March

I tried to do some research on Roman comedy last night but didn't get very far. Maybe I'll look into a different topic- I'll figure that out on Wednesday, hopefully.

The streets around me have been fairly quiet recently. Sure, there are still obnoxious periods or evenings with lots of emergency vehicles, but in general, it's been nowhere near as bad as it was for most of last year :)

As a complete waste of time activity yesterday, I decided to count the number of days I wrote each month in each year. I seem to write the least often when I'm in Maryland for long periods of time.
2000:
April- 22
May- 16
June- 14
July- 29
August- 28
September- 28
October- 28
November- 18
December- 26
2001:
January- 25
February- 25
March- 27
April- 18
May- 28
June- 24
July- 26
August- 24
September- 25
October- 22
November- 20
December- 21
2002:
January- 25
February- 23
March- 30
April- 23
May- 26
June- 26
July- 25
August- 19
September- 22
October- 25
November- 25
December- 17
2003:
January- 29
February- 20
March- 22
April- 18
May- 27
June- 28
July- 22
August- 11
September- 18
October- 22
November- 21
December- 21
2004:
January- 19
February- 23
I think I'll see if I can write every day in March. I've come close a few times, but I've never written every day of any month. This seems like an easy month to accomplish that- no big work weekends, no travel plans...

I should try getting to sleep soon. I need an early start tomorrow to my super-busy day.

Didn't get much sleep last night, but got this morning up without much difficulty, finished straightening the apartment, did some work, headed up to school. That was the normal part of the day.

Then I worked on the set in the afternoon. Spent 3 hours putting a bunch of rostra together (platforms, for those who don't know the term rostra), came out pain-free other than feeling a bit weary right after (feel fine now though). I do like this stuff when it goes smoothly (like today). And I do love them power tools ;)

Got home this evening (last Tuesday evening I'll be home for a while, since I have to work more than 1 shift a week on the set and rather than head up there on a day I wouldn't otherwise have to, I figured I'll just do the Tuesday evening shift after playwriting- long day, but worth it) after running some errands, and that's when the phone calls/emails/chats craziness began. I was answering some email, when Andy popped online for a quick chat. Then I had to call Paula, and while I was on the phone with her, Josh popped online for a quick chat and Jay called to talk about his upcoming visit. I hung up with Paula to talk to Jay (while chatting intermittently with Josh), and when I finally called Paula back, the phone rang again. I just let the voice mail get that one (it was Marcell), and when I called her back, I found out she does not have time to get together on Friday (which I actually appreciate since I wouldn't mind using that time to do something productive since Rebecca will be here this weekend, and I probably won't be able to make myself be terribly productive while she's here). Oh, and Paula told me that she and Harvey are coming up this weekend for Mega-Event (maybe I'll head over for a few minutes too), so that will be more time I won't have to be productive (hopefully it won't be too difficult arranging our schedules to make time to see each other). So, when I checked the voice mail and got Marcell's message, I found out that she wasn't the only one who had called and left a message on my home phone today. This afternoon, someone from the Ritz-Carlton/Four Seasons (no idea why this hotel is both a Ritz and Four Seasons- does anyone want to enlighten me? don't feel like taking the time to find out myself) in Chicago called to confirm my reservation for this weekend. Huh? I've never stayed at this hotel and I certainly did not book a room for this weekend, so I have no idea how they had my name and phone number as contact information for this reservation (which was paid for with a credit card). When I called them back to explain my confusion, the woman had no idea how this could happen. I was worried that somehow someone used my credit card for this reservation, but she told me the last 4 digits of the credit card number, and it was not mine (so at least I was not going to be charged for this mysterious reservation). If Rebecca wasn't coming in this weekend and I felt like doing something crazy, I might call back to uncancel and take advantage of a free room in Chicago (as long as I could use miles or get a cheap flight there). In reality, I know I really wouldn't do this, but it was fun to think about for a few minutes as a joke. But I can't imagine where this reservation came from. I checked with Harvey, and he said it definitely wasn't him. And I don't know anyone else who would do something like this. Not that Harvey would do something like this either, but he was the only person I could think of who has at least stayed at this chain of hotels (although he informed me he had not stayed at this particular hotel). I guess it's destined to remain a mystery.

Glad I got home early this evening to hear from all these people (and glad hearing from this many people in one evening does not happen to me all that often, or I'd never get anything done) instead of staying late to work on the set. My original plan this evening was to work and catch up on all the email I got today (it's going to get irritating not having any breaks on Tuesday to do semi-important things like reply to timely emails or run errands or do school work, but it's not a big deal- I'll just stay up late on Tuesdays taking care of things and then maybe sleep a bit later than usual on Wednesdays), and I'll still do that- it'll just be later than planned. In other words, slightly later than it'll be when I do work on the set in the evenings- so I really should have worked on the set tonight and used another night in the future when it would be more important (or if I was just tired and wanted to go home) to skip set construction, but then I would have missed hearing from all these people and would have had to call them back tomorrow, so at least now I don't have to make time for that and can use tomorrow for more important things like my paper.

I'm still so hyper (which is amazing considering that I've had virtually no sleep for the past 36+ hours and virtually no food for the past 24+ hours- and speaking of no food, if I'm going to spend that many hours doing physical labour, I'm going to have to find a way to eat something during the day on Tuesdays so I don't pass out- guess I'll be doing the protein bars thing again), but that's a good thing considering how much I still need to do tonight. So I'll stop here (hopefully for the next few months, I won't have this much to write on Tuesday nights since I won't want to take too much time on a busy day to write here, but I'm kind of determined to write every day this month- we'll see...).

Another reason I should have worked on the set last night? So I could go to the Wallace Shawn reading at the Kaye Playhouse next Tuesday night. Oh well, I really shouldn't take too much time for fun activities this month anyway. This is going to be a ridiculously busy month (almost entirely because of school).

And on that note, I'm off to read "The Caretaker".

It just hit me that it's almost the weekend. I need to get things organised enough so I don't feel as scattered when Rebecca's here. At least I still have 2 nights, as she's not arriving until Saturday.

I'll definitely be having a sleep-deprived March, but if I survive March, April should be a breeze.

Today wasn't a good day in general, but I don't have time to go into details (I don't even remember all the details anymore). I'll just say that was just a gloomy day and nothing seemed to go smoothly.

The biggest problem of the day was playwriting. Our instructor decided that we must not be reading the plays she's assigned since none of us share very much in the discussions. I just think that, as a group, we're not big talkers. We share as little about the scenes we write as we do about the plays we read, and it's like pulling teeth to get more than 2 of us to volunteer read each other's scenes out loud. But she decided to have us do some busy work this weekend. We have to take the last 3 plays we read and answer some basic questions about them (including what happens in each scene- how time consumingly ridiculous). That would be bad enough, but it does get worse. I read 2 of the plays and already returned one of them to the library (so I have to take the time to get it out again- hopefully there is a branch close by that has it and hopefully that branch is open tomorrow). The other play I didn't read because none of the libraries in the city have it- none of the public branches, none of the universities, even the Performing Arts Library, which has every play under the sun didn't have this one and only one bookstore in the city has it. Fortunately, the Virginia Tech Library has it, so Andy, being the amazingly wonderful person that he is, is going to read it for me and write up the questions (just have to hope that Tech isn't just saying that they have it but really it's been missing for years and no one noticed). I'm about halfway finished answering the questions for "The Caretaker" (which is the most difficult one since nothing actually happens in this one- very difficult to write what doesn't happen in each scene), but it's a half-assed job. And I don't care. I'm just thrilled I was able to figure out how to do the assignment and not take 5 years on it (usually I can never figure out how to do an in between job- usually I either can do it or not do it). I just don't have the time. I will get it done but not without rearranging the weekend (for the 50th time). I really feel like she's treating us like 10 year olds. I mean, even if all of us weren't doing the reading assignments, what difference does it make? This is all such a waste of time. School is difficult enough without having to deal with things like this.

Anyway, Rebecca's now coming up a few hours later than originally planned and her father, after several different decisions, decided he's coming up on Sunday. So I'll answer the "Ma Rainey" questions tomorrow before she gets here, then I'll hang out with her a bit, then see Paula and Harvey for a little bit, and the go swing dancing with Rebecca.

And my research topic has changed once again. I'm now comparing the culture during the Empire period of Rome with our current culture (the need for violence and spectacle). Hopefully I can find enough research.

Okay, I'm too busy to write anymore.

I forgot to mention the other day that Eytan called, wanting to schedule a visit. I told him I was really busy, and he suggested June. June sounds great (provided I'm not in Switzerland the weekend he wants to come, which I won't know until I find out the Hunter summer schedule).

And yes, there are even more visitors coming out of the woodwork. Michelle, Jon's wife, called last night to tell me she's going to a wedding shower in Jersey next weekend and wants to come up early to spend a night in the city. I told her it's fine to stay here, but I won't have much time (if any) to hang out.

Launch is playing some of my familiar, comfort music today (Tull, Emmet Swimming, my favourite Dar Williams song ["February"], one of my favourite Better Than Ezra songs ["This Time of Year"]...). Just what I needed during my little break. I laugh every time it plays the little "Get LaunchCast Plus and listen to music related to your mood" commercial. I don't need to upgrade; it does it anyway :)

Have I mentioned recently how much I love Bill Maher?

I guess I decided I wanted to be awake the entire 24 hours of my birthday, since I never went to sleep last night. Okay, that's not the reason, but I like it better than the real reason, which is just that I never got tired enough to fall asleep.

So, Rebecca got here, we hung out for a bit, and then went to dinner at some Italian restaurant on the UES. We wound up there because I stupidly had us get off the bus 10 blocks short of where we were heading (my goal was to check out Scania, and this is the second time that didn't happen- the first being that the store was closed due to lack of heat when I tried to go around a month ago), and I decided there wasn't enough time to go to Scandia and it really wasn't worth it and there was a restaurant that we both thought sounded good right where we were standing when I finally realised we got off the bus too early. And the restaurant (wish I remembered the name of it- note to self: it's on 1st somewhere between 78th-80th on the west side of the street) was a good choice- cute, cozy, not crowded, and I liked what I ordered (tortellini with ham and peas). After dinner, Rebecca came back here, and I went to visit Paula and Harvey for a half hour.

The swing dance was okay. It was mostly regulars (who were really good and fun to watch), so I kind of felt like I was intruding on a private party, especially since I don't really know what I'm doing. I danced a little, but it wasn't as fun as the other 2 times I went with Rebecca in Boston.

Rebecca and I got back here, I think, around 2:30 and talked some more about our respective lives (haven't done that in ages- it felt good to catch up). She finally went to sleep around 4:00, and I still wasn't tired, so I got started on answering the questions for "Ma Rainey" and in a few minutes I'll go meet Paula at Norma's. The plans changed twelve times (Rebecca and I go, Rebecca, David, and I go, none of us go, Rebecca and I go, Rebecca and I sleep in instead...), but at least the final result is that I get to go. Still love that place.

Then I'll come back here and finish up the school stuff (and maybe get a start on my research paper) while Rebecca spends time with her dad and brother. Tonight is dinner at Teany and then off to The Living Room. So, I won't get to watch Maryland's final game, but that might a good thing if they lose (I don't need to see them lose their final game and their chance of being in the tournament). But I'll think positive thoughts between 8-10 PM. Go Terps!

Just realised that next year it'll be difficult to route for both Maryland and Tech, both being in the ACC. But I'm really a Maryland basketball fan and a Tech football fan (since that's what I got used to watching most often at each place), so maybe I can stay a fan of both schools.

Yesterday I met Paula, and we walked over to Norma's. On the way, she looked across the street and asked me what I thought the thing she saw was. I looked and noticed a group of 2 adults in regular clothes and 10-15 boys (maybe about 12-14 years old) in dracula capes. The boys were all moving at the exact same pace and almost at the speed of a vampire. They looked evil. You probably had to see it in person to appreciate how disturbing an image it was to see. I decided to take a picture, but by the time I got my camera out, they were halfway down the block. I decided to try to take a picture of the back of the group anyway, but my camera became possessed. I turned it on, and it started zooming by itself and then turned itself off when I clicked the button to take a picture. I tried again and the same thing happened. I think that strange group broke my camera. If Paula wasn't there to see this thing, I would have thought I was hallucinating from lack of sleep. But she did see it, and was just as freaked out. Paula is as rational as I am, and we spent the first few minutes of breakfast trying to find a logical reason for what this strange group really was. First we looked at the direction from where they were coming. They were heading south from the park, which was 2 blocks north of there, so the places they could have been coming from were limited (that helped). We both realised that the Jekyll & Hyde club on the side of the street they were walking on, but then both realised that they wouldn't have been open at 8:00 AM on a Sunday. Then I told her that it was Purim, so maybe the kids were coming from a costume party. She reminded me that it was 8:00 AM. Oh well, it would have made sense, if they were older, that they were coming from an all night costume party somewhere. But why were they all wearing the same cape? And how did they move so quickly? We never did come up with a logical explanation. That's the second mystery of the week for me- the first being the hotel confirmation call. That those 2 things happened in the same week freaked me out, and the feelings were heightened due to lack of sleep. Anyway, breakfast- good, camera breaking- bad. Oh, and the other strange part of the camera incident? I used the camera 10 minutes before I tried to take a picture of the group, and it worked fine.

Another slightly negative thing of the day was my eyesight. I realised that lack of sleep really messes with my depth perception. Maybe the part of my brain that helps my eyes see depth was able to get some sleep yesterday morning since it didn't seem to be helping me at all. On the way to and from breakfast, I had to walk through 6 revolving doors, and each time I had trouble figuring out where the part of door that you push was. And forget about stairs- stairs were hardly recognisable (thank goodness for hand rails, my signal that stairs were ahead). But I took my time walking and no accidents were had.

Although, I do have something sort of wrong with my foot (feels like a stress fracture or something). It started huring a little on Saturday, hurt a little yesterday, and today (I'm assuming because of the weather) hurts a lot. Hopefully it'll feel better in a few days.

Anyway, after breakfast, I did some more work on the busy-work assignment (as well as some other things that needed taking care of) and Rebecca tried to figure out plans with her father. Then I had a coffee date with Andy via cell phone at the "Osborne Building"- very fun. I got home and Rebecca was still here, so we had snowballs while waiting for her father to arrive. Oh, and I played guitar for a few minutes- it's been ages since I've done that.

After her father arrived, we went down to the LES. Dinner at Teany was great. Yes, I actually liked a vegan restaurant and am publicly admitting it. After dinner, I went with them to The Living Room and caught the first 2 acts (1st guy was pretty awful and the 2nd guy was generic but good).

After I treated myself to a taxi home, I checked my email and found the "Roosters" assignment from Andy waiting for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! It made me so much more relaxed as I got ready to finally get some sleep.

And I went to sleep with the theme from "Taxi" in my head (no idea why).

Oh, and an added bonus was that my birthday was on a Sunday- the most quiet traffic night of the week.

Today's been busy! Fortunately, I found time to fix a few things on the "Roosters" assignment and now that whole ridiculous thing is out of the way (other than printing it at school tomorrow morning).

Tonight I'm going to a concert performance of "Dream True" at Cooper Union with Jennifer. Don't know much about it, but some of my favourite Broadway people are performing- Jeff McCarthy, Jessica Molaskey, Kelli O'Hara... I sort of wish I could stay home and be productive and/or rest, but I already bought the tickets.

Tomorrow will be my first Tuesday from hell...

And I almost remembered my dream from last night. It was some sort of fun adventure dream.

My foot feels better today. And I even managed to do a lot in the shop & theatre that involved being on my knees a lot (you know, all that screwing can require a lot of acrobatics, especially when you're doing it with several people underneath platforms with very little room), and they don't even hurt (although I'll probably be feeling it tomorrow).

Now I have 30 more minutes of my self-awarded break before I tackle some things tonight.

Tomorrow, along with several other things, I will get a major start on research for my paper.

Oh right, I knew there was something else school-related from my day. It was so long ago (almost 12 hours) that I almost forgot. I got a B- on my first theatre history paper. Fine with me (that's what I got on my first paper when I took her theatre history II class last year).

And now I must get started on researching Roman culture (I hate when my life is so consumed by school it's all I have to write about here).

So I got to sleep sometime early this morning and planned to sleep until whenever I woke up. Well, that time happened to be 8:00 AM since that's when the phone rang. I was expecting a grocery delivery between 11-2, but they called at 8:00 to say they were in the neighbourhood and asked if they could come deliver the stuff then. I wouldn't have minded the early start to my day as much if I didn't wake up feeling like a cold was coming on. I took some Advil, but I've been feeling progressively worse throughout the day. So, I've been trying to get as much done as I can and make time for rest breaks (as opposed to my do-some-other-work-as-a-break breaks).

But this has been a long enough break- time to get back to the Roman Empire.

I never got anywhere yesterday with my scene for playwriting. Oh well, I'll work on it this weekend or something (just hope our lovely instructor doesn't ask me to read mine today).

I guess a lot of NYC residents were getting around the rental car discounts not being availble in NYC by going to Jersey since Avis (and I'm sure the rest of them are doing the same thing) is now excluding discounts in the entire Tri-State area. A full price rental is getting outrageous, and when you add insurance on top of that... I first get mad at the car rental companies but then realise that I'd do the same thing if I owned a car rental company. Then I get mad at the fact that there is not a less expensive and more reliable way out of the city. Then I get mad that most places in this country don't have public transportation since I wouldn't need to rent a car if they did. Yep, the car rental companies know there isn't a better way out of the city and that we need cars at our destinations, and they're making us pay for it.

But on a good note Launch opened up with Tull's "Broadford Bazaar" this morning- nice choice.

Yesterday morning I had a long, WINDY walk to Duane Reade to stock up on things for my cold (even though most of it is useless) and then up to school. Note to self: look for a hat at a children's store since the one-size-fits-all adult hats always fall off on a windy day.

My favourite Hunter student comment yesterday? We've moved onto Asian theatre in our theatre history class, and yesterday we started talking about Indian, Sanskrit drama. A student raised her hand and asked, "I thought we were going to be talking about Asian theatre?" The instructor tried to tell her as nicely as possible that India was on the continent of Asia. And before that, the same student asked her what the word "sage" meant.

But then, for the first time ever, I had an interesting conversation with another student. She actually reminded me of myself (strange anyway, especially strange at Hunter). She was a yoga person (dancer, yoga, same difference) with a non-career-related knee injury who ranted about stuff I rant about. It was such a random conversation. That, on top of the fact that I was in a daze from being sick, made the whole situation seem kind of surreal.

I managed to get some books for my paper during my break yesterday, but the library didn't have 5 of the books that they said were available and on the shelves. Oh well, hopefully the stuff I did get will have enough information for my paper. I actually sent her an email this morning asking for an extention so I can just concentrate on the midterm material this weekend. It's so difficult to concentrate being this sick, and I just don't think I can do both the paper and the midterm. Although, Josh just informed me that the Discovery Channel is having a show on Roman gladiators tomorrow night, so I'll try to watch most of that to see if it has anything I can use.

The disaster in Madrid has brought the cops with machine guns and bomb sniffing dogs back on our street corners. While trying to get around some slow people yesterday on the crowded sidewalks, I almost bumped into one of the dogs. Oops- have to be more careful. I can just see myself getting arrested for interfering with their duties.

I got an email from Michelle yesterday morning that she might not make it up today since her grandmother was in the hospital and probably wouldn't make it. She went up to the hospital and got to see her before she passed away. So she'll be going to the funeral tomorrow and therefore didn't come up to New York. I feel badly for the reason she won't be coming, but with my schedule and the fact that I'm sick really makes me feel better that she can't make it.

I didn't want to write about it before since then it would be real, but there's no denying it anymore. A few days before my birthday, it started to feel like I had a tooth growing. My whole mouth kind of hurt for a week but not enough to really do anything about it. Well, now I can feel the tooth pushing through. Why do I still have teeth growing every few years?

Okay, time to get back to school stuff...

I slept well from 2-5 this morning (good thing I woke up at 5:00 feeling rested since I had/have a ton to do today). Still am exhausted and congested, but my fever's gone.

I've done about 3/4 of the research for my paper (9 typed pages of notes). Still need to find some sources on modern stuff this evening and then watch the gladiator stuff on the Discovery Channel tonight. Haven't done a thing about studying for my midterm though. Guess I'll be starting on that tomorrow. And I only spent about 15 minutes cleaning the apartment today. I wound up getting dizzy, so I'll put that off for tomorrow as well. Tomorrow's going to be an exhausting day, which will make working on the set on Tuesday even more difficult than it already is (and I'm sure recovering from this illness won't help with that either). I HATE SCHOOL!

Random comment: I hate when a company I can't stand has good ads. Verizon's new TV ads are pretty clever.

Of course the research part of a research paper is the easy part for me (obviously), but Rebecca said she would help me with the organising part (the easy part for her), so it might not be as horrendous as it usually is. We'll see...

I feel 80% better today.

Go Terps! I am truly impressed. Got to do my brackets during the commercials of the "Colesseum Story" (which was somewhat useful) last night. Terps went from the possibility of not going to the Big Dance to being a 4 seed- impressive.

Large number of emergency vehicles going by today.

Time to get back to studying.

Today was both good and bad.
Bad: It was nasty out (snow, sleet, ice, traffic), so I tried to take the subway up to school. First there's the usual problem of the blocked entrance from the will-it-ever-be-finished Bloomberg Tower. So I went to the downtown entrance and planned on doing the walk down the stairs, walk up the stairs to get going uptown. But those stairs were blocked off. So I went out to 60th St. and tried again. The train then took 20 minutes to arrive since there were issues with a police investigation at 14th St (of course, I never got to learn what happened). I had a moment of panic about taking the train but quickly got over it (I actually visualised the train blowing up when it left the station). Then a train arrived, but it was too crowded for me to get on. Another train showed up 10 minutes later, and it was just as packed, but I shoved my way on since I was already late. So I got to class 10 minutes late (a first for me) and didn't have time to return the umpteen books and videos to the library (heavy lugging those all around). I would have been better off slip-sliding up the sidewalks rather than take the train, but by the time I was waiting for the train, I figured I already wasted too much time, and I should just continue waiting.
Good: Our theatre history instructor helped us out by postponing the due dates of both the midterm and paper- so the midterm is next Tuesday and the paper due a week from Friday. So nice.
Bad: Our playwriting instructor told us to write a few scenes of our full length play by Friday as well as read "Top Girls". Guess I'll be working on my play tonight (and I'll read "Top Girls" on Friday in between classes).
Good: Speaking of tonight, why am I currently home? Because the weather was nasty, so I'm not working on the set this evening. And working on the set this afternoon was easy since all we did was build frames for flats (although my drippy nose was a bit of a problem- always something).

I was looking at some random job application last night and found this statement a little creepy:
"If I am offered employment, I agree to submit to a physical examination whenever requested."
Just don't like the way it's worded.

I started writing the first scene for my play today, and I have a direction- a main theme, a very minor theme, some of the scenes that I want to include from the story, and ideas of how to build the tension (don't know how it will end yet but I do have an image of 2 characters facing-off, centre stage as the lights dim). My ideas seem to work as of now (but I still need to think a lot of it through) and hopefully this can be a smooth process.

One of the things I've been wanting to do recently is find a CD filled with important information that I managed to misplace. I seldom misplace things, so I don't usually get upset the few times in my life that happens, but this CD was pretty important. Fortunately, after only a few minutes today, I found it (in a box in the closet- one of the reasons I really want to make time to organise my closet one day in the near future- but I probably won't). Today's a pretty good day.

It's been lightly snowing all day, but nothing's sticking to the ground (just the roofs/awnings/balconies).

Oh, and I completely forgot it was St. Patrick's Day until I saw Google's festive decorations. I must really be absorbed in school- I can never avoid all the advertisements/event listings in this city. Later I heard bagpipes in my neighbourhood (which clashed with all the car horns).

I finished an acceptable amount of my play this morning. I like the basic idea, but I think I want to change the details, which means getting rid of large sections of dialogue and replacing it with something else that I haven't figured out yet. Maybe I can work on it this weekend as a break from studying for the midterm and organising my paper.

It's supposed to snow some more tonight/tomorrow. I plan on leaving really early tomororw morning in case there are subway issues, plus I needed to leave early anyway to use the printer before class.

I also wrote the scene we were supposed to do last week. So now I can print that out tomorrow morning as well and put it in the folder with the rest of my finished work.

Now I'm just taking a very small break and watching a little basketball. So far, I have a clean bracket. Wonder if that will be the case by the end of the night? It could be. I usually do well picking the upsets in round 1 (even when I haven't been paying attention to most of the season).

Okay, break over.

I overslept this morning but woke up with plenty of time to get to class- just not with plenty of time to print out my stuff. So I guess I'll be doing that next week. Good thing the playwriting instructor doesn't actually collect anything until the 30th.

Today I injested entirely too much information. I went from reviewing stuff on Greece, Rome, etc., and then went on to Sanskrit Drama and learned details of a Sanskrit play in theatre history, then went on to the world of psychology for my play, then went on to listen to the beginning of three very different plays and got caught up listening to those worlds in playwriting, then got home and had to look at some Hawaii info as per Neil's request (I guess I could have waited on that one, but it was quick and easy) as a few other things like some research for my play and basketball scores. By the time I got to basketball scores, I couldn't take in anymore information. I saw how I did in my brackets but could not retain which teams did what. I still don't really remember who played today. Just too much information; and actually, it's probably more of a too-much-completely-different-information that is what's making this day exhausting. And now I'm supposed to do some theatre history studying? While I'd love to take the night off, I just can't do that. My schedule is still jam packed, and I haven't even included things on the list like getting things organised for my trip to Maryland, dealing with mail, laundry (which my building makes so difficult)...

No snow at all last night or today. Why do we read weather reports again?

And even though the weather wasn't really nasty, it was still freezing, so I decided to take the subway to school, so I could be warm for a few blocks rather than walk the other half of the way in the wind (when will my subway entrance be open?). Four downtown trains came before an uptown train showed up! And then of course when the uptown train did finally arrive, it was beyond packed (I still squeeezed on). Why does this always happen?

I haven't been paying a ton of attention to the news recently, so when Paula told me today of the lead issues in the DC drinking water, I was completely surprised. What a mess.

I only got a tiny bit of studying done last night since instead, I talked to Andy for an hour (soooo worth it even though I had to make up that hour in my already too busy day today).

And in other procrastination news, I was bad and watched about 15 minutes of basketball this evening. I watched the exciting/frustrating end of the Maryland game and in between watched Stanford lose to 8 seeded Alabama. I had Stanford in the Final Four. I knew I wouldn't do well this year. The rest of my brackets still look okay though (and I did have Maryland losing to Syracuse).

So I think what I'll do now is this: organise/write a little more of my paper, then try to get to sleep early, and wake up super-early (but still get enough sleep so my brain is rested for a BUSY tomorrow).

I tried to go to bed early- that didn't really work (I think I finally fell asleep around 3:00). I still got up at 6:00 this morning and felt more alert than I thought I would but then somehow went back to sleep, and when I woke up again, I wasn't feeling as alert. I was planning on spending most of the day studying and then dealing with my paper with the leftover time. But this morning, I decided to check the organisational stuff Rebecca sent me for my paper in case I needed clarification from her, and that's when I really got overwhelmed. I didn't understand a lot of what she did and was even more confused about the order in which she put things. So that started me off in a bad mood. I put the paper stuff away, got out the books to start studying, and I couldn't concentrate. It was as bad as last night. This morning was supposed to be a fresh start, and it's not going well at all. And this is my mood with just thinking in terms of one day at a time. If I even start thinking about a few days ahead of time, I really get overwhelmed and upset and angry. So I'm trying not to do that. Instead, I'll take each lousy, overwhelming day at a time. Why does school seem so much more difficult for me than for most people? Why can I not get through this bullshit without being completely miserable?

Okay, that didn't make me feel any better. I'll have to figure something else out.

As for the paper, I'm 80% finished. I just have to do the introduction & conclusion and then proofread/edit.

And I know these are both really good things, but I'm just too tired right now to care. I'll be happy in April (as long as the playwriting goes smoothly).

In a few minutes, I'm going to Fauchon to do some studying (just wanted to wait for my hair to dry a little more- it's cold out there today).

Midterm went as well as expected. I think I did well enough, but it'll depend on how she decides to grade.

Set building was fine in the afternoon (hanging pipes), but by this evening, I was exhausted and had REALLY bad eyesight since I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. Fortunately for me, the set designer changed her mind about some things a little before 7:00, and we came to a standstill. So at 7:00, he told us we could leave! So I have more of an evening! I just hope he doesn't decide that I didn't put in enough hours on the show and makes me do something else at some other point.

I was talking to Harvey for a minute yesterday, and he told me about a woman in Utah who didn't want a caesarian even though it was recommended, had her twins naturally, one of them died, and she was arrested for murder. What's with all the government interference in people's lives? I thought that was something Republicans are not supposed to believe in (I'm not using my limited time for a political rant, otherwise I could go on about this right now). Anyway, Harvey was wondering about suicidal people. What if someone attempts suicide, doesn't succeed, and is arrested for attempted murder? Will they get the death sentence? ;)

Hey New Yorkers, does 104.3 play Tull's "Bungle in the Jungle" followed by "Skating Away" every Tuesday afternoon around 2:00? They have for the past 3 weeks.

The other minor problem I had today with the music while working on the set: their Pink Floyd selection. They played "Hey You" which used to be one of my favourites- that's why I used it in a dance piece I choreographed and performed in high school. When I could dance. So now the song is depressing. I have only heard it once since then (I try to avoid it), and that one time I only heard part of the song because as soon as I heard it come on, I left the vicinity where it was playing until the song was over. I was still a wreck though just from hearing the opening notes. Well, I couldn't leave the vicinity while I was hanging pipes. I had to endure the song. Fortunately, I was partially distracted by pipe hanging, and the song didn't make me as miserable as it did the last time I (partially) heard it.

I plan on sleeping in tomorrow (hopefully the traffic and my body clock will allow it). I deserve it.

I did some work today for the first time in ages (besides a few minor things). That felt good.

I finally figured out a date to see "Jumpers"- April 30th. Looking forward to that. Still don't know when I'll go see "The Distance from Here" though.

I'm so glad I was able to finally get a real night (well, morning, technically) of sleep. I really needed it. That, combined with the fact that today has been the least stressful day in a while (still really busy but haven't felt as rushed), put me in a really good mood. Launch just played Tull's "For Michael Collins", and now my mood is even better. Happy day.

And once again, Launch is picking up on my mood and rolling with it. It's playing all kinds of stuff (Emmet, REM, Mazzy Star...) to keep me in a good mood.

But in slightly irritating news (it can't all be good), the tooth that's growing is really noticeable today.

I hope my good mood can last until after I finish working on my play tonight.

I got a free digital camera (probably not very good quality). Too bad I don't have time to check it out right now. Maybe I'll remember to bring it to Maryland next week. Wow, next week. I can't believe how quickly March flew by. And I can't believe how much I still have left to do (although a number of the big projects are now completed, which feels great).

Today is another big emergency vehicle day. About 3-4 going by every few minutes.

Today's been a good day so far. I only slept a few hours but popped up (literally- I thought it was later than it was and popped up to look at the clock) a few minutes before the alarm went off. Then I got to school early to edit and print my research paper and playwriting stuff. I finshed more quickly than I anticipated (even with the aggrevation of copiers not working, not having the right change to print/copy...), so I was able to go to the bank to make a deposit before class (one less thing to do this evening). Then I still got to class early and happened to run into my history instructor in the hallway. She told me that she wasn't giving back the midterms today but that I did very well on it- I "really had a good grasp of the material", or something like that. I thought I knew most of it well enough but figured she would expect more. It's almost sunny and almost warm today. I had tons of energy while walking home this afternoon. So yes, so far, today has been good.

This evening, I plan on watching "Glengarry Glen Ross" in preparation for my playwriting paper. It'll be the first movie I've watched since January. Just haven't been movie-watching much recently. I think because I've been picky, and my neighbourhood video store doesn't have any of the movies I've been interested in (and don't feel like taking the time to pick up and drop off movies from TLA.

And how are things in the world of basketball? Well, my East Rutherford bracket is still perfect. I was torn between Wake and St. Joe's, but I got lucky and went with St. Joe's. It came extremely close, but they won at the last few seconds. I didn't watch any games last night, but maybe I can watch a few minutes of one tonight before I watch my movie.

I always see work being done on the Bloomberg Tower, but progress doesn't seem to be going very quickly. Anyone know when it will be finished?

I shared the beginning of my play in class yesterday, and I think it was well received. We barely had time to discuss it (we once again finished up later than the time class is supposed to end), but from the little that was said, it made me feel like I was heading in a good direction. Now I just need to figure out how to head in that direction.

I decided to leave a day early for Maryland and kill a few birds with one stone by stopping in Princeton. I've heard it's a beautiful campus, and I've been wanting to check it out for years (it's so close- why haven't I done that yet?). Also, college campuses sometimes give me inspiration for writing, so I'll try to work on my play while I'm there. Then since I can't drive well at night, I'll stay overnight at a nearby Hilton property, so I can get one of the four required stays this calendar year so that the hotel in Hawaii will be free. Then the hotel is near New Hope, PA- another place I've heard about, so I'll check that out before I leave the area to head down to College Park.

Hey Maxine, I had a burrito for lunch today. Is that what you wanted to know more of?

Today's been a fairly productive day. Todd came by this afternoon, then I ran some errands, did a little straightening, and then got a good amount done on my playwriting paper. Now I just need to finish the paper and get my folder (with all playwriting assignments thus far) organised to give to her on Tuesday. I'm not bothering doing anything for Theatre History until April; I'll catch up on all that reading after I get back from Maryland.

It was so windy today. It was one of those days where the tightest fitting hat I own wouldn't stay on my head without me holding onto it the whole time (difficult to do with the bags I was carrying). At least it was fairly sunny while I was out earlier. Currently it's still windy and chilly and gloomy as well. So much for the sunny & warm weekend they predicted.

I only had 2 drinks last night, but without much food yesterday, the 2 felt like 5. I was fine until I got home, but once I got home I was sluggish and still was when I woke up this morning. Just one more reason I prefer pot.

Today actually isn't going at the speed of light for a change. It's wonderful. I could probably afford the time to go out tonight, but I'd rather stay home, get some rest, and hopefully not be as tired this weekend.

And now I'm thinking about leaving for Maryland on Friday and maybe going to Princeton on my way home. It would give me 1 more restful day before the whirlwind Maryland trip.

There was some kind of loud drilling going on at 3:00 AM again. And in the pouring rain?

So I went to sleep late and got up late. Hope I don't have trouble getting to sleep somewhat early tonight so I can leave somewhat early tomorrow.

My right arm is a little sore today. Maybe it's from trying to do right-handed staple gunning at an awkward angle (that seemed easier than going back down the ladder to move it over to get a better angle- maybe I'm too impatient).

I had trouble agreeing with myself on what to listen to this afternoon. Hope I don't have the same problem when picking out music later this evening for my trip. I have done all the clothes packing though, so at least that problematic task is complete.

This east coast weather is going to be a problem. I HATE driving in the rain, and I'm going to be doing A LOT of driving over the next week. Maybe it'll be nice to me and not rain so hard while I'm in the car. Or maybe there at least won't be a tremendous amount of traffic like there usually is.

This trip is going to be crazy. So much time, so little to do. Strike that. Reverse it. Seriously, my list of where I need to be and what I need to do is so cluttered and scattered (or it will be when I organise it this evening).

I signed up again to try to get an appointment for an audition for Jeopardy. Maybe one of these days I'll make it in there to be humiliated in the audition.

I did it. I wrote every day in March.

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