Check in

It's been a while since I checked in with anything, so I figured 7/11 was as good a day as any to update all three of my followers with something mildly humorous (hopefully) less depressing.

Produced another 24 Hour Theatre event this weekend.  This is the third time I've put this event up at Theatre Tribe, but the first time I actually performed.  I directed in the first one (fucking scary), and I ran the show in the second, so I was differently excited this weekend. The part written for me was a hooker.  Surprise!  Or not.  When I told my director I had a lot of fun choosing potential wardrobe he said, "I thought you would."  And feedback from my Stuart, my artistic director and teacher, "You didn't get as nasty as you could have."  Hmm.  Go figure.

I had such a fun and exhausting weekend.  It was artistically draining, and I'm left with the thought that I need to obsess over art.

Life is interesting.  I feel like I'm only now discovering LA, which is lame.  But also exciting.  I went to Jumbo's Clown Room for the first time (with 5 girlfriends, no less).  Um.  AWESOME.  Why have I never been to that mecca before?  The next exciting place I plan to explore is the New Beverly Cinema.  Time to see some grindhouse on the big screen.

I have nothing else interesting to report at the moment.  I could tell you about how I'm getting back into yoga (I wonder if I could do a split by the end of the summer?) or about not eating gluten and trying to get really healthy (definitely not by living off Larabars) but I won't bore you.  Besides, if you ever hang out with me you've heard all about it anyway.

Kisses

Calamity Jane

I was born on the first day of Sagittarius, with a lot of Sagittarius rising in my natal chart.  Someone once told me that Sagittarians are lucky.  This resonated with me, because I have always felt lucky.  If you know me at all, you may be surprised by this. 
I have a long history with disaster.  Calamities befall me with regularity.  At first they seemed innocuous, and there was a pretty good period in my early teens where nothing huge happened, but let me give you the rundown:

Age 2: Fall down and break my nose.  Okay, no biggie, kids fall.
Age 6: Fall down on the playground and break my arm.  Ouch
            A couple weeks after I was done wearing the sling I fell down rollerskating and broke my leg.
Age 7: Almost exactly a year later I tripped in the school parking lot and got run over, breaking my leg in the same place.  At this point my parents gave me an angel pin to wear and said it was my guardian angel, and not to break myself anymore.
Age 9: Go over the handlebars of my bike and chip my two front permanent teeth.  That's right folks, you're looking at caps.
Age 16: Two weeks after getting my license I rearended someone while dressed as a clown.  Talk about mortifying.  Luckily it was just a scratch.
Age 18: Became terribly sick with the flu, got a blood clot in my jugular, spent 6 total days in the hospital, missed a month of school, lost 15 pounds, had to start taking blood thinners, went back to school and everyone thought I was anorexic.
Age 20: T-boned a university van.  Ugh
Age 22: Hurricane Katrina.  'Nough said
Age 24: Headon-sideswiped by another car on an icy road.  Walked away from my totaled car with a broken wrist, some serious bruises, and no desire to get back in a car.
             Prescribed bogus antibiotics because I was bitten by a stray kitten (scary, right?) and had a terrible allergic reaction which landed me in the ER while vacationing in Hawaii.  About a month of more antibiotics followed.  FUN
Age 26-27: Get sick with the flu or strep or a really terrible cold about once a month for 6 months
Age 27: Rearended on Cinco de Mayo.  Keep it coming
Age 28: That thing I said about getting sick once a month?  Repeat.
              Move out to "take a break"
              Four days after moving into my own apartment my car broke down on the freeway in the middle of the night.  Very convenient now that I had no one to rescue me.
              Break up of my relationship of over six years.

That pretty much brings us up to date.  There were some other nasty things in there, but these are the major things.  So anyone looking at this list could say, "Catherine has awful fucking luck."  But I still maintain that I am lucky.  I recently read another blog post that really spoke to me:

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea--julie-jc-peters/

She's talking about a Hindu goddess who's name, Akhilandeshvari,  means Never Not Broken, and who derives all her power from that terrifying state when you have no idea what to do and your life is in shambles and your dreams of the future have disintegrated and who knows what happens next.  Well I say FUCK YES.  Akhilandeshvari is the goddess for me.  Without knowing it I have been kneeling at her shrine for all these years.  All these catastrophes and messed up things that have happened give me the strength and the cunning to look past the small things and see that there's something else out there, even if I don't know what it is.  Channeling her spirit I can recreate myself from the ashes of my old life and become better than before.  And knowing that something else will come along to knock me down again I won't be so bothered by it.  Because that's the way of things.

Lucky me.  Never Not Broken.

Midnight in a Perfect World

In the bathroom in the middle of the night a creepy crawly with many legs skitters across the wall at the flip of the switch.  Sitting there pondering how to get rid of it I jump, thinking I saw another.  I brace my feet against the bathtub, afraid to put them down.  No question: it has to go. 

I look behind the door and there it is, hiding underneath a red washcloth emblazoned with a C.  I try squashing it through the cloth with my foot but I'm too timid.  It will have to be the vacuum.

I plug it in and connect the hose extension in my bedroom, so as not to startle the bug.  I hope it hasn't disappeared; I don't want it running around my apartment.  But it's still there behind the bathroom door.

I mercilessly suck up the offensive bug with the vacuum hose, and then clean all the corners of collected hair and dust to suffocate it.  Then, unwilling to chance that it might still be living, I vacuum the fuck out of my bedroom.  1:45 in the morning, and Suzy Homemaker is hard at work.

Once I finish vacuuming I'm faced with a dilemma.  I need to empty the canister, but it could still be alive in there.  It looked pretty tough.  I could flush it down the toilet, but I just cleaned it today, and what if it escaped onto my hand.  The trashcan in the kitchen is the other option, but again , what if it's still alive?  No, the only real option is emptying the canister into the dumpster outside.  I don't want that gross bug anywhere in my house.

Outside in my pajamas and flipflops I feel exposed.  I finish up as quickly as possible, shaking the dust trap to be sure the offender isn't clinging to the inside. 

When the deed is done I go back inside, put the vacuum away, wash my hands, and get back into bed.  My room is bug free, and I still can't fucking sleep.

Dream

I dreamt I came home and the door to my apartment had blown open.  I went in afraid that Zaphod had run away, but he was still there.  I comforted him, apologizing for my carelessness.  I was so grateful that he was still there.

Impulse Buy

I have realized that sometimes I try to get fulfillment from objects.  You might be wondering why it has taken me so long to come to this realization when you have known this about me for years and years...  What can I say, sometimes it's hard to recognize your own behavior.

Anyway, ever the bargain hunter, when I saw a sweet teal hutch thing on the side of the road on Saturday you can be sure I pulled right over.  Who doesn't brake for furniture on the sidewalk?

I don't quite know how to describe this piece, it's kind of like a china cabinet or hutch, except that it's the height of a bureau... I suppose it could go on top of a chest of drawers or something-then it'd really be a china cabinet. Because it's not quite just shelves.

It kind of reminds me of this obscure item I inherited, which perished in the flood.  We called it a kitchen queen, I don't know if that's accurate.  If I took my new thing and stuck it on top of something else it would look nothing like this.  So the comparison sucks.

There was a guy sitting on a crate in the shade, and when he said $40 dollars I jumped right on it.  I thought for sure this antique... Thing, would be maybe $70 or $80.  So I forked over my Jacksons, and had him help me put it in the back of my "station wagon".  Let's been honest: it's a Jetta.  It's the babiest station wagon you ever saw.  No self-respecting soccor mom would drive this thing.  Only hipsters like me who buy random pieces of street furniture on their way to rehearsal own cars like this.  So off I went to rehearsal then work, wondering all the while how I'd get this thing into my apartment. 

This is where it gets good.  Imagine me arriving home at 11:30 on Saturday night, and realizing I have to rehearse at 9am on Sunday morning in Mid-City.  Do I want to drive there with this rickety antique in the back?  Did I mention that on my way to work I was worried someone would stop short on the freeway, forcing me to brake quickly, and the Thing would shatter against my headrest, causing the glass doors came free of their supports and decapitated me?  Now do you think I wanted it in my car all day?

But I'm a strong woman, and so what if I don't live with a man anymore, I can do it by myself!  Picture me in my white button down shirt and black work pants, pulling this Thing by the top out of the back of my car, realizing there was no way to get it down with one pair of hands.  Picture me holding this Thing almost all the way out of the car, unable to shove it back in because it was weird and cumbersome.  Great idea Cat.  Great fucking idea. 

Luckily I had an roadside emergency kit standing by, and I was able to prop the Thing on top of it and ease it out of the car.  I'm sure that's what my dad had in mind when he bought me the emergency kit.  It's filled with useful items like flares and tire goo (actually I don't know what's in it because I've never opened it) and I used it as a support.  Good job!

Finally got it out of the car undamaged only to be faced with another dilemma.  Now it's in the driveway, and I can't pick it up alone.  A thought flashes through my mind-being forced to leave it out there all night and having another neighbor run it over in their early morning haze.  Great.

Just about this time, when I was at my wit's end, trying to shimmy this Thing to my door, a nice neighbor guy came and helped me.  My neighbors probably think I'm so weird.

So I've got the thing in my apartment.  I moved it over by the couch, and I realized that #1 it doesn't look right in the living room, and #2 I have no idea what to stick in it.  And I cracked one of the pieces of glass moving it around the apartment.  But if that's all the damage it received after it's trying journey I guess that's okay.  I think I'll move it to the other side of the apartment.  And by move I mean awkwardly drag it across the carpet.  I'll put pics up when I'm all rearranged.