Just do your job

A favourite,

INTO my heart on air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,	5
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

practice.

It was really nice to meet up with some friends of mine I hadn't seen for a while.  Meggan, Tasha, Eric and Suki who had been studying theatre in New York for the previous two months- and Carrie Colton who was

 about to set forth on her own adventure doing theatre in Hong Kong. 

We all talked about the thing we all love to talk about the most, that being theatre, and the plans & hopes we had for a theatre of our own unique workings.  A balance of art & spirit, which we have all believed to be one & the same.  My good friend Hye Soo brought up a point about what a good exercise it would be to try to write a monologue a day- just be working on some form of art a day.  Be it gathering monologues, my friend Chris Bodily (http://hatrobot.tumblr.com/) who's for the past year & a half or so has been doing a sketch journal.

So here it goes- nothing at all to that scale.  But you know.... practice.  

This is a situation that happened to me today- in a new segment I'm gonna call:

The art in Others...

1.  Theology @ a trainstop

I left work today and walked to the trax station and took a look @ my seating prospects.  Farthest seat away from me sat a larger grey haired man with a bit of a gut who was starring at me vs. two ladies nearest me with laugh lines.  I took the seat next to the women and quickly plugged

 in.  I had my iPod in as always and was plugged into whatever- it was on shuffle as I had no clue what I wanted to listen to.  A few moments later two older men came around the corner and joined the ladies, their wives obviously and so I scooted over towards Señor Stares-a-lot.  The elderly men take the seats graciously, one of them saying to me "May there be jewels in your crown."

I had never heard that expression before.  

Paul McCartney was playing at that time.  

"What are you listening to?"  asked Señor.

"Oh.... Paul McCartney.  Flaming Pie..."

He went on to talk about the fact that I didn't have an instrumental piece of Paul's.  A song that I guess played while the Berlin Wall was being torn down.  I didn't feel to uncomfortable surprisingly- he didn't intimidate me and I didn't feel too unsettled, even though I realized as he continued to talk to me he lacked a few social practices- but who am I to social practices?

He told me he was alien.  I said I was too, being resident alien.  He learned I was Canadian and that I was a dual citizen.  He said he was too- he was a citizen to the state & to the federal government- and that in truth I was a triple citizen. 

He told me he was alien and from a different universe- the universe of Kolob where God lives- and where we are all from.  

"Are you Mormon?"

"Yes."  I replied.

"Oh well then you know all about that."  He concluded.  

He told me about how a proper country should be run- with three figures.  Religion, Corporations & Government.  A woman in a purple dress was Religion- and there was some significance in the colour of her dress whether the cause/religion was just or not.  The beast was Government, an ox or bison or something like that..... I don't remember what Corporation was.

Then something he said struck me.

He said that "Everything man touches fails, and is not for good."

Without really thinking I replied.  "At least the intention for the most part is good, people try.  That's what counts I think."

He thought at that for a moment.... and continued on in his rantings.  That in revelations the first thing they saw coming out of the ground was sheep- sheep with two horns...

My mind began to wander about what he had said.  Lines from the movie Away We Go came to my mind:

  

"Everything's already broken, so why don't we just keep on breaking it again and again?"

He kept talking and I starred across the street. In front of Abravanel Hall there is a water fountain of a diagonal

jets spurting out water. A black & white dog was happily running through this fountain, snapping and biting each

of the jets streams in turn- each one more entertaining and taunting than the one before. His owner watched him,

resting in the shade with his bike. The dog ran back and fourth, biting, drinking and cooling off in the cold water.

You could tell the dog was having his idea of a perfect afternoon.

"Look at what fun that dog's having." I told the man. He looked at the dog for a moment, and continued on.

A korean woman holding two year old passed me at that moment, the elderly men to my right each got up and offered

the mother their seat. The woman sat appreciatively and the ladies quickly began playing & squeezing the boy. The mother looked grateful.

The man continued onward- ranting and stating matter-a-factly the failing case the world was. My optimism took

a point.

Things tend to be quite simple.

Obviously...

As you can see I'm choosing to retool my blog. It was in need of a renovation- perhaps that would inspire me to want to write more. I took a little blog hiatus but the time has come to give it new life again...
A few things that you may have missed since the last night I wrote in- we're gonna do this in bullets:

-attended and finished ACTF. My dear friend Suki received a thousand dollar scholarship to attend a Playwrighting/Directing/Acting New Works workshop for two months in New York City for it. (where she is currently at as I type)

-Hye Soo & Eric combined their lives together and were married beginning of this year- they are now pregnant and are expecting a baby boy @ the end of this year.

-I finally got a job, two in fact. I currently am working as a Ticket Agent for Utah Symphony/Utah Opera, AND as Front of House Manager @ the Deer Valley Music Festival up in Park City Utah on the weekends.

-Learned how to ride a motorcycle
-Alison finally finished Harry Potter
-Discovered Dirpy.com
-Ali & Dan got some chickens so we've all been getting rural.

-I was in my first paid professional gig this last Spring (first of many let's hope). Meat & Potato Co. production of Everyman and we performed for three weeks @ the Rose Wagner Theater downtown. I played the roles of 2nd Horseman (War), God, Goods, and a Devil.

Anything else important? Been on two dates, took two trips to Canada, visited my old home in Washington.... a little over two weeks ago my best friend, my little white dog Keemo went on ahead and we put him to sleep. It was very hard but a perfect send off to the friend who's been a tender mercy for me & my family since he came into our lives fifteen years ago.
Finished Lovely Bones, Wuthering Heights, & am now starting my Jane Austen's with Northanger Abbey. Attended some concerts: Ben Folds, The Twilight Sad, Beirut & the worst concert ever- Modest Mouse. (They performed great when you could hear 'em- the crowd was awful!)
With my new job I'm staying true and loyal to my goal to move to London in about a year and a half. I had to add 6 months to that goal as it took me sixth months to actually find a job...
I'm going to start to make weekly goals to stay on track with some of the creative projects that I've wanted to undertake. For example, my Music Blog that I mentioned last February is well on it's way and I should be adding information on a new band within this week... but I also want to get started on my Family Monologues.

So a bunch of projects- but that'll be good as I've got some time to kill.

Music Review Blog_check

Project one is well on it's way! I've mentioned earlier that one of my projects for this year was to create two writing projects- and one of them is on it's feet- the bones are there & it's ready to go.  

I've created a 'Tumblr' account for it- and every month I will be adding my grammatical error'd reviews for albums, new artists (maybe artists that aren't new but I think deserve a closer look) movie scores- all that good stuff.  So if you're interested- if you can stand all my comma slices- then please come check out my new music review blog.

hear--here.tumblr.com

As far as life goes- it's tao.  I'm back from my month's excursion in Cedar City- preforming 'Origins' @ ACTF at Dixie State and @ UVU.  Performing it at UVU again next Saturday.  Got my Neil Simon Festival callbacks next saturday @ BYU.  Obviously have enough time on my hands to create my music blog- one of the writing projects I want under my belt- got a job interview for a job here in Salt Lake- excited for my sister to come home today as she's been with her husbands family down in Texas.  Mom & I are enjoying the Olympics', watching Canada sweep the Olympics' as usual.  My Keemo is looking healthy, better than when first came home from Cedar-

So things are good- to be expected.  

Future creative plans-

Alright- so I've been inspired.

Two projects.

Two new different blogs.

For quite sometime I've had some idea's that I wanted to put into practice.  Recently a friend of mine after hearing previously stated wishes simply told me: well then you should do it.

Funny that all I needed was that phrase to get started.  

So I'm doing it.  Two new blogs, the first: a music blog. With each entry that I've done with 'P.L.A.Y' there's been a bit of music bit @ the end but I want to do a full out Music review blog- where the music (that I investigate monthly anyway) will be review and processed by me- that people can read if they so choose.

The second blog project is one a little more personal to me.  I shall be creating a blog/book of my family.  A family history organized & displayed through monologues.  Recently I was in a production called 'Origins; a Source, a Beginning' (I think I've mentioned it before).  It recently has been remounted and preformed at UTA (Utah Thespian Association) and will performing next week @ the American College Theatre Festival (which I competed in last year).  Yes I am out of college now- but this was submitted before I graduated back from when we did it last April. 'Origins' was where each of us (seven girls) wrote about our 'Origin' one of our defining moments from our lives- I discussed growing up & my family.  Since then I have been inspired- with the amount of dried skeletons in my family's closest, things needed to be exercised.  Nothing too personal- that my siblings or parents or anything would disagree with.... all monologues about the family and family members, all from one point of view.  Some will be beautiful- some will be sad.  It will be my family.

I'm really excited to write it, I've already written a few.  Eventually I'll put it into a book or publish it or something.... it's enough to write about.  

SO those are my plans- I just thought I'd update this blog and & let my few readers or whoever' interested hear some of my future plans.  I'm currently in Cedar for one more week- attending ACTF like I stated earlier in St. George @ Dixie State college.  All of us are real depressed it's not in California like the last two years.  Tomorrow would have meant Disneyland, a tradition it's been for us all to go on the first day (registration "nothing happening" day) at ACTF (which stands for the American College Theatre Festival, for those who don't know).  A week of plays, performances, competitions & for me 'Origins' & 'Next Step' auditions- where I'll be able to have one audition for like 15 representatives of Theatre Company's around the region 8 area.  So here's my fingers crossed for a summer acting gig!

My heart & well wishes go out to my family at this time, especially my mom, keemo (losing weight as ever) & my sister who've been sick since I've left.  Strep, bronchitus- the works it seems like.

Alison- keep up with the Harry Potter (reading it for the first time!)

Hope all of you are well- and again, I'll try to be better with the bloggings.  Expect the new projects I spoke of to surface sometime in the next month- names yet to be chosen.

Signing out!