.

I always think I would like  to have a complicated life instead of a boring life and then when it gets complicated it is complicated in all the wrong ways.

Hillary knows how to write a letter

My cousin Hiillary and I don’t really text each other or keep up on facebook or even email, but sometimes we write letters to each other. And I have to say, Hillary knows how to write a letter.

There it was, in the mailbox. A bright green envalope with white paper doilies glued to it, a row of rainbow colored dot stickers, “Inside: your fortune” written in smudged red letters, and a penciled message talking about how she thought she had mailed it but then later she found it tucked in a book.

This was all before I opened the envalope.

Inside was not one, but three letters, along with a tea bag, a special blend of tea that’s supposed to make you feel creative. And there was this plastic fish that curls up when you put it in your hand. The way it moves is supposed to indicate your fortune. According to the dumb fish I’m “false.”

That was what the whole “inside: your fortune” thing was about. Hillary has taken to making up fortunes and telling them to people for extra cash. She wrote that she likes to say things like, “a sticky note lying on the ground will tell you the answer to your question,” cause then they go around picking up every piece of paper they find on the ground.

Oh and there was this paper where she had drawn poets with interesting faces.

Yeah. It was an awesome letter. This post doesn’t have a whole lot of point, except that Hillary knows how to write a letter. It inspires me to write interesting letters.

Now, why don’t you go write a letter to someone you know, or maybe three letters, and throw in a few interesting things. I bet it will make their day.

I am done!!

Done with my schoolwork. Almost done with Annie. Maybe even done with Colorado.

I finished up my schoolwork yesterday. Do you hear me? It is DONE. Not everything is scored so my diploma is not yet in hand, but it is done.

Tonight is the last time I’m working backstage at Annie. Then Sunday is the last performance, but I’m watching it.

I was gonna watch it friday, but I switched to Sunday, and oh my word there was drama at the drama.

It started with a lack of communication, and no one quite sure who would take over for me when I took my day off. Whenever I was asked I said that I thought Katie could do it, since Katie helped me with one of the quick changes already. I know I talked to her once about it, but it was a while ago and she doesn’t remember. Anyway, I thought she would just sort of take it upon herself  to learn the changes, but she didn’t, so at the Wednesday practice I asked her if I could teach her the changes.

Well she was a bit confused, because she didn’t remember ever being informed that she was supposed to take over for me on my day off. She agreed to do it though, but then later she told me that there were few enough people doing scene changes that they needed her, and they’d find someone else to do the changes by the next day.

Frankly, I was a bit worried. I had one practice to train someone it, and I was sure I’d sit in the audience and watch Grace come on late because her costume wasn’t changed in time.

Well before the practice even started on Thursday, Michal’s mom(Michal is the girl who plays Grace), I think her name is Becky, came up to me, wondering if there was any chance (no pressure!) I would be willing to watch the show Sunday instead of Friday. That would give me one practice and two shows to train someone new in.

I had to check with my Mom to make sure it was ok with her, and make sure i could get my tickets transferred, but otherwise I was totally fine with it. It made me feel needed, and reduced the stress of training in a new person.

But who would do Grace’s changes for me? Marcy had volunteered, I heard, but she was acting in a few scenes and doing the curtain and a billion other things. She takes so much on herself. So we searched for someone else, and finally got the lady who plays Lilly to do it.

Everything was all fine and dandy, until I got to the show Friday. First Katie talked to me, telling me how bad she felt that I had to switch my night just because she couldn’t do the changes.

I assured her that that wasn’t the case, of course. But then Marcy came up to me, and she was just ticked. Not at me, but at the fact that someone had dared to ask me to change my night.

I honestly didn’t get it. It wasn’t a big deal. But Marcy seemed very upset at Michal and Becky. Which really kind of upset me cause I didn’t think they did anything wrong.

Anyway, later Marcy seemed to imply that she was a bit hurt by the fact that we had chosen someone else over her to change Grace (only still, she implied that it was Michal and Becky’s fault, not mine, which was odd).

I don’t know what all was going on, but it was a lot of drama over nothing.

Every time I get ready to move I just don’t really feel like writing about it. It’s looking like I’ll move back to Oregon. Not for sure yet, just looking that way, since finding a job for me here seems impossible. And I, in the worst way, don’t want to go back, which is terribly selfish. If they want me to come home, I will, simple as that. I wish I could just do it happily. Why was it so easy to leave, and so hard to go back? It makes no sense. I love everyone back home. I don’t get it, but that’s the way it is.

Creepy things and Boredom

I don’t want to even imagine what Barney-vampier-zombies would be like. And yesterday was the most horrible Annie practice EVER.

It was scene one, and the orphans were doing their “it’s the hard knock life” dance over and over and over and over. I have no clue what was wrong with it. But we were on the Canon City stage for the first time, since we’d been doing it in Florence up until now.

Me and Ellie were backstage with the dog catcher and the assistant dog catcher from the next scene. They were waiting to go on. We were waiting for the scene to change so we’d have something to do.

There was a lot of waiting going on.

But in the midst of the waiting the assistant dog catcher started talking about his dreams. During the school year he has really violent dreams, he said. And then he started rattling them off. Teletubbies with machine guns, Bugs Bunny with a grenade, teachers and schools and students getting blown up, it was hilarious and disturbing but of course I was fascinated because I am always fascinated by dreams.

If the scenes aren’t changing there is nothing to do. Me and Ellie were so bored we played Mashfry. It turns out that I’m gonna marry Kevin Jonas, live on a farm, have 23 kids, and drive a blue minivan. Ellie got a yellow jeep, a mansion, a couple kids, and the assistant dog catcher with the violent dreams.

I finally was like, “look. I have nothing else to do this entire act, there’s no way we’ll make it to act 2 at this rate, I’m tired, and my mom is here visiting. Can I just go?”

And I could. Awesome.

Tonight is looking to be another bad night, with the added bonus that I have to train in a replacement to do the quick changes on Friday, when I’m off to watch it.

The Tragic Story of the Stage Left Three

Annie has been the most exciting thing in my life for the past while (except for the whole falling off a bunk bed thing) but I always seem to be too tired to post about it. Sorry. I will now proceed to tell you the tragic story of the Stage Left Three. Me, Michael, and Ellie.

It started at the third practice. I, while normally on stage right, went to stage left to get ready for a quick costume change. Ellie, the 11-year-old prop mistress was there, and so was this kid in a green shirt who acted in a few scenes and had gotten bored. I wrote about it here.

We acted crazy and had a great time, but I totally thought it was a one time thing. The kid in the green shirt wasn’t even supposed to be back there. I didn’t say anything that time, cause we were having so much fun, but when I got to practice the next day and saw that he was there, on stage left, I figured it was my duty to say something. But when I did, the lady I told said, “you mean Michael? The kid who’s doing the curtain?”

He was doing the curtain? And his name was Michael?

That was also the day when I got everything figured out and realized that I would have to stay on stage left. So for three whole dress rehearsals and four whole shows that’s the way it was. Me, Ellie, and Michael on stage left, goofing off and having the most amazing time.

For example, Friday Michael was strutting around like a model. Now while it may seem odd that a 12 year old boy would want to strut around like a model, it is just exactly the kind of thing that Michael does. He is a bit of an odd fish. Actually we are all odd fish. Ellie is bursting at the seams with energy, and Michael is OCD, and things just got extremely strange at times.

So anyway, Michael is strutting around like a model, and I whisper to Ellie, “when he get’s back, just talk to me like you didn’t notice his model bit, and he’ll get all ticked.” So we tried, but Ellie just couldn’t help but laugh and laugh and laugh.

Me: Gah! It’s no wonder you work backstage, you can’t act!

Ellie: Give me a line, and I’ll come in and act it.

Me: Why did you stick the cherry pie in the drier?

Ellie went behind the tormentor. Then she strode back in.

Ellie: Why did you stick the cherry pie hahahahhahah!!!

Me: I’ll show you how it’s done.

I went behind the tormentor. Then I strode back in.

Me: Why did you stick the cherry pie in the drier?

Michael: I didn’t do it! You did.

Me: What are you talking about? I saw you put it in the drier!

Michael: Well fine, but you dared me to do it!

Ellie: He wanted to make his socks red for valentines day.

We continued on like this, but presently we decided to do something new. I would be the big sister, Ellie would be the little sister, and Michael would be the dad. Ellie would come in and say that I had hit her.

That one lasted until Michael and Ellie were ganging up on me so much that I stomped off saying “nobody understands me!” and they totally cracked up.

That is just a sample, the tiniest of samples, of the things that went on on stage left. And then, yesterday, I got to the theater and was told that Michael was no longer doing the curtain.

WHAT?!??!

Yeah. He had been fired.

Well. I wasn’t too happy about that, and neither was Ellie. But it was hard to get a clear idea of what he had done wrong. I mean, we knew that the night before he hadn’t closed the curtain quite quickly enough but it didn’t seem like a big enough thing to fire him for.

We went to see him at intermission and he did the classic Michael babble. Half the time me and Ellie have no clue what he’s saying. So it was hard to get a clear idea why he was gone, but he mostly blamed it on other people anyway. And then today he said that people complained about how much we were goofing off backstage, and so they took him off.

Well that scared me cause I knew we goofed off a lot, but I thought we were always very aware of our duties, and made sure that they came first. It made me annoyed that no one ever said anything to us before pulling him off, because I think I, as the oldest by far, could have settled things down more if I knew we were any sort of problem. But when I talked to Marcy about it she said that only one complaint had included me so she didn’t think I needed to be told. But I guess Michael had more complaints and so they decided that it was a mistake to get someone so young to do it.

And Ellie, being young too, was in danger of being dismissed as well. I think she did well enough today that she’s still on, but man. Things can be so great and you can be so close to people, and then bam, they are gone forever. It is freaky.

Especially because of the increasing possibility that I’ll move to back to Oregon shortly and never ever see these people again.

Plastic pears make cakes fall apart

Yesterday I made a strawberry pie, a bonnie butter cake, and started on an apron. When I told mom this she said, “What’s next? You’re getting married?”

Ha ha ha.

I also bought a pheasant-under-glass. I don’t really know what they’re actually called. They look like this.

There was this song we used to sing at school about my mother being the greatest cook ever who could make a chocolate cake without a recipe and make bologna taste like Pheasant under glass. I didn’t think Pheasant under glass sounded particularly appetizing, but when I asked Mom what it was she said it was just Pheasant meat under a glass dome.

Ever since then I’ve called those glass domes “pheasant-under-glasses.”

Well I’ve been getting into baking lately and I kept looking at goodwill for a pheasant under glass. I finally found one yesterday.

I made a bonnie butter cake with two layers and frosted it but it still looked pretty awful. So I stuck a plastic pear on top of it. I thought maybe the plastic pear would make it look more artistic. It helped a bit, but then the pheasant under glass didn’t fit on top of it. So I sunk the pear deep into the cake, and it made the cake fall apart even more.

It’s so weird. I never thought I was the domestic type. Amy cooked and cleaned and sewed and I hated it all.

What changed?

Homemade cake is really good.

Nearing the Port

I GOT MY RESEARCH PAPER DONE TODAY!!!!!!!! Finally finally finally I am actually getting close to getting my high school work done. It is an amazing feeling.

I now have to do once pace of economics and finish up various books and reports on books that comprise my Christian Literature and then I’ll be done. And it’s mostly enjoyable work so it shouldn’t take too long.

And then I’ll get a netbook. Oh yeah!

This Thursday Annie starts up again!

Next Tuesday my Mom comes!

So it seems as though my life is falling into place and going smoothly. I have my life very nicely and neatly planned up to October 20 and then I have no clue what on earth is gonna happen to me. It’s a strange feeling, really.

My landlord is selling my house. I don’t have a job. In a couple of months I could be living permanently in Colorado, or I could be living permanently in Oregon.

I am very tired of explaining my life to people. Life would be so much easier if everyone read my blog.

For instance, when I came to Church with a band-aid on my chin, I got asked a gazillion times what happened to me. But a few people came up to me and said, “so, how is your chin doing?” They already knew what happened, because they read it on my blog. It was so amazing.

I got a blue dress for free today.

The other day I was eating a brownie and I had the following thought process. “Bleh. I don’t really feel like eating this brownie. I’ll look in the fridge and see if there’s something else to eat. Oh! Sweet, I have lettuce! Wait a minute…I just had the weirdest thought process ever.”