Happy happy news

Well, it looks like our time in NYC is drawing to a close. FINALLY!! Joe is now onboard with a move in September or October. We're not sure where yet... Here are the possibilities:

• Raleigh, NC - Because I love it and it's home
• Greenville, NC - If I get into grad school at ECU for marriage and family therapy. It's close to home.
• Chapel Hill, NC - If I get into grad school at UNC for MFA acting. It's also very close to home.
• Chicago - If we decide we want to be in the mid-west theatre scene and future possible acting jobs
• Los Angeles - If Joe decides he has to try the TV/film route before he can live with himself in 60 years
• New Jersey - Very slight chance. If we just can't bring ourselves to leave NYC fully. But ew.

Soooo...basically, it's all up in the air right now. What is NOT up in the air is my lack of patience for living in New York City any more. That is definitely very firm. I do not heart NY. In the last 2 months, I've witnessed a homeless guy on my train threaten to shoot and kill another guy, a young girl run up to Joe and ask him to pretend to be her boyfriend because she was being followed, 100's of cat calls, a guy who had peed his pants and was walking down the street talking loudly to himself, need I go on....? I'm ready to be done with it.

Do I want to be a therapist? An actress? A theatre professor? Well, I suppose that all depends on who lets me into their graduate program. Lots of Broadway credits would be super-helpful right now, since I wouldn't have to deal with grad school. But alas, I apply. Screw you, GRE.

I had been working at a little restaurant in Hell's Kitchen since I got back from the Fireside this last time. I loved it, loved the people, loved the food. Then, randomly last Saturday, my boss took me aside and quietly fired me. He made up some reason that really didn't make sense, so all I can gather is that he just didn't like me personally. Which is kind of baffling to me...I think I'm a pretty easy person to get along with. Nevertheless, I am now unemployed in the most expensive city in the world and not too happy about it.

This Year...

It's time for an end-of-year list!

In 2009...

• I did Those Fabulous Fifties, Part 2 at the Fireside - a revue. I can never get away from poodle skirts in my life. But at least I got the pink one.

• Joe took me on a vacation in February to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and made me love him even more, if that were possible. :-)

• I spent the next 4 months working at the diner. Boo. Hiss. (I know you can't see it, but I'm wearing yet another poodle skirt. ^%#@!)

• In July I left the diner for the Fireside again to play Liesl in The Sound of Music. To all patrons that so originally brought it to my attention - Yes, I am aware that I am not, in fact, 16 years old. But I am still going to drink this champagne, thank you very much. Clue and crossword puzzles took over my life in this contract. And apparently, so did the sleeves of this purple dress. (Or "Barney suit" as our 9-year-old Gretl so tactfully referred to it.)

• As of November 1, I have been enjoying a wonderful funemployment in NYC with Joe before going back, yet again, to the lovely Fireside for another Wisconsin winter after the holidays! This FUNemployment has included being in a lovely cabaret starring Jen Brooks, seeing In the Heights on Broadway front row and exactly center for $26, crocheting amazing stuff til my fingers are numb, and seeing LOTS of friends. But on Tuesday I'm heading home to NC before Wisconsin. This time it's Those Fabulous 50's and 60's. Let the sun shine in!

Dear Santa,

This coming year, I'd like an Equity card. And an engagement. Or, just one of those things. Could you make it happen? Thanks.

Love,

Lindsey (I've been REAL good, I promise!)

Manhattan brat rant.

I love children. Really, I do. You should have seen me for the entirety of the run of Sound of Music, my eggs were dropping every time I turned around. And these were children - not babies. Average age was 9 years old. God knows, if there's a baby around, I'm toast. Just melted butter on the floor. BUT - there is something about the parents in Manhattan that make me want to strangle them and their children who will, no doubt, grow up to be just as oblivious and inconsiderate as their parents.

Night before last I was standing in line to see the Macy's Thanksgiving balloon inflation. I was alone, but my friends were meeting me and I was holding our place in line. There was 1 set of parents and children in strollers just in front of me, and another set of parents and strollers behind me. These rich oblivious Manhattanites behind me would push their strollers up so close that they were TOUCHING the back of my heels, and their children would yank on the tail of my coat and scream. Ok, maybe the 1st time I can forgive you, it's a crowded city, no use being all angry when you brush up against someone else. But it continued so that the people behind me kept sandwiching me so close to the people in front of me I was literally touching them. I thought I would try NOT moving up when the line moved forward until I had breathing room. Nope, they just squished in around me, running over the back of my heels and looking at me as if I was crazy for not walking up so close to the people in front of me I was actually in their buttholes.

I try not to let NYC crap get to me, but it's just common courtesy not to run over the backs of people's heels - repeatedly, and unapologetically, right? I also find it hard not to judge them based on the fact that since they can clearly afford to have children and live in Manhattan, they probably have never set foot in a subway station, have enormous Crate & Barrel apartments that they pay $5,000/month for, have poor actor receptionists (who pay $800/month for their Queens apartment) bring them their Starbucks every morning, have their nannies shop at Whole Foods for everything, and have no idea what the smell of Manhattan sewage is like. They're not real New Yorkers. So please, step away from my heels with your stroller.

Ok, I'm done. Sometimes I just need to purge the NYC from my system. I'm better now. :-)

Sound of Music and the wonders of bacon

The Sound of Music was an AMAZING experience, and I'm so sad that it's over. It's been closed 2 weeks and I could still happily be doing the show 9 times a week. The children were lovely (for the most part), and my cast was the greatest bunch of crazies I've ever had the pleasure to work with. We played lots of Clue - and by "lots of Clue" I mean nearly every night we played. We are Clue Ninjas at this point. No one understands the extent to which we love it. We felt like drug pushers trying to get a 3rd person to play with us every night. "You can quit any time. All the cool kids are doing it..." Needless to say, I'm jonesin' for a Clue fix. We had a lovely time going to a haunted house, having our very own Fireside Amazing Race, eating amazing cheese curds and burgers at the Old Fashioned in Madison, WI, drinking like we were in college, and crocheting to our heart's content. It was a great 3 months.

I found out about a week before we closed that I'll be going back right after Xmas to do another big band revue, Those Fabulous 50's and 60's. (You might remember last year we did Those Fabulous 50's, Part 2. The Fireside audience LOVES that era.) Most of the cast from last year is doing it again, which is great. I also found out that I'll be performing in the Fireside's New Year's Eve show. 2 shows in one contract. Love it. So right now, before those contracts start, I'm just chilling in NYC, unemployed. I haven't gone stir-crazy yet, probably because I know I have 2 shows coming up. But I am looking for part-time seasonal work. Tomorrow I apply at the Hershey's store in Times Square, and then Tuesday I'm applying at a BBQ restaurant. It would be great to be able to make a little cash before the shows start up.

In other news, while in Wisconsin I discovered the wonders of maple bacon. I wasn't even aware of its existence, and now my life is changed. Before Sound of Music, I would spend $9.00 at least once a week, sometimes twice, on my favorite dish at the local diner, Igloo Cafe - eggs benedict. I thought that dish was so perfect one could never improve upon it. But now I've discovered the wonders of substituting fried eggs for the poached eggs, and MAPLE BACON for the Canadian bacon. Just writing about it gives me the shakes. I LOVE it so much. So now my taste buds are super happy, and my pocket book is happier. $9.00/week, sometimes more, really begins to add up. Yay!

That's about it. I suck at updating. The end. :-)

Lakes, VA, and a triumphant return to the 'Bein!

I had a great time in Columbia, SC with Morgan! I got to her adorable apartment upstairs in an old house around 4pm. Friday night we went out to dinner and then saw a jazz fusion band play. The next day we went to her boyfriend's house on the lake and took a boat ride. He took us to a little cove by an overpass and we swam around for a couple hours drinking Blue Moon. And by "swam around" I mean "lounged in the floaty chairs." It really was my idea of a perfect summer afternoon. As I was sitting in the floaty chair, I thought this is really how I envisioned my life. Can't I open a theatre somewhere on a lake in the Carolinas? That way I can have my dog and house and car and porch hammock and still do what I love. After the boat ride, we played Drunk Cranium. It's like regular Cranium, except I can't really remember a lot of it. Apparently we still beat the crap out of the boys. We took another dip in the lake once it was dark out, but soon got out because it was FREEZING!

I drove back Sunday morning with the help of my dad's GPS. I have no idea how people drove before GPS. It has completely spoiled me.

As soon as I got back from Columbia, my dad, my sisters and I left for Williamsburg, VA. We spent all Monday at Busch Gardens riding rides til we puked (not really) and seeing crazy acrobat shows (really). The next day we did some outlet shopping and I bought my 2nd pair of jeans! I know, I know...I'm ok, I don't know what came over me. (I really don't like jeans, they constrict me. I'd much rather be in some floofy goucho pants that feel like blankets, but I realize how fashion-challenged they make me look.) That night Elisabeth and I watched TV while Dad and Mary Kate went on a Ghost Walk Tour.

Now I'm back in NC and my week and a half at home has suddenly turned into 2 days. Joe is here, and Saturday morning we're leaving for Wisconsin. BUT we're making a pit stop in WESTERVILLE, OHIO Saturday night to see Last Night of Ballyhoo at the 'Bein! I haven't been back since July 2006, and I'm old enough now that the only class I knew is the one that just graduated. We'll only be there for a few hours, so we might hit up Hounddog's for dinner and then Old Bag after the show. I do miss that sweet little town. Undergrad, not so much. Although times were simpler! I now pay 4 x the rent I paid then and my friends now live an hour commute away instead of a 10 minute leisurely stroll across campus.

I suck at blogging.

Ok, so I haven't blogged in about trillion years. I clearly suck at this. It's ok, here's my latest attempt to update everyone out there in the "Blogosphere" (did I really use that word?) on my life.

I've been back in NYC since the band show at the Fireside closed at the end of February. I've been working at the soul-sucking diner, but now I'm in North Carolina visiting my family before driving back up to Wisconsin. I'm playing Leisl in The Sound of Music at the Fireside this fall. I really need a day job that I don't loathe. I remember my day job in college and think back on how pleasant it was and how lovely my coworkers were. I didn't know how good I had it back then! Ever since I moved to NYC, every boss I've had is a crazy person. Literally.

Joe is keeping himself insanely busy managing a sweet little romantic restaurant in Hell's Kitchen and working as a sex education outreach coordinator at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital. He raps about condoms. It's great. When he's not working (which is never), then he's rearranging the furniture in our apartment and/or cooking some new dish he watched on Iron Chef.

Meanwhile, I long for suburbia. I did a reading of a musical last week on Long Island. I had never taken the Long Island Rail Road. Turns out, it's amazing! The trains are clean, the intercoms are clear, the people are not scary, there is no vomit on the floor, and I don't feel like my purse is probably going to be stolen by the gross guy with his junk out at the other end of the train car. All of this I cannot say for the New York City subways. I want a car and a yard and a dog and all those grown-up things that you begin to want once 25 hits you across the head. Don't get me wrong - I do love the good things about NYC. The free shows, music, great restaurants, proximity to any Broadway show I want, weekend brunches with unlimited mimosas...but I definitely don't want to stay in NYC for many years to come.

This weekend I'm going down to Columbia, SC to visit my friend Morgan. She and I were roommates our senior year at NCSA. I haven't seen her in way too long, so I'm looking forward to it. Maybe we'll push our beds together and sleep with our heads at opposite ends after a delicous dinner of Spaghetti-O's just like old times. Except this time we'll have wine. mmmmm

Obama-tacular!

It's about time for an update! I'm in the middle of my run of Lucky Stiff in Florida, and things are going well, for the most part. I'm really having a fun time onstage every day. I get to sing some great Ahrens and Flaherty music. The Dog Song a.k.a. Times Like This is such a joy to sing 8 times a week. Not only that, but since I've been here, WE GOT A NEW PRESIDENT!! I am so unbelievably proud and ecstatic about President-Elect Barack Obama, I can't even express it. I boo-hoo'ed like a baby during his acceptance speech. I had had a bottle of wine and then proceeded to call Joe and tell him that we can now "pop out babies, since Obama is the president." Yeeaaahh...I'm glad he's already decided I'm the one...any other man would've been scared shitless.

The only part of the election that truly makes me sad is the passage of all of the propositions that take away gay citizens' rights. I've already unfriended one guy on Facebook I went to high school with who decided to scrawl hateful crap all over my wall on the subject. I'm so deeply offended by these propositions and their supporters. No, that is not ok. I will stand up and support all of my friends who are the victims of a society that is trying to legislate hate, discrimination, and bigotry.

In less than a month I start rehearsals for Those Fabulous Fifties, Part 2 at the Fireside Theatre in Wisconsin. I'm really excited to go back there - they treat their actors so well, it's like a breath of fresh air! I have a feeling I'll be singing lots of pretty ingenue ballads a la Connie Francis' Where The Boys Are. We'll see. I also want my Equity card. That's my next goal. I'm ready!

My little sister turned 18 yesterday. I feel really old now. The 3 of us are 18, 20, and 24 years old. When the hell did that happen?

Also, am I the only person who is obsessed with watching John and Kate Plus 8? It's a little ridiculous. Those children are so adorable they make me ovulate. Ow, there it goes again.