I have always thought of myself as an independent person. Being a military brat and an only child I just assumed this was an inherent trait. Having spent the past two years moving from state to state, however, I do find myself question just how independent I really am. I am independent enough to entertain myself when I have to and although I do not enjoy being more or less "on my own" I do adapt to it and find a few upsides. Where I am beginning to learn I am not so independent is in my general well-being. Does that make sense? Let's take cooking for instance: yes, I can cook, but I do not like to cook. This means that my meals primarily consist of sauteed vegetables and pasta although lately the vegetables have fallen by the wayside and my dinners have been pasta and cheese. I almost never buy milk because I do not drink it fast enough and the primary staple of my diet is Special K cereal. Sometimes in the morning I will have an egg. When I really sit down and look at this I think: how do I live? Shouldn't there at least be a salad in there? Maybe more protein than just an egg on the odd morning? This is the type of bland diet I used to chide friends for in college. My roommates and I used to tell one of our friends (turkey, pita, ranch dressing, and Pops cereal) that he was going to get scurvy. Now I wonder: am I going to get scurvy? Or more importantly: will I even know if I get scurvy?
About two weeks ago my contacts began hurting my eyes. I would put the lenses in my eyes and would immediately begin tearing up and sniffling. Of course, this is just one of the downsides to being a contact-wearer so I chalked it up to a scratch in my contacts. I continued to wear my contacts everyday. My glasses have not been updated since I was in high school so they are pretty much useless to me.
As the week progressed I became mildly sensitive to light. If I was looking at someone who was sitting with a light behind them I found it hard to look at the person. My bedside lamp became a nuisance as well and there were times when I had to stare at the floor on the CTA because the sun was too bright. My eyes looked and felt puffy and tired even if I didn't feel all that fatigued. There were also times when the veins in my eyes were so prominent that it almost looked like my eyes were bloodshot.
At first I blamed all of these symptoms on my lack of rest. I say "rest" and not "sleep" because I was getting as much sleep as I always have (in bed by 12:30 or 1am and up somewhere between 7:30 and 10am). My schedule, however, had become somewhat chaotic over the past month and I had very little downtime. I thus figured that my body was just exhausted and was expressing this through my eyes (and the noticeable veins were a result of dehydration). I iced my eyes, dabbed them with anti-wrinkle cream and soldiered on. It wasn't until my sensitivity to light increased twofold that I really thought of my eyes as being anything other than tired.
I finally admitted I might have an eye problem when the fluorescent light at work caused me to look away. A meeting with my manager forced me to look at a dark corner of the room because she sat with a large window behind her and the dim bar lighting at our Bingo Benefit caused me to constantly rub my teary eyes. The morning after Bingo I called an optometrist. My eyes had greatly worsened overnight and were now glazed over, in excruciating pain, and puffy to the point where it looked like I had been sobbing all night. To top it off, I had recently developed a severe cold and sounded akin to Minnie Mouse (not even an exaggeration unfortunately). I called the optometrist and attempted to make an appointment for the next day (I still had to go to the theatre after all!):
"We have an opening at 3:30 today and 2pm tomorrow," the chipper receptionist said.
"I'll go with 2pm tomorrow," I squeaked.
"Okay. Be sure to bring your health insurance card and a photo ID tomorrow."
"K."
"Do you wear contacts?"
"Yes."
"Glasses?"
"I have them, but they don't really work so I just wear glasses."
"Are you having a problem with your contacts?"
"You know, I'm not really sure. For about the past two weeks I've just been growing more and more sensitive to light and it's finally gotten to the point where I can't have any lights on around me."
"Oh...are you sure you want to come in tomorrow?"
"Yeah. I haven't decided if I'm going to call in sick today or not."
"Do your eyes hurt, ma'am?"
"Like my actual eyeballs?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Yeah. Quite excruciating really."
"How long have they been hurting?"
"About two weeks."
Silence.
"Ma'am, we can squeeze you in at 10:30 this morning. Do you think you could make that?"
Now I know things were serious. I made the 10:30am appointment and called in sick to work. When I got to the doctor's office they found that I did not have health insurance to cover an optometrist. My insurance covers medical doctors only. The optometrist was a very nice man, however, and took pity on how I was almost having to close my eyes under his lights. "Let me just take you in the back and take one quick peak," he said.
I sat down in the examination chair and Dr. Eyes swiveled the phoropter at me (I thought phoropter would sound better than 'eye examination thingy'). I placed my chin in the chin-rest, Dr. Eyes turned the beam of light on and I immediately whipped my head back in pain. Apparently even in that mila-second Dr. Eyes saw all that he needed to and exclaimed, "Whoa that's bad!" He coaxed me into letting him looking into my other eye for the same length of time and then swiveled the phoropter away.
"Can you be without your contacts?" he asked.
"I mean, I can, but I prefer not to. As long as I don't drive -"
He stopped me. "It actually wasn't a question. You will have to go without your contacts."
"Oh."
"Come with me," he said. We went back to the reception area where Dr. Eyes immediately picked up the phone and began dialing. He rifled through a rolodex and handed me a business card. "Do you know where that is?" he asked. I had just assumed he had given me his business card. I looked down and saw the address for an eye surgeon. Before I could respond, Dr. Eyes began speaking to someone on the phone.
"Hi, this is Dr. Eyes, is Dr. Surgeon in? No? Well I have a patient here who needs to see him -" he turned to me, "what's your schedule like today?"
"Open."
"When is your first available appointment?" he asked into the phone. "2pm? Great. And have Dr. Surgeon calls me when he gets in. I want to explain the situation to him." He hung up then phone and gave me detailed directions to Dr. Surgeon's office.
"Is this bad?" I asked as loudly as I could.
"You have a cold, right?" I nodded. Thank you, Mr. Obvious. "This can often happen with a cold," he said.
"This only happened two days ago," I said, pointing to my throat.
"Oh." Dr. Eyes looked at my answers on the What is Wrong With You Today sheet. "Well Dr. Surgeon can help you out and then when you need new contacts I can prescribe those to you."
I left not sure if I should be feeling just a little bit panicked. I immediately called my mother so I could wonder aloud to someone what would happen if I needed eye surgery. It suddenly hit me how alone I was in case of an emergency.
At 2pm sharp I was sitting in Dr. Surgeon's office, filling out another What is Wrong With You Today form. A nurse called my name and led me into an examination room. My voice was fading rapidly and the young girl seemed miffed that she had to keep leaning over to hear me. Finally, Dr. Surgeon entered and asked me a few basic questions about my symptoms. He then brought his phoropter to my face and, like a case of déjà vu, he shined the light into my eye and immediately exclaimed, "Whoa that's bad!" Had I had the voice I would have said, "WHAT is so bad?? Will somebody tell me?" Instead I waited while he checked the other eye. "Yep, it's in both eyes," he said. "That is very inflamed." He wrote me a prescription for steroid drops, told me to stop wearing my contacts indefinitely and to come back in one week.
I went home and spent the rest of the day under my covers. Luckily the maintenance man had been by that morning to replace my blinds which had collapsed the week before so my room with nice and dark.
While lying in my Bed of Pain, it struck me how I really do not take care of myself when living on my own. When I was back in my original apartment in Evanston I was chided for only having eggs, almond milk, Special K cereal and soy sauce. Aware that I am slightly iron deficient, I never took my iron pills until my boyfriend came and stayed with me and literally put one in my hand every morning. I also never fixed the broken blinds in that apartment until he showed up and let's not even get started on my current lack of fresh fruit and vegetables (although I do have a mango!).
Basically, what this experience has taught me is: health-wise, I am not as independent as I hoped. I apparently need someone else there to remind me to eat more than just Special K and almond milk and that maybe light sensitivity is not a symptom of being tired. Without other people -- I fall apart!
Then again, I haven't even come close to dying yet so I must be doing something right. And thanks to steroids, my eyes are whiter than they've ever been!
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
New Year, New Beginnings, and No Nikki
Hello dear readers! This blog post is much overdue and I am very sorry that it has been well over a month (and nearing two months!) since my last post. Consequently, this post will not be a humourous/rant-like story, but a quick round-up of all that has happened since Creatures of the El.
Let's begin with the end, the end of my time at Skokie Theatre. My last week at Skokie Theatre was full of enough back and forth contradictions by Nikki that I am quite certain I have shortened my life by about two years. I scrambled to finish my lobby display for BLACK PEARL SINGS!, which had been left until the last minute because Nikki thought it best to let the rough drafts sit for about a month. Assured and annoyed that I was not going to stick around for an extra two months (even though we had established a Dec 21st end-date, Nikki had asked me to stay until the end of February, but I had already excepted a Winter/Spring internship elsewhere) Nikki apparently made it her mission to make my last week a living hell. Her comments and corrections on my lobby display boards focused heavily on language. Nikki no longer liked the way I wrote. One such sentence she quarreled with was one she had already had me trim and shorten, saying audience members did not need things "spelled out for them." (Meaning, I did not have to mention The Great Depression and President Roosevelt. Simply talking about Roosevelt led people to assume I was also talking about The Great Depression.)
This was my sentence: "Roosevelt did not forget the plight of the arts in his attempt to put the nation back on its feet."
Nikki asked, "What plight? How were the arts having a plight?"
"They struggled?" I said, not quite sure whether her confusion was over the word "plight" or the use of it in the sentence. "The struggle that they have always had? And because it's the arts...and The Great Depression..."
"Yeah, but what plight? It doesn't make sense."
Being the child of two artists, I typically would have chalked up Nikki's confusion to naïveté about the art world. Perhaps some people only notice pieces in fine art galleries or only know artists like Annie Leibovitz. Perhaps there are some people who believe artists do not struggle, but actually have the perfect job and get to lay around home, playing with crayons and clay all day.
Nikki, however, was a theatre artist. I knew for a fact that she had dabbled in acting once and since she was a Resident Dramaturg before even reaching the prime age of thirty, I am certain that she struggled in that field. Therefore, her confusion and fixation on the word "plight" thoroughly threw me. I couldn't think of an adequate response except to repeat myself.
"They struggled," I said,"because it was The Great Depression. And artists always struggle...because it's art..."
In the end, Nikki had me change the sentence to, "In his attempt to put the nation back on its feet, Roosevelt did not forget how much artists had struggled during The Great Depression."
After "plight" was successfully vanquished, Nikki found new words and phrases to conquer: "instrumental prowess" was changed to "talents" (I liked "instrumental prowess", dammit!), music could not be an "area" of The Great Depression, and I had to choose whether to consistently say "the U.S." or "the United States". (In regards to the last one, I went with "U.S." because I had shortened it in some areas purely for spacing issues. After changing all twelve boards where the U.S. was mentioned Nikki said she preferred "United States"...of course she did.)
Finally, after all the stress and turmoil was through and the boards were at a place that Nikki deemed adequate, my internship was over. To celebrate, Nikki took me to "our place", Chipotle, for a post-mortem. It was over this meal that Nikki gave me her evaluation of my time as her intern. Allow me to summarize:
1. "Your writing is juvenile."
Okay, I will give Nikki this -- my writing is not perfect. I am well aware that it is far from professional, which is why I attempt to keep up this blog and a handwritten journal. Practice makes perfect after all and it is my greatest hope to be paid for my writing one day. However, "juvenile" isn't exactly the word that comes to mind when I think about my writing (although if you agree with her, please send me a private message either on facebook or gmail; if two people say that my writing is juvenile then perhaps they are on to something). When I think "juvenile" I think high school and someone who has not yet found their voice in writing. I have found my voice, Nikki! Of that I am certain.
2. "You do not volunteer enough and only do the minimum of what is expected of you."
I am not sure if I mentioned this in a previous blog or not, but when I first began at Skokie Theatre I asked for more to do. When I heard about an event happening over the weekend I offered to help out or at least observe. On numerous occasions I told Nikki, "I'm happy to help out with whatever. I'm here for this internship after all and I'm not usually doing anything when I am not here so I'd be happy to come to as many things as possible." There were a few instances where Nikki even invited me to a theatre function and then either uninvited the day before the event (least we forget the Stephen Schwartz saga!) or promised to tell me when/where the thing was happening, but would then forget until the affair had already passed. Forgive me, Nikki, but after a month and a half of that I gave up.
3. "You do not handle criticism well."
I am sad to admit that this is one of my weakest areas. I do not handle criticism well, although I have gotten better with age. And I honestly do believe that when I receive constructive criticism I do handle it well. During my four years at Kalamazoo College I was in a plethora of critique groups and with each note on my writing I thought, "Okay, I can see why that isn't needed," or "I really love this sentence, but if this many people don't then it's got to go." However, Nikki's criticisms towards the end just became plain bitchy (and I am sure my annoyance began to show on my face). After demolishing "plight" Nikki waited until we were through two more revisions before announcing she no longer cared for the new sentence. She stated that she didn't like the word "struggle" and suggested we change the sentence to something about "the plight of the arts." My eye twitch most likely gave away the fact that her critiques were beginning to wear on me.
4. You seem more interested in Chicago itself rather than the Chicago theatre scene.
Nikki made this point because she had remembered me mentioning going to the Lincoln Park Zoo and Adler After Dark (a night when the planetarium was open until 11pm). However, she did not remember the numerous times when I told her what play I had seen the night before, hoping we could talk about it (call me crazy, but it's the student in me -- I want to talk about plays with my "mentor"!). In fact, after seeing THE AMISH PROJECT (an extremely powerful one-woman show about a massacre at an Amish school house) at the American Theatre Company, I attempted to talk about the performance with Nikki four times. Each time Nikki responded with her usual, "That's great, Georgia! Let me just finish a few things [in my cubicle] and then we can talk about it." That talking never happened. Like my lack of volunteering, I gave up talking about non-Skokie Theatre theatre with Nikki after two months.
5. You seem more suited for commercial theatre and specifically theaters in the South, since that's where you're from.
...There are no comments to this that do not include a long string of profanity. (Also, this was the first time Nikki mentioned me being from the South. Until this moment, she had always referred to me as being from Michigan. Why? Because I learned during my last month at Skokie Theatre that Nikki had never actually read my cover letter, which begins with how I ended up in the South and all the crazy characters I have encountered there. Since I was living on Mackinac Island when Nikki interviewed me I was therefore from Mackinac.)
And thus concluded my time at Skokie Theatre. Will I miss it? The theatre itself is very nice, the plays are wonderful, and I will always geek-out for Dramaturgy work, but will I miss the internship itself? Not one damn bit. You can transcribe your own dissertation, Nikki! (Ah yes, did I mention she had me transcribe a poorly recorded tape-deck interview she had conducted in a crowded cafe with two old women? And did I mention that she told me not to mention it to anyone at the theatre because it was actually for her dissertation and not for Skokie Theatre? Yeah...good times.)
My parents and I spent our Christmas holiday on the warm beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula. Not a huge one for traditions, my mother has begun planning trips for Christmas so that way we skip the hubbub and stress of a traditional Christmas. Since 2009 we have flown out to the Grand Canyon, swum with manatees in the Florida rivers, dolphins in Orlando pools, and now turtles in the Caribbean Sea.
Not counting Cuba and Canada, Mexico is the first non-European country I have ever been to. (I do not count Cuba because I was living on an American base and Canada because...well it's Canada - Kari, I hope you don't read these!) The language barrier itself was fascinating because it was honestly something I had not even considered. In Europe, public announcements in train and plane terminals are typically made in English first and the country's native language second. While waiting at the departure gate in the Miami International Airport, I was surprised to hear primarily Spanish spoken over the intercom. The flight attendants would say one or two numbers in English, but that was about it. Even the Customs slip was only in Spanish! My parents (who do know Spanish) were sitting a few rows ahead of me so I had to ask the woman next to me to translate the questions that weren't just, "Name, address, birth date, etc etc."
My mother had booked us a wonderful beach condo in Akumal, a small town known for eco-tourism. Unlike Cancun, which was an hour north of us, Akumal is much less Disneyland-ish and still rich with Mayan and Mexican culture. This sleepy town has become popular among ex-patriots because of its efforts to protect sea turtles. During our first day in Akumal, some fellow tourists told us about a bay where we could swim and were likely to see turtles grazing in the kelp grass. I am happy to say that these people (well, they were children actually) were not just full of it! The next afternoon we went snorkeling at this beach, the main beach of Akumal, and while stalking a cuttlefish I was suddenly side-swiped by a fellow swimmer. I looked over to give the obtrusive swimmer a nasty look and lo-and-behold -- there was a green turtle! Swimming parallel to me he measured the length from my head to the middle of my thigh. He looked at me sideways, took a gulp of air and dove under the waters. Thinking I had happened upon some rarity, I followed the turtle for what felt like an hour. Little did I know that I would swim with nearly fifteen turtles over the next few days.
Besides stalking sea creatures, my parents and I explored a few Mayan ruins (Coba and the beach ruins at Tulum), swam in the renowned cenotes, and ventured into the Sian Ka'an Ecological Reserve. (A word to the wise: when the policeman tells you it's not smart to drive into the reserve in a small sedan, listen to him. The road is so riddled with bumps, ditches, and miniature sink holes that it makes Disney's Thunder Mountain rollercoaster seem like the Dumbo ride -- literally.) We ate amazing Mexican food and I have discovered a new love: Chilaquiles.
The three of us were certainly sad to say goodbye to Mexico after our week-long stay. Although we live less than five miles from the Atlantic Ocean, it was nice to swim in non-chlorinated water where you could still see your feet even when you were only in up to your ankles. I also felt a personal amount of triumph when, the night before we left, a woman asked me, "Como esta?" and I answered, "Bien!" instead of my typical, "Ja?"
After Mexico, I was fortunate enough to spend ten days at home. This time was marred by a sudden tragedy that I will not go into, but my time back in Glynn County was exactly the relaxation and friend/family immersion that I needed. I headed back to Chicago on January 11th, just in time to catch the horrendous snowstorm that was making its way from Tennessee to Illinois. On the first day of the drive my car slipped on ice four too many times on I-75 and I had to find a hotel before even making it out of Kentucky. Later that night I learned that northbound I-75 in Tennessee had been shutdown for the night due to ice. The next day's drive in daylight was absolutely no improvement and the normal five hour drive from Louisville, KY to Chicago took nearly seven hours (and a lot of white-knuckle driving and interstate cursing).
Miraculously, I survived and am now back in Chicago/Evanston. I am at a new theatre (Heartbeat Theatre) and a new apartment. I still feel like I am very much lacking in the "social" department, but I'm doing what I can and staying oddly busy. I have also been riding the CTA daily and will probably devote another post to the eccentric riders of the El.
I guess that's enough for tonight! I will try much harder to post more frequently. Happy New Year to everyone and thank you for continuing to read my writing! If I am ever published, I'll give you all a free copy of whatever it is I have written.
Let's begin with the end, the end of my time at Skokie Theatre. My last week at Skokie Theatre was full of enough back and forth contradictions by Nikki that I am quite certain I have shortened my life by about two years. I scrambled to finish my lobby display for BLACK PEARL SINGS!, which had been left until the last minute because Nikki thought it best to let the rough drafts sit for about a month. Assured and annoyed that I was not going to stick around for an extra two months (even though we had established a Dec 21st end-date, Nikki had asked me to stay until the end of February, but I had already excepted a Winter/Spring internship elsewhere) Nikki apparently made it her mission to make my last week a living hell. Her comments and corrections on my lobby display boards focused heavily on language. Nikki no longer liked the way I wrote. One such sentence she quarreled with was one she had already had me trim and shorten, saying audience members did not need things "spelled out for them." (Meaning, I did not have to mention The Great Depression and President Roosevelt. Simply talking about Roosevelt led people to assume I was also talking about The Great Depression.)
This was my sentence: "Roosevelt did not forget the plight of the arts in his attempt to put the nation back on its feet."
Nikki asked, "What plight? How were the arts having a plight?"
"They struggled?" I said, not quite sure whether her confusion was over the word "plight" or the use of it in the sentence. "The struggle that they have always had? And because it's the arts...and The Great Depression..."
"Yeah, but what plight? It doesn't make sense."
Being the child of two artists, I typically would have chalked up Nikki's confusion to naïveté about the art world. Perhaps some people only notice pieces in fine art galleries or only know artists like Annie Leibovitz. Perhaps there are some people who believe artists do not struggle, but actually have the perfect job and get to lay around home, playing with crayons and clay all day.
Nikki, however, was a theatre artist. I knew for a fact that she had dabbled in acting once and since she was a Resident Dramaturg before even reaching the prime age of thirty, I am certain that she struggled in that field. Therefore, her confusion and fixation on the word "plight" thoroughly threw me. I couldn't think of an adequate response except to repeat myself.
"They struggled," I said,"because it was The Great Depression. And artists always struggle...because it's art..."
In the end, Nikki had me change the sentence to, "In his attempt to put the nation back on its feet, Roosevelt did not forget how much artists had struggled during The Great Depression."
After "plight" was successfully vanquished, Nikki found new words and phrases to conquer: "instrumental prowess" was changed to "talents" (I liked "instrumental prowess", dammit!), music could not be an "area" of The Great Depression, and I had to choose whether to consistently say "the U.S." or "the United States". (In regards to the last one, I went with "U.S." because I had shortened it in some areas purely for spacing issues. After changing all twelve boards where the U.S. was mentioned Nikki said she preferred "United States"...of course she did.)
Finally, after all the stress and turmoil was through and the boards were at a place that Nikki deemed adequate, my internship was over. To celebrate, Nikki took me to "our place", Chipotle, for a post-mortem. It was over this meal that Nikki gave me her evaluation of my time as her intern. Allow me to summarize:
1. "Your writing is juvenile."
Okay, I will give Nikki this -- my writing is not perfect. I am well aware that it is far from professional, which is why I attempt to keep up this blog and a handwritten journal. Practice makes perfect after all and it is my greatest hope to be paid for my writing one day. However, "juvenile" isn't exactly the word that comes to mind when I think about my writing (although if you agree with her, please send me a private message either on facebook or gmail; if two people say that my writing is juvenile then perhaps they are on to something). When I think "juvenile" I think high school and someone who has not yet found their voice in writing. I have found my voice, Nikki! Of that I am certain.
2. "You do not volunteer enough and only do the minimum of what is expected of you."
I am not sure if I mentioned this in a previous blog or not, but when I first began at Skokie Theatre I asked for more to do. When I heard about an event happening over the weekend I offered to help out or at least observe. On numerous occasions I told Nikki, "I'm happy to help out with whatever. I'm here for this internship after all and I'm not usually doing anything when I am not here so I'd be happy to come to as many things as possible." There were a few instances where Nikki even invited me to a theatre function and then either uninvited the day before the event (least we forget the Stephen Schwartz saga!) or promised to tell me when/where the thing was happening, but would then forget until the affair had already passed. Forgive me, Nikki, but after a month and a half of that I gave up.
3. "You do not handle criticism well."
I am sad to admit that this is one of my weakest areas. I do not handle criticism well, although I have gotten better with age. And I honestly do believe that when I receive constructive criticism I do handle it well. During my four years at Kalamazoo College I was in a plethora of critique groups and with each note on my writing I thought, "Okay, I can see why that isn't needed," or "I really love this sentence, but if this many people don't then it's got to go." However, Nikki's criticisms towards the end just became plain bitchy (and I am sure my annoyance began to show on my face). After demolishing "plight" Nikki waited until we were through two more revisions before announcing she no longer cared for the new sentence. She stated that she didn't like the word "struggle" and suggested we change the sentence to something about "the plight of the arts." My eye twitch most likely gave away the fact that her critiques were beginning to wear on me.
4. You seem more interested in Chicago itself rather than the Chicago theatre scene.
Nikki made this point because she had remembered me mentioning going to the Lincoln Park Zoo and Adler After Dark (a night when the planetarium was open until 11pm). However, she did not remember the numerous times when I told her what play I had seen the night before, hoping we could talk about it (call me crazy, but it's the student in me -- I want to talk about plays with my "mentor"!). In fact, after seeing THE AMISH PROJECT (an extremely powerful one-woman show about a massacre at an Amish school house) at the American Theatre Company, I attempted to talk about the performance with Nikki four times. Each time Nikki responded with her usual, "That's great, Georgia! Let me just finish a few things [in my cubicle] and then we can talk about it." That talking never happened. Like my lack of volunteering, I gave up talking about non-Skokie Theatre theatre with Nikki after two months.
5. You seem more suited for commercial theatre and specifically theaters in the South, since that's where you're from.
...There are no comments to this that do not include a long string of profanity. (Also, this was the first time Nikki mentioned me being from the South. Until this moment, she had always referred to me as being from Michigan. Why? Because I learned during my last month at Skokie Theatre that Nikki had never actually read my cover letter, which begins with how I ended up in the South and all the crazy characters I have encountered there. Since I was living on Mackinac Island when Nikki interviewed me I was therefore from Mackinac.)
And thus concluded my time at Skokie Theatre. Will I miss it? The theatre itself is very nice, the plays are wonderful, and I will always geek-out for Dramaturgy work, but will I miss the internship itself? Not one damn bit. You can transcribe your own dissertation, Nikki! (Ah yes, did I mention she had me transcribe a poorly recorded tape-deck interview she had conducted in a crowded cafe with two old women? And did I mention that she told me not to mention it to anyone at the theatre because it was actually for her dissertation and not for Skokie Theatre? Yeah...good times.)
My parents and I spent our Christmas holiday on the warm beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula. Not a huge one for traditions, my mother has begun planning trips for Christmas so that way we skip the hubbub and stress of a traditional Christmas. Since 2009 we have flown out to the Grand Canyon, swum with manatees in the Florida rivers, dolphins in Orlando pools, and now turtles in the Caribbean Sea.
Not counting Cuba and Canada, Mexico is the first non-European country I have ever been to. (I do not count Cuba because I was living on an American base and Canada because...well it's Canada - Kari, I hope you don't read these!) The language barrier itself was fascinating because it was honestly something I had not even considered. In Europe, public announcements in train and plane terminals are typically made in English first and the country's native language second. While waiting at the departure gate in the Miami International Airport, I was surprised to hear primarily Spanish spoken over the intercom. The flight attendants would say one or two numbers in English, but that was about it. Even the Customs slip was only in Spanish! My parents (who do know Spanish) were sitting a few rows ahead of me so I had to ask the woman next to me to translate the questions that weren't just, "Name, address, birth date, etc etc."
My mother had booked us a wonderful beach condo in Akumal, a small town known for eco-tourism. Unlike Cancun, which was an hour north of us, Akumal is much less Disneyland-ish and still rich with Mayan and Mexican culture. This sleepy town has become popular among ex-patriots because of its efforts to protect sea turtles. During our first day in Akumal, some fellow tourists told us about a bay where we could swim and were likely to see turtles grazing in the kelp grass. I am happy to say that these people (well, they were children actually) were not just full of it! The next afternoon we went snorkeling at this beach, the main beach of Akumal, and while stalking a cuttlefish I was suddenly side-swiped by a fellow swimmer. I looked over to give the obtrusive swimmer a nasty look and lo-and-behold -- there was a green turtle! Swimming parallel to me he measured the length from my head to the middle of my thigh. He looked at me sideways, took a gulp of air and dove under the waters. Thinking I had happened upon some rarity, I followed the turtle for what felt like an hour. Little did I know that I would swim with nearly fifteen turtles over the next few days.
Besides stalking sea creatures, my parents and I explored a few Mayan ruins (Coba and the beach ruins at Tulum), swam in the renowned cenotes, and ventured into the Sian Ka'an Ecological Reserve. (A word to the wise: when the policeman tells you it's not smart to drive into the reserve in a small sedan, listen to him. The road is so riddled with bumps, ditches, and miniature sink holes that it makes Disney's Thunder Mountain rollercoaster seem like the Dumbo ride -- literally.) We ate amazing Mexican food and I have discovered a new love: Chilaquiles.
The three of us were certainly sad to say goodbye to Mexico after our week-long stay. Although we live less than five miles from the Atlantic Ocean, it was nice to swim in non-chlorinated water where you could still see your feet even when you were only in up to your ankles. I also felt a personal amount of triumph when, the night before we left, a woman asked me, "Como esta?" and I answered, "Bien!" instead of my typical, "Ja?"
After Mexico, I was fortunate enough to spend ten days at home. This time was marred by a sudden tragedy that I will not go into, but my time back in Glynn County was exactly the relaxation and friend/family immersion that I needed. I headed back to Chicago on January 11th, just in time to catch the horrendous snowstorm that was making its way from Tennessee to Illinois. On the first day of the drive my car slipped on ice four too many times on I-75 and I had to find a hotel before even making it out of Kentucky. Later that night I learned that northbound I-75 in Tennessee had been shutdown for the night due to ice. The next day's drive in daylight was absolutely no improvement and the normal five hour drive from Louisville, KY to Chicago took nearly seven hours (and a lot of white-knuckle driving and interstate cursing).
Miraculously, I survived and am now back in Chicago/Evanston. I am at a new theatre (Heartbeat Theatre) and a new apartment. I still feel like I am very much lacking in the "social" department, but I'm doing what I can and staying oddly busy. I have also been riding the CTA daily and will probably devote another post to the eccentric riders of the El.
I guess that's enough for tonight! I will try much harder to post more frequently. Happy New Year to everyone and thank you for continuing to read my writing! If I am ever published, I'll give you all a free copy of whatever it is I have written.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Creatures of the El
Everyone knows public transportation can be a harrowing experience at times. We’ve all sat next to that person who snored on the plane, smelled bad on the bus, or perhaps just sat too close for comfort on the train. I’ve certainly had my fair run-ins with public transportation characters: the schizophrenic preacher (I wish I was kidding) who simultaneously hit on me and tried to convert me while on a Greyhound bus; the woman who was sobbing on the El, engrossed in a Self Help book; the two German men on the sleeper between Venice and Köln who told jokes all through the night; and who could forget the physical brawl between a man and woman that I found myself caught between as I desperately tried to board an over-packed Tube. Public transportation can be scary and you never know what Dateline special you may inadvertently find yourself a part of.
Last week I had an interview for a job that I was in no way qualified for. I applied to the position out of sheer boredom at work one day and my only thoughts were, “They don’t require a cover letter? Sweet. Don’t need to exert any effort then!” Half an hour later I got an email asking if I could come down for an interview. The position I had applied for was Social Media Manager. Sure, I am on facebook nearly every hour throughout the day, I know about Twitter and I keep a blog, but a Social Media Manager I certainly am not. Nevertheless, they showed some interest so I turned up.
As it turns out, this company knew as much as I did that I was unqualified for the position. They had asked me in for an interview because my resume “fascinated” them. The manager was thrilled I had worked for the National Park Service and adored Mackinac Island. He was also a native of Alabama and stated, “My heart goes out the fellow Southerners.” After explaining to me as nicely as possible that I wasn’t actually qualified for the job and therefore would most likely not be getting it, the manager asked if I might consider a part-time internship. I asked what the internship would be and he replied, “I’m not really sure yet. We would sort of have to create one for you. I would just really really like to fit you in here.” I left not knowing if I should feel flattered or slighted (the internship would be, of course, unpaid).
Per habit, I immediately called a close friend on my walk back to the El (the company was located in Uptown). I told her of the trippy experience and related another Twilight Zone-esque interview I had experienced the week prior when I had been told (by the interviewer) that I must have forgotten to wear my lipstick that day. We scoffed over the nerve of Miss Lipstick as I boarded the Red Line. The car was packed so I had to stand. Just a few feet away from me stood an unstable (both physically and mentally) homeless man I had seen once before on the El. Normally he traveled from car-to-car, panhandling. Tonight, he swayed dramatically from side to side, distressing the commuters around him. As my friend told me about her day, Unstable unbuttoned his pants. He slid them to his knees, looked down, and pulled them back up. He then went and sat beside a college student, who was trying very hard to seem immersed in his Physics textbook.
The train pulled up at the first stop. Seats near me were vacated and I took one of the window chairs. An Indian woman and her boyfriend sat in surrounding seats. My friend continued to talk about recent happenings in her job, but I suddenly noticed the entire car had gone completely silent. The doors remained open and everyone seemed uncomfortable in their seats. Suddenly, the train conductor along with a CTA security guard boarded the car. They approached Unstable and asked him to leave the premises.
I continued to give hushed one-word responses to my friend and felt bad that it was becoming obvious that I was distracted. I wanted to narrate all that was happening, but felt it inappropriate as the security guard escorted Unstable from the platform. The train conductor strode to the front of the El.
I again tried to shift my attention to my friend, but was then distracted by the immediate passenger gossip:
“Did you hear what they said? The code the police said into their radio?”
“Gang bang.”
“Yes! I heard it, too. They said ‘gang bang,’ didn’t they?”
“What do you think that means?”
The woman beside me seemed more offended by Unstable’s smell and pulled out a bottle of perfume. She sprayed the air, hitting the side of my face in her aromatic circle. My coughing perplexed her and she asked if I thought the fragrance smelled bad.
By this point my friend’s call had graciously dropped and I was able to text her a quick synopsis of what had been taking place since I boarded the Red Line. Just as I hit Send, Unstable jumped triumphantly into the car. He puffed out his chest and stared valiantly at those brave enough to make eye contact. Movement on the platform startled him and he dove behind my seat. The CTA security guard walked swiftly past the open doors and a young girl sitting across the aisle from me sprang after him. Unstable looked around for a less obvious hiding place when a man across the car called him over saying there were plenty of empty seats where he sat. Unstable took his rooster stance once again and strutted across the car. The young girl returned followed by the security guard, train conductor, and a cop. They once again approached Unstable and asked him to leave the train.
The excitement finally over, the conductor made an announcement that, due to the delay, the train would be running express and would skip the next seven stops. Three quarters of the car departed leaving only myself and five other people: the Physics student, a small Hispanic woman, a young girl with a mutilated face, the man who had offered Unstable a seat, and a guy with amazing dreadlocks. The doors closed and we finally left the platform after our nearly fifteen minute delay.
The car bounced along hurriedly, the conductor trying to make up for his lost time. I continued to text with my friend and update her on Unstable’s reappearance. Suddenly, the Hispanic woman who had been behind me took the seat right next to me. I tried not to look taken aback, but wondered why, when there was currently a ratio of about 10:1 seats to passengers, she had decided to sit right next to me. It was then that I noticed the girl with the scarred face looking towards the other end of the car. Unstable was back and shuffling towards our seats. He passed us and opened the emergency door. He left the car and stood on the jack that connected our car to the one behind us.
The girl looked at the Hispanic woman and me. “Is he going to jump?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” the Hispanic woman responded.
“Should we do something?” I asked.
We watched him as he wavered back and forth on the jack. We didn’t want him to jump, nor did we want to open the door and possibly cause him to fall. And let’s be honest, interacting with him wasn’t exactly at the top of anyone’s list either. El cars are not the same as Metra trains. The doors leading from car-to-car are for emergency only because when you leave a car you are outside. There is no platform, no railing, nothing to keep you from being jerked to the ground. Unstable wavered a moment more and then opened the door again. As he re-entered the car the three of us looked around the floor and ceiling as if something else had interested us.
Unstable wandered up and down the car once before taking the seat next to his good buddy Physics Student once more. He then proceeded to bark. Now, I’m not talking “Woof! Woof!” I am talking about legit barking like a dog that really wants to bite the postman. Poor Physics Student. He sat there, textbook book pressed close to his face, but his eyes were glued to Unstable.
Finally, after what seemed like an interminable train ride, we arrived at the second to last stop. Unstable departed of his own free will this time. The next stop was Howard, the end of the Red Line, and those of us traveling to Evanston got off the train and waited for the Purple Line to show. Unfortunately, since this is the L, the majority of the trains are elevated. Meaning: it was bloody cold. Thankfully, Chicago is smart and has placed heaters in many of the awnings. I joined a group of fellow Purple Liners under one of these awnings and updated my friend even further on The Adventures of Unstable.
I was listening to my iPod at this point and it took me a few moments to realize someone, somewhere was yelling. I looked around and saw a large man in a Letterman jacket yelling in my direction. I turned down the volume on my iPod in time to hear him yell, “Ah shoot, man! Y’all stuck up bitches not gonna tell me what train is coming? I’m just askin’ what train is COMIN’!” I immediately deduced that he had asked a general ‘which train is this’ to the crowd I happened to be standing in and no one had answered him. Letterman slowly made his way closer to the crowd, ranting and raving the whole way. Even without smelling his breath, it was very apparent that he was wasted.
“What time it is?” Letterman demanded, stumbling down the platform. “Why ain’t no one tell me what TIME. IT. IS.” He walked right in front of me.
“The time?” I said, hoping to quiet him. My question stopped him suddenly.
“Yeah. What time it is?”
“9:20.”
“Thank you. Thank you, Miss. That’s really nice.”
“Oh you’re welcome,” I said, starting to put my earphone back in my ear.
“What’s your name?” Letterman asked.
“Elizabeth,” I fibbed.
“Elizabeth?” he shook my hand and took a step closer. “That’s a real pretty name, Elizabeth.”
“Thank you.”
“You traveling alone tonight, Elizabeth?”
“Yep. Looks like it.”
“You gotta boyfriend?”
“Yep. He’s meeting me at the next stop.” I looked down at my phone and wondered which of my friends would answer a mayday text the fastest.
Letterman pressed himself, obscuring my phone’s screen with his stomach. “Well he shouldn’t let a pretty little thing like you travel alone.”
“Haha no he shouldn’t,” I responded, shaking my fist in the air. I looked around. My crowd of Purple Liners was noticeably inching away from Letterman and myself. Bastards, I thought.
“I gotta girlfriend,” Letterman announced.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He looked across the platform. “BABY GIRL!” he yelled, “BABY GIRL! Commere. Commere!”
Baby Girl came over. Baby Girl did not look happy. She slammed a ring of keys into Letterman’s hand. “Take these,” she said harshly and stomped off. Letterman’s confusion over Baby Girl’s attitude gave me enough time to send my “CALL ME NOW THIS IS NOT A JOKE!” text. He then turned back to me and began talking about the Bears. Apparently they had lost that night. Or maybe they won. I honestly wasn’t paying attention.
Like a godsend, my phone suddenly blared a song from ‘Across the Universe’. “Opps,” I said, “I’ve got to get this.” I answered and immediately began telling my friend (who lives in Boston) about how I was just waiting for the train and that I would meet her at the next stop. Letterman continued to talk to me about the Bears and was absolutely oblivious to the phone at my ear. Luckily, a young man walked by reading Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress (one of his earlier ones that came out before The Da Vinci Code made him famous). Letterman snatched the book from the bewildered man’s hands. “I read this book,” he said. “This the sequel? Damn what was that book called? Damn that was a good book, whatn’it?” This momentary distraction gave me enough room to slip between Letterman and the wall he had me trapped against. I thanked my friend for the phone call and waited for the Purple Line to finally bloody arrive.
“Excuse me? Miss?”
I turned around. A woman very similar in appearance and dress to Professor Trelawney from ‘Harry Potter’ (wild curly gray hair, giant round glasses and patch-worked clothing) beamed at me. “What?” I said, having had enough Creatures of the El experiences for one night.
“Is that a dress you’re wearing or a skirt?”
I looked down. Beneath my yellow pea coat was the bottom of my purple and black zigzagged sweater dress. “It’s a dress,” I said, still wondering why on earth this woman needed to know.
“It’s very lovely,” she said. “Very unique. People should wear more stuff that is pretty and unique.” And with that, Professor Trelawney turned and walked away.
Last week I had an interview for a job that I was in no way qualified for. I applied to the position out of sheer boredom at work one day and my only thoughts were, “They don’t require a cover letter? Sweet. Don’t need to exert any effort then!” Half an hour later I got an email asking if I could come down for an interview. The position I had applied for was Social Media Manager. Sure, I am on facebook nearly every hour throughout the day, I know about Twitter and I keep a blog, but a Social Media Manager I certainly am not. Nevertheless, they showed some interest so I turned up.
As it turns out, this company knew as much as I did that I was unqualified for the position. They had asked me in for an interview because my resume “fascinated” them. The manager was thrilled I had worked for the National Park Service and adored Mackinac Island. He was also a native of Alabama and stated, “My heart goes out the fellow Southerners.” After explaining to me as nicely as possible that I wasn’t actually qualified for the job and therefore would most likely not be getting it, the manager asked if I might consider a part-time internship. I asked what the internship would be and he replied, “I’m not really sure yet. We would sort of have to create one for you. I would just really really like to fit you in here.” I left not knowing if I should feel flattered or slighted (the internship would be, of course, unpaid).
Per habit, I immediately called a close friend on my walk back to the El (the company was located in Uptown). I told her of the trippy experience and related another Twilight Zone-esque interview I had experienced the week prior when I had been told (by the interviewer) that I must have forgotten to wear my lipstick that day. We scoffed over the nerve of Miss Lipstick as I boarded the Red Line. The car was packed so I had to stand. Just a few feet away from me stood an unstable (both physically and mentally) homeless man I had seen once before on the El. Normally he traveled from car-to-car, panhandling. Tonight, he swayed dramatically from side to side, distressing the commuters around him. As my friend told me about her day, Unstable unbuttoned his pants. He slid them to his knees, looked down, and pulled them back up. He then went and sat beside a college student, who was trying very hard to seem immersed in his Physics textbook.
The train pulled up at the first stop. Seats near me were vacated and I took one of the window chairs. An Indian woman and her boyfriend sat in surrounding seats. My friend continued to talk about recent happenings in her job, but I suddenly noticed the entire car had gone completely silent. The doors remained open and everyone seemed uncomfortable in their seats. Suddenly, the train conductor along with a CTA security guard boarded the car. They approached Unstable and asked him to leave the premises.
I continued to give hushed one-word responses to my friend and felt bad that it was becoming obvious that I was distracted. I wanted to narrate all that was happening, but felt it inappropriate as the security guard escorted Unstable from the platform. The train conductor strode to the front of the El.
I again tried to shift my attention to my friend, but was then distracted by the immediate passenger gossip:
“Did you hear what they said? The code the police said into their radio?”
“Gang bang.”
“Yes! I heard it, too. They said ‘gang bang,’ didn’t they?”
“What do you think that means?”
The woman beside me seemed more offended by Unstable’s smell and pulled out a bottle of perfume. She sprayed the air, hitting the side of my face in her aromatic circle. My coughing perplexed her and she asked if I thought the fragrance smelled bad.
By this point my friend’s call had graciously dropped and I was able to text her a quick synopsis of what had been taking place since I boarded the Red Line. Just as I hit Send, Unstable jumped triumphantly into the car. He puffed out his chest and stared valiantly at those brave enough to make eye contact. Movement on the platform startled him and he dove behind my seat. The CTA security guard walked swiftly past the open doors and a young girl sitting across the aisle from me sprang after him. Unstable looked around for a less obvious hiding place when a man across the car called him over saying there were plenty of empty seats where he sat. Unstable took his rooster stance once again and strutted across the car. The young girl returned followed by the security guard, train conductor, and a cop. They once again approached Unstable and asked him to leave the train.
The excitement finally over, the conductor made an announcement that, due to the delay, the train would be running express and would skip the next seven stops. Three quarters of the car departed leaving only myself and five other people: the Physics student, a small Hispanic woman, a young girl with a mutilated face, the man who had offered Unstable a seat, and a guy with amazing dreadlocks. The doors closed and we finally left the platform after our nearly fifteen minute delay.
The car bounced along hurriedly, the conductor trying to make up for his lost time. I continued to text with my friend and update her on Unstable’s reappearance. Suddenly, the Hispanic woman who had been behind me took the seat right next to me. I tried not to look taken aback, but wondered why, when there was currently a ratio of about 10:1 seats to passengers, she had decided to sit right next to me. It was then that I noticed the girl with the scarred face looking towards the other end of the car. Unstable was back and shuffling towards our seats. He passed us and opened the emergency door. He left the car and stood on the jack that connected our car to the one behind us.
The girl looked at the Hispanic woman and me. “Is he going to jump?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” the Hispanic woman responded.
“Should we do something?” I asked.
We watched him as he wavered back and forth on the jack. We didn’t want him to jump, nor did we want to open the door and possibly cause him to fall. And let’s be honest, interacting with him wasn’t exactly at the top of anyone’s list either. El cars are not the same as Metra trains. The doors leading from car-to-car are for emergency only because when you leave a car you are outside. There is no platform, no railing, nothing to keep you from being jerked to the ground. Unstable wavered a moment more and then opened the door again. As he re-entered the car the three of us looked around the floor and ceiling as if something else had interested us.
Unstable wandered up and down the car once before taking the seat next to his good buddy Physics Student once more. He then proceeded to bark. Now, I’m not talking “Woof! Woof!” I am talking about legit barking like a dog that really wants to bite the postman. Poor Physics Student. He sat there, textbook book pressed close to his face, but his eyes were glued to Unstable.
Finally, after what seemed like an interminable train ride, we arrived at the second to last stop. Unstable departed of his own free will this time. The next stop was Howard, the end of the Red Line, and those of us traveling to Evanston got off the train and waited for the Purple Line to show. Unfortunately, since this is the L, the majority of the trains are elevated. Meaning: it was bloody cold. Thankfully, Chicago is smart and has placed heaters in many of the awnings. I joined a group of fellow Purple Liners under one of these awnings and updated my friend even further on The Adventures of Unstable.
I was listening to my iPod at this point and it took me a few moments to realize someone, somewhere was yelling. I looked around and saw a large man in a Letterman jacket yelling in my direction. I turned down the volume on my iPod in time to hear him yell, “Ah shoot, man! Y’all stuck up bitches not gonna tell me what train is coming? I’m just askin’ what train is COMIN’!” I immediately deduced that he had asked a general ‘which train is this’ to the crowd I happened to be standing in and no one had answered him. Letterman slowly made his way closer to the crowd, ranting and raving the whole way. Even without smelling his breath, it was very apparent that he was wasted.
“What time it is?” Letterman demanded, stumbling down the platform. “Why ain’t no one tell me what TIME. IT. IS.” He walked right in front of me.
“The time?” I said, hoping to quiet him. My question stopped him suddenly.
“Yeah. What time it is?”
“9:20.”
“Thank you. Thank you, Miss. That’s really nice.”
“Oh you’re welcome,” I said, starting to put my earphone back in my ear.
“What’s your name?” Letterman asked.
“Elizabeth,” I fibbed.
“Elizabeth?” he shook my hand and took a step closer. “That’s a real pretty name, Elizabeth.”
“Thank you.”
“You traveling alone tonight, Elizabeth?”
“Yep. Looks like it.”
“You gotta boyfriend?”
“Yep. He’s meeting me at the next stop.” I looked down at my phone and wondered which of my friends would answer a mayday text the fastest.
Letterman pressed himself, obscuring my phone’s screen with his stomach. “Well he shouldn’t let a pretty little thing like you travel alone.”
“Haha no he shouldn’t,” I responded, shaking my fist in the air. I looked around. My crowd of Purple Liners was noticeably inching away from Letterman and myself. Bastards, I thought.
“I gotta girlfriend,” Letterman announced.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He looked across the platform. “BABY GIRL!” he yelled, “BABY GIRL! Commere. Commere!”
Baby Girl came over. Baby Girl did not look happy. She slammed a ring of keys into Letterman’s hand. “Take these,” she said harshly and stomped off. Letterman’s confusion over Baby Girl’s attitude gave me enough time to send my “CALL ME NOW THIS IS NOT A JOKE!” text. He then turned back to me and began talking about the Bears. Apparently they had lost that night. Or maybe they won. I honestly wasn’t paying attention.
Like a godsend, my phone suddenly blared a song from ‘Across the Universe’. “Opps,” I said, “I’ve got to get this.” I answered and immediately began telling my friend (who lives in Boston) about how I was just waiting for the train and that I would meet her at the next stop. Letterman continued to talk to me about the Bears and was absolutely oblivious to the phone at my ear. Luckily, a young man walked by reading Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress (one of his earlier ones that came out before The Da Vinci Code made him famous). Letterman snatched the book from the bewildered man’s hands. “I read this book,” he said. “This the sequel? Damn what was that book called? Damn that was a good book, whatn’it?” This momentary distraction gave me enough room to slip between Letterman and the wall he had me trapped against. I thanked my friend for the phone call and waited for the Purple Line to finally bloody arrive.
“Excuse me? Miss?”
I turned around. A woman very similar in appearance and dress to Professor Trelawney from ‘Harry Potter’ (wild curly gray hair, giant round glasses and patch-worked clothing) beamed at me. “What?” I said, having had enough Creatures of the El experiences for one night.
“Is that a dress you’re wearing or a skirt?”
I looked down. Beneath my yellow pea coat was the bottom of my purple and black zigzagged sweater dress. “It’s a dress,” I said, still wondering why on earth this woman needed to know.
“It’s very lovely,” she said. “Very unique. People should wear more stuff that is pretty and unique.” And with that, Professor Trelawney turned and walked away.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
The Twilight Zone
Skokie Theater's upcoming show is a dark comedy Christmas play set in England. Rehearsals have been going for two weeks and for about three weeks my supervisor has talked about getting the cast "traditional English treats" as a surprise. When I informed her that I make a damn good scone, she was ecstatic. She warned me that in the near future she would be asking me to bake scones for around forty people. (There are only nine people in the cast plus the director, stage manager and assistant stage manager. I am not sure where these other twenty-eight people came from.)
Sadly, my scone baking extravaganza never happened. Instead, I arrived at the theatre last week and found Nikki on the phone with a "traditional English bakery" she had discovered. She placed an order for two banana cream pies, one mincemeat pie, and a steak and ale pie (the Brits do love their pies). As she recited the theater's Visa Card number into the phone she said, "And I'll be sending my assistant down to pick all that up. Thank you!" She then turned to me, the assistant. She handed me a Post-It note with the bakery's address.
"This is in Skokie?" I asked, already dreading the gas I was going to use for my unpaid position.
"It's in Bridgeport," Nikki answered.
"Where's that?"
"Right near Andersonville."
I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had to drive without being paid, but at least Andersonville (where my Uptown writing group is located) was only six miles below Skokie. I went back to my cubicle, plugged the address into Google Maps and came up with a location on the south side of Chicago. I zoomed in -- the address was located in a neighborhood called Bridgeport.
"Um, Nikki," I said, walking to her desk, "are you sure this is the right place?" I showed her where the address was located. Bridgeport was a little over twenty miles south of Skokie.
"Do you not feel safe going there?" Nikki asked. The south side of Chicago is notorious for crime. "I don't want to send you anywhere that you won't feel comfortable."
('I will feel comfortable if someone gives me gas money,' I wanted to say.)
"No, I'm fine. I just wanted to check," I said hesitantly.
"Great! You should head there around noon. I told them you would pick up the food at one o'clock and the actors will go on break at two."
I left the theatre right at noon. I merged onto I-94 and within three miles encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic. As downtown Chicago inched its way past my car Nikki texted me: "Georgia, I think you already left? Let's talk gas mileage when you get back!" So happy was I that I was actually going to get gas money out of the forty mile trip that it took a moment before I realized it was nearly 12:30 and Nikki had just realized I was gone.
Almost exactly an hour after I left Skokie Theatre and with the city of Chicago filling my rear-view mirror, I finally pulled off the interstate. The distance-tracker on my GPS displayed there was still another mile and a half to go. Strangely, I noticed that further I drove from the interstate, the more dilapidated the buildings became. By the time the congratulatory 'You Made It!' checkered flag appeared on my GPS screen, I was beginning to think a joke had been played on Nikki. Run down homes lined the street, thick steel bars covered windows and doors, a strange man with coke-bottle glasses, a severe limp and metallic wig shuffled along the sidewalk and clusters of boys about my age with saggy pants and dark bandanas stared as I drove by. The most well maintained building was what looked like a Hindu temple. It sat directly across the street from what my GPS told me was Pleasant Bakery: the traditional English bakery. Unfortunately, Pleasant Bakery looked more like Piss-Poor Bakery with its cracked and falling down faded yellow letters and holes in its facade.
I parked in the projects behind the bakery and walked the half block to the front of the building. Like the surrounding tenements, Pleasant Bakery, too, had thick steel bars lining its windows and doors and a padlock chain for extra security. The windows were so clouded that I couldn't discern any sign of life inside. I stood outside the front door for a moment and looked around. I wondered seriously whether I would even find the door unlocked or not.
There is only one word to describe the inside of Pleasant Bakery: "charming." Upon entering the building, I did a double take. Where was the shack I had entered? Where was the dirt and the grime and the crumbling inside to match the rundown-warehouse-full-of-scatters exterior? Pleasant Bakery was nothing shy of a pleasant diner.
Let's start with the smell -- that place smelled AMAZING. The moment I walked through the door I was hit with a wave of savory meats, roasting vegetables, and all other fumes associated with a meat pie or beef stew. A group of college students sat in a corner, each marveling over what the other had ordered. I assume they were writing some sort of review on the bakery because they had each selected a very different entree from one another and were setting up mock studio shots for each dish.
The room itself was simple and classic. The walls were made of dark wood paneling and the floor a beige tile. All the seating was made of half-booth-half-chair and the whole interior had a very homey feel. A counter cordoned off a third of the room. Two women in business suits stood in front of the counter, intently discussing with the cashier what they should order. Behind the cashier was a flurry of activity: men unloaded sheets of pies from large furnace-like ovens; they sprinkled powder over baked goods; some beat dough, sliced meat and chopped vegetables; others carefully squeezed swirls of cream onto desserts.
After fifteen minutes of debate, the two business women finally decided on something to eat. I stepped up to the counter, gave the theater's name and was handed three medium-sized boxes. A cook in the back asked me where the theatre was located (it's not actually called Skokie Theatre). When I replied Skokie, three of the men hooted and exclaimed that that was a long way to drive. "You have no idea," I replied.
Exiting the bakery twilight zone, I looked around the street once more. I was not mistaken -- it was a rundown ghetto. Perhaps the owners of the bakery purposefully destroyed the outside of their building as a means to prevent theft (their food wasn't cheap after all so I'm sure there is some money in there). I envisioned the cashier and some of the cooks taking hammers to the exterior of the bakery. As I rounded the corner with my boxes I stopped short. Two guys in the baggy jeans and bandanas were circling my car, staring into my back and front seats. As I neared, one of them seemed to study my license plate. The sound of the car unlocking itself, however, jolted them both out of their trance. They looked at me, almost as if surprised the car actually belonged to someone. "Um...hi," I said. Opening the door and jumping inside.
The two guys watched as I pulled away. On my mile and a half journey back to the interstate I passed Shuffling Metallic Man, another eccentric looking man-woman with a teacup sized Chihuahua, and two Asian girls who may have been dressed up as Anime characters for Halloween or that was just how they looked. In Bridgeport it's hard to tell.
Sadly, my scone baking extravaganza never happened. Instead, I arrived at the theatre last week and found Nikki on the phone with a "traditional English bakery" she had discovered. She placed an order for two banana cream pies, one mincemeat pie, and a steak and ale pie (the Brits do love their pies). As she recited the theater's Visa Card number into the phone she said, "And I'll be sending my assistant down to pick all that up. Thank you!" She then turned to me, the assistant. She handed me a Post-It note with the bakery's address.
"This is in Skokie?" I asked, already dreading the gas I was going to use for my unpaid position.
"It's in Bridgeport," Nikki answered.
"Where's that?"
"Right near Andersonville."
I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had to drive without being paid, but at least Andersonville (where my Uptown writing group is located) was only six miles below Skokie. I went back to my cubicle, plugged the address into Google Maps and came up with a location on the south side of Chicago. I zoomed in -- the address was located in a neighborhood called Bridgeport.
"Um, Nikki," I said, walking to her desk, "are you sure this is the right place?" I showed her where the address was located. Bridgeport was a little over twenty miles south of Skokie.
"Do you not feel safe going there?" Nikki asked. The south side of Chicago is notorious for crime. "I don't want to send you anywhere that you won't feel comfortable."
('I will feel comfortable if someone gives me gas money,' I wanted to say.)
"No, I'm fine. I just wanted to check," I said hesitantly.
"Great! You should head there around noon. I told them you would pick up the food at one o'clock and the actors will go on break at two."
I left the theatre right at noon. I merged onto I-94 and within three miles encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic. As downtown Chicago inched its way past my car Nikki texted me: "Georgia, I think you already left? Let's talk gas mileage when you get back!" So happy was I that I was actually going to get gas money out of the forty mile trip that it took a moment before I realized it was nearly 12:30 and Nikki had just realized I was gone.
Almost exactly an hour after I left Skokie Theatre and with the city of Chicago filling my rear-view mirror, I finally pulled off the interstate. The distance-tracker on my GPS displayed there was still another mile and a half to go. Strangely, I noticed that further I drove from the interstate, the more dilapidated the buildings became. By the time the congratulatory 'You Made It!' checkered flag appeared on my GPS screen, I was beginning to think a joke had been played on Nikki. Run down homes lined the street, thick steel bars covered windows and doors, a strange man with coke-bottle glasses, a severe limp and metallic wig shuffled along the sidewalk and clusters of boys about my age with saggy pants and dark bandanas stared as I drove by. The most well maintained building was what looked like a Hindu temple. It sat directly across the street from what my GPS told me was Pleasant Bakery: the traditional English bakery. Unfortunately, Pleasant Bakery looked more like Piss-Poor Bakery with its cracked and falling down faded yellow letters and holes in its facade.
I parked in the projects behind the bakery and walked the half block to the front of the building. Like the surrounding tenements, Pleasant Bakery, too, had thick steel bars lining its windows and doors and a padlock chain for extra security. The windows were so clouded that I couldn't discern any sign of life inside. I stood outside the front door for a moment and looked around. I wondered seriously whether I would even find the door unlocked or not.
There is only one word to describe the inside of Pleasant Bakery: "charming." Upon entering the building, I did a double take. Where was the shack I had entered? Where was the dirt and the grime and the crumbling inside to match the rundown-warehouse-full-of-scatters exterior? Pleasant Bakery was nothing shy of a pleasant diner.
Let's start with the smell -- that place smelled AMAZING. The moment I walked through the door I was hit with a wave of savory meats, roasting vegetables, and all other fumes associated with a meat pie or beef stew. A group of college students sat in a corner, each marveling over what the other had ordered. I assume they were writing some sort of review on the bakery because they had each selected a very different entree from one another and were setting up mock studio shots for each dish.
The room itself was simple and classic. The walls were made of dark wood paneling and the floor a beige tile. All the seating was made of half-booth-half-chair and the whole interior had a very homey feel. A counter cordoned off a third of the room. Two women in business suits stood in front of the counter, intently discussing with the cashier what they should order. Behind the cashier was a flurry of activity: men unloaded sheets of pies from large furnace-like ovens; they sprinkled powder over baked goods; some beat dough, sliced meat and chopped vegetables; others carefully squeezed swirls of cream onto desserts.
After fifteen minutes of debate, the two business women finally decided on something to eat. I stepped up to the counter, gave the theater's name and was handed three medium-sized boxes. A cook in the back asked me where the theatre was located (it's not actually called Skokie Theatre). When I replied Skokie, three of the men hooted and exclaimed that that was a long way to drive. "You have no idea," I replied.
Exiting the bakery twilight zone, I looked around the street once more. I was not mistaken -- it was a rundown ghetto. Perhaps the owners of the bakery purposefully destroyed the outside of their building as a means to prevent theft (their food wasn't cheap after all so I'm sure there is some money in there). I envisioned the cashier and some of the cooks taking hammers to the exterior of the bakery. As I rounded the corner with my boxes I stopped short. Two guys in the baggy jeans and bandanas were circling my car, staring into my back and front seats. As I neared, one of them seemed to study my license plate. The sound of the car unlocking itself, however, jolted them both out of their trance. They looked at me, almost as if surprised the car actually belonged to someone. "Um...hi," I said. Opening the door and jumping inside.
The two guys watched as I pulled away. On my mile and a half journey back to the interstate I passed Shuffling Metallic Man, another eccentric looking man-woman with a teacup sized Chihuahua, and two Asian girls who may have been dressed up as Anime characters for Halloween or that was just how they looked. In Bridgeport it's hard to tell.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Much Ado About Writing
In my search to fill ghastly amounts of free time, I joined two writing groups in Chicagoland within my first week of residency: one just north of the city, right on the edge of Boystown (exactly what it sounds like), and the other in downtown Evanston. I joined the Boystown group (Writers Anonymous) through Meetup.org, but panicked when they couldn't seem to get their act together enough to schedule a meeting for that week. I swiftly RSVP'd to the last space open in the Evanston group (Scribes) only to learn the next morning that Writers Anonymous had finally settled on an official date. Scrambling for a social life, I decided to try out both groups.
Before I went to either group I knew I had an interesting case study on my hands. Writers Anon was meeting in an area of Chicago known for being eclectic, accepting, young, and hip. Evanston, on the other hand, could go one of two ways: rich retirees or Northwestern students. As my sister put it: one group will have a member who's working on a sci-fi screenplay, while writers from the other group probably publish nothing but academic articles and anthologies.
Writers Anon met in a fairly large coffee shop that was most likely once a studio apartment. The walls were made of cracked beige brick and the wooden floor had small holes like driftwood. A post on the Meetup page had said someone would try to secure tables in the back room. I ordered a chai tea and made my way to the bricked archway where I could see people sitting at a random assortment of tables and arm chairs. A petite woman with black hair and cat-like glasses turned in her chair as I cautiously made my way down the three steps. "Are you here for the Meetup group?" she asked. I answered 'yes' and the other three people at her table cleared a space for me to sit.
For the next hour and a half we simply sat there and wrote. There was some chatting every now and then and about ten more writers showed up. Ages ranged from early 20s all the way to late 50s. There were recent college graduates, a professor from Columbia (the country -- I made the mistake and asked about the Chicago college), and just regular people who were working random jobs just so they could support themselves and their writing. A guy next to me, Rick*, told me about a three day trip he and two of his friends were about to take to Charleston, SC. They were going to leave the next day and drive through the night, stay three days and then head back to Chicago. After learning where I was from Rick asked if I would recommend taking a side trip to Savannah during their excursion. Never have I had someone be so enthralled while I recommended things to do and see in Savannah's historic district.
At the end of the hour and a half we all went around and introduced ourselves and what we were writing/like to write. As I had suspected, the majority of the writers there were screenwriters. There were a handful of poets and one woman had just had a piece published in a collection of short stories. Her story was under the genre "steam punk romance", but was apparently lacking in "porny sex." Another guy was writing a screenplay about Apple computers going rogue and taking over the world. Needless to say, I liked this group.
The following night I ventured a lot closer to my home: the Barnes and Noble in downtown Evanston. The Scribes weren't as easy to find as Writers Anonymous. I stalked the coffee shop, eavesdropping on any laptop-bearing groups made of three or more people. Finally I pulled out my own laptop and looked at the profile pictures of the Scribes members. Having found a few distinguishable faces I set off to scour the store. Luckily I didn't have to search long before one of the faces came down the escalator. I asked if he was part of Scribes and he sent me to a corner upstairs where a sign had been posted, reserving three tables for the writing group. There were about fifteen people already situated around the table and right away I could tell that this would be very different from Writers Anonymous. The crowd was definitely a few generations ahead of mine and the men and women were very "put together" and I was even able to spot a few recognizable Talbots pieces. My "wealthy retiree" stereotype of Evanston was proving true, but there was an unexpected sprinkling of nerds who carried the aura of World of Warcraft about them.
I spied an empty corner seat near the window. The chair was flanked by two older women with short gray bobs. The woman on the left wore a light purple sweater set and I couldn't help thinking 'public school librarian' as I looked at her. The lady to my right had a muted neon green (oxymoron, I know, but it's the only way to describe the colour)shirt tucked into high waisted jeans and eyeglass holders strewn with colourful beads: the Artist.
As I unpacked my laptop The Librarian looked at me quizzically. I smiled back and she asked, "Are you at the right group?" The question kind of took me aback, but I finally responded, "This is the writing group, right? Scribes?"
"Yes."
"Yep. This is the right group." I sat down.
Librarian was still staring at me strangely. "So," she said, "did you just decide to take up writing? For fun or for a hobby?"
"Nope. It was my college major." I realized I was clearly the youngest person in the group, but I was confused as to why my presence seemed to be so offending to this woman.
"What do you like to write?" The Artist asked, much more warmly.
I told her I preferred plays and creative nonfiction. I began to ask what she liked to write, but then the face from the escalator called the meeting into session.
Scribes was simultaneously very much what I had expected and not at all what I had expected. Unlike Writers Anonymous, the members of Scribes read submissions from three group members each week and the group meetings were focused on feedback of the pieces. Having been in mourning for all my college writing workshops for nearly two years now, I was very excited at the prospect at having other writers read and critique my pieces once again. Scribes critiquing, however, was much more militaristic than what I had experience at my liberal arts college. Everyone had to format their piece a particular way (prose and poetry) with line numbers and specific margins. Although everyone had read each piece and written comments, only four people could speak about each work and they were restricted to only a few minutes before the iPod timer would blare an embarrassingly loud siren (embarrassing because there were still regular Barnes and Noble patrons around us trying to get work done and the tone sounded like a fire alarm).
One of the pieces being critiqued did take me by surprise. It was a fantasy-horror piece by one of the World of Warcraft-esque men entitled "The Toad Who Killed Frogs". There was a bit of confusion as he had posted Part I as a prelude to the Part II everyone was supposed to be critiquing, but that confused half of the group so some people had only read Part I and others only Part II. Obviously I did not read this piece, but some of the lines I caught were:
"Sauerkraut balls"
"Poked the woodle"
"Probing an orifice, one of his captive frogs..."
I was stunned that everyone kept a straight face. I began scribbling notes in my journal, hoping to somehow capture the absurdity of all these retired professionals having to critique a piece about what I assume is a sadistic serial killing toad.
The meeting ended with a critique on a poem that was submitted by The Librarian. I was amazed because no one seemed to know how to critique poetry. I don't mean this in a "you're not using the right technical term" sort of way. The group members were absolutely daunted by the poem and the notion that they now had to discuss it. One man even said, "Well...it was good? I mean, I didn't see anything to talk about because...well it's POETRY." I wanted to snatch the sheet of paper from someone's hand and say, "Give me a minute. I'LL critique it!" Really, Scribes? You can talk until the alarm sounds about frog orifices, but a simple poem is treated like a disease? Perhaps I should continue to join the group just so the few non-horror-fantasy have a chance of someone taking their craft seriously.
Before I went to either group I knew I had an interesting case study on my hands. Writers Anon was meeting in an area of Chicago known for being eclectic, accepting, young, and hip. Evanston, on the other hand, could go one of two ways: rich retirees or Northwestern students. As my sister put it: one group will have a member who's working on a sci-fi screenplay, while writers from the other group probably publish nothing but academic articles and anthologies.
Writers Anon met in a fairly large coffee shop that was most likely once a studio apartment. The walls were made of cracked beige brick and the wooden floor had small holes like driftwood. A post on the Meetup page had said someone would try to secure tables in the back room. I ordered a chai tea and made my way to the bricked archway where I could see people sitting at a random assortment of tables and arm chairs. A petite woman with black hair and cat-like glasses turned in her chair as I cautiously made my way down the three steps. "Are you here for the Meetup group?" she asked. I answered 'yes' and the other three people at her table cleared a space for me to sit.
For the next hour and a half we simply sat there and wrote. There was some chatting every now and then and about ten more writers showed up. Ages ranged from early 20s all the way to late 50s. There were recent college graduates, a professor from Columbia (the country -- I made the mistake and asked about the Chicago college), and just regular people who were working random jobs just so they could support themselves and their writing. A guy next to me, Rick*, told me about a three day trip he and two of his friends were about to take to Charleston, SC. They were going to leave the next day and drive through the night, stay three days and then head back to Chicago. After learning where I was from Rick asked if I would recommend taking a side trip to Savannah during their excursion. Never have I had someone be so enthralled while I recommended things to do and see in Savannah's historic district.
At the end of the hour and a half we all went around and introduced ourselves and what we were writing/like to write. As I had suspected, the majority of the writers there were screenwriters. There were a handful of poets and one woman had just had a piece published in a collection of short stories. Her story was under the genre "steam punk romance", but was apparently lacking in "porny sex." Another guy was writing a screenplay about Apple computers going rogue and taking over the world. Needless to say, I liked this group.
The following night I ventured a lot closer to my home: the Barnes and Noble in downtown Evanston. The Scribes weren't as easy to find as Writers Anonymous. I stalked the coffee shop, eavesdropping on any laptop-bearing groups made of three or more people. Finally I pulled out my own laptop and looked at the profile pictures of the Scribes members. Having found a few distinguishable faces I set off to scour the store. Luckily I didn't have to search long before one of the faces came down the escalator. I asked if he was part of Scribes and he sent me to a corner upstairs where a sign had been posted, reserving three tables for the writing group. There were about fifteen people already situated around the table and right away I could tell that this would be very different from Writers Anonymous. The crowd was definitely a few generations ahead of mine and the men and women were very "put together" and I was even able to spot a few recognizable Talbots pieces. My "wealthy retiree" stereotype of Evanston was proving true, but there was an unexpected sprinkling of nerds who carried the aura of World of Warcraft about them.
I spied an empty corner seat near the window. The chair was flanked by two older women with short gray bobs. The woman on the left wore a light purple sweater set and I couldn't help thinking 'public school librarian' as I looked at her. The lady to my right had a muted neon green (oxymoron, I know, but it's the only way to describe the colour)shirt tucked into high waisted jeans and eyeglass holders strewn with colourful beads: the Artist.
As I unpacked my laptop The Librarian looked at me quizzically. I smiled back and she asked, "Are you at the right group?" The question kind of took me aback, but I finally responded, "This is the writing group, right? Scribes?"
"Yes."
"Yep. This is the right group." I sat down.
Librarian was still staring at me strangely. "So," she said, "did you just decide to take up writing? For fun or for a hobby?"
"Nope. It was my college major." I realized I was clearly the youngest person in the group, but I was confused as to why my presence seemed to be so offending to this woman.
"What do you like to write?" The Artist asked, much more warmly.
I told her I preferred plays and creative nonfiction. I began to ask what she liked to write, but then the face from the escalator called the meeting into session.
Scribes was simultaneously very much what I had expected and not at all what I had expected. Unlike Writers Anonymous, the members of Scribes read submissions from three group members each week and the group meetings were focused on feedback of the pieces. Having been in mourning for all my college writing workshops for nearly two years now, I was very excited at the prospect at having other writers read and critique my pieces once again. Scribes critiquing, however, was much more militaristic than what I had experience at my liberal arts college. Everyone had to format their piece a particular way (prose and poetry) with line numbers and specific margins. Although everyone had read each piece and written comments, only four people could speak about each work and they were restricted to only a few minutes before the iPod timer would blare an embarrassingly loud siren (embarrassing because there were still regular Barnes and Noble patrons around us trying to get work done and the tone sounded like a fire alarm).
One of the pieces being critiqued did take me by surprise. It was a fantasy-horror piece by one of the World of Warcraft-esque men entitled "The Toad Who Killed Frogs". There was a bit of confusion as he had posted Part I as a prelude to the Part II everyone was supposed to be critiquing, but that confused half of the group so some people had only read Part I and others only Part II. Obviously I did not read this piece, but some of the lines I caught were:
"Sauerkraut balls"
"Poked the woodle"
"Probing an orifice, one of his captive frogs..."
I was stunned that everyone kept a straight face. I began scribbling notes in my journal, hoping to somehow capture the absurdity of all these retired professionals having to critique a piece about what I assume is a sadistic serial killing toad.
The meeting ended with a critique on a poem that was submitted by The Librarian. I was amazed because no one seemed to know how to critique poetry. I don't mean this in a "you're not using the right technical term" sort of way. The group members were absolutely daunted by the poem and the notion that they now had to discuss it. One man even said, "Well...it was good? I mean, I didn't see anything to talk about because...well it's POETRY." I wanted to snatch the sheet of paper from someone's hand and say, "Give me a minute. I'LL critique it!" Really, Scribes? You can talk until the alarm sounds about frog orifices, but a simple poem is treated like a disease? Perhaps I should continue to join the group just so the few non-horror-fantasy have a chance of someone taking their craft seriously.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Chicago Revue
Today marks my tenth day in Chicago/Evanston. Not gonna lie -- it has been an emotional roller-coaster. My apartment is huge, but consistently empty and in my first full week at Skokie Theatre I worked a whopping nine hours (and I mean "worked" in the loosest of terms). As someone who finds downtime to be a personal version of Hell I kept myself as busy as humanly possible: I got a temporary library card, passed out thirteen resumes, filled out seven applications, had one job interview, saw a play, volunteered at the Chicago Cultural Center, inquired about ushering at several downtown theaters, ventured into the city five times, went to a drag bingo charity event, joined three meet-up groups, and attempted to audit a class at Northwestern University. Despite how full that list seems to be, when I find myself alone in my apartment all I can worry over is, "Now what?"
Over the past week I struggled to find a purpose in my internship. I wasn't given any assignments and my most productive tasks were making one-hundred copies of a photo and Windex-ing a plastic box. I sat in on the production meeting of a show I'm supposed to be working on (premiering in mid-January), which coincidentally involves Gullah culture in its storyline. For those who don't know, the Barrier Islands of Georgia and South Carolina are STEEPED in Gullah-Geechee history. Islands very near my home still keep the traditions, culture, and language alive. Needless to say, I was ecstatic at the notion of researching such a field of interest and familiarity for me. For Skokie Theatre, however, Gullah culture could not be more foreign.
I first learned about this aspect of the upcoming show, "Black Pearl Sings", when my supervisor began listing things she would like me to research in the near future. "You can look at what it was like to be a woman in the 1930s, a woman in prison in the 1930s, and maybe gender differences of the time." I wrote all of this down. "I'll be looking up more on the songs of the era, Texas in the 1930s, and information on the Ghoul-la culture." I had never heard this word before so I leaned over to see how it was spelled.
"Oh! Gullah?" I asked excitedly.
"Gullah?" Nikki repeated. "Is that how you pronounce it?"
"Are you talking about the slave culture from the South?"
"Yes." She sounded completely baffled that I would know such a random piece of knowledge.
"Yeah. That's all over the islands where I'm from. The Gullah-Geechee culture? There's an island near mine where they even still speak the language."
"You've heard about this?"
"Of course. Gone to festivals, been to the island. It's a big thing down there."
Nikki was dumbfounded. "Wow. So do you think you could do some research on this, too??"
"Definitely," I said, already scribbling down the titles of some books I knew would be helpful. "Maybe I could even call some people who I --"
"Yeah, that's great, Georgia." Nikki was already turning towards her computer, tuning me out. "We can discuss that later."
The next few days at the theatre followed this pattern and I was typically dismissed after only three hours of "work." I began to worry that my decision to leave a paying job on Mackinac had been a mistake. However, I looked forward to the weekend when I would see one of the opening performances of Skokie Theater's new show and was to hear a talk-back after the show as well.
When I arrived at the theatre Sunday afternoon, I did my usual fifteen minute game of "Where's my supervisor?" Upon finding her, Nikki asked if I could record the talk-back after the show. Of course I could. It was the first meaningful task I had been given all week! A man named Stephen approached and began asking Nikki the logistics of the talk-back.(And just to bring everyone up to speed -- the show Skokie Theatre is producing at the moment is a brand new musical comedy revue of songs by Stephen Schwartz. For those of you who do not know Stephen Schwartz, he is the composer and lyricist of the musicals 'Wicked', 'Pippin', and 'Godspell' (among a plethora of others), the movie 'Enchanted', and has even contributed a few songs to 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' and 'The Prince of Egypt'. Basically, a musical god who is on par with Stephen Sondheim ('West Side Story', 'Sweeney Todd', etc.))
I stood next to Nikki awkwardly as she continued to talk with this man. The more they talked about how long the talk-back would last the more I wondered absurdly, "Is this Stephen Schwartz?" I laughed because Number One: I would assume Nikki would introduce me to someone as influential to musical theatre as Stephen Schwartz; and Number Two: wouldn't I feel the tingling of some sort of holy presence if I were one foot away from such a musical god? I certainly felt something around him, but I chalked it up to the awkwardness of not being introduced to somebody when they come up to talk to your friend/acquaintance.
While in my seat waiting for the overture to begin I flipped through the program. My heart dropped as I found the "About the Writer" page. There was Stephen Schwartz. There was the man who was less than two feet away from me a mere five minutes ago. I quickly scanned the auditorium. My musical theatre-senses had been correct: I was in the same room as a walking legend.
My irritation at the missed introduction with Stephen Schwartz dissipated momentarily as the musical began. The songs were catchy and heartfelt and I found myself suppressing tears quite often (this could have also been because the musical was about leaving your friends and family behind...fuck you, Schwartz.).
Right before the last song, Nikki came to where I was sitting and asked if I could go into the lobby and make sure I knew how to work her tape recorder. The song was nearly over when I returned to the back of the house. I surveyed the faces of the audience to see if anyone had become as emotional as I felt during the performance. Thankfully there were a few tear-streaked faces. I jumped when my scanning suddenly landed on the man standing just to the side of Nikki. Stephen Schwartz. In the triangle the three of us formed I was now just inches from the man whose song I had been listening to on my way to the theatre that afternoon. I weighed the pros and cons of "losing my balance" just to nudge his arm; just to say, "I touched Stephen Schwartz!" Luckily, the show ended during this debate and Stephen and Nikki quickly moved forward as the audience began to stand in ovation.
The Musical Mastermind gave a short talk about the beginnings and transformation of the show, which had apparently been twenty-two years in the making (with a fifteen year gap, mind you). A few audience members asked questions and then Nikki announced that Stephen had spoken to the Chicago Dramatist Guild the previous night.
The Chicago Dramatist Guild is a group of playwrights (amateur and professional) currently based in Chicago. This was the event Nikki had originally invited me to and then inexplicably UNinvited me to. Me -- someone who Nikki is very aware is interested in playwriting. I drove five hours north to Atlanta one week just to sit in on a session the Atlanta Dramatist Guild meeting was having with the playwright Gary Garrison. At the end of the talk-back Nikki told me to transcribe everything I had recorded and come back to the theatre on Tuesday. She then walked off, chatting excitedly with a theatre student who had been emailing her recently. I think I'm going to see if the Goodman is looking for volunteers.
Over the past week I struggled to find a purpose in my internship. I wasn't given any assignments and my most productive tasks were making one-hundred copies of a photo and Windex-ing a plastic box. I sat in on the production meeting of a show I'm supposed to be working on (premiering in mid-January), which coincidentally involves Gullah culture in its storyline. For those who don't know, the Barrier Islands of Georgia and South Carolina are STEEPED in Gullah-Geechee history. Islands very near my home still keep the traditions, culture, and language alive. Needless to say, I was ecstatic at the notion of researching such a field of interest and familiarity for me. For Skokie Theatre, however, Gullah culture could not be more foreign.
I first learned about this aspect of the upcoming show, "Black Pearl Sings", when my supervisor began listing things she would like me to research in the near future. "You can look at what it was like to be a woman in the 1930s, a woman in prison in the 1930s, and maybe gender differences of the time." I wrote all of this down. "I'll be looking up more on the songs of the era, Texas in the 1930s, and information on the Ghoul-la culture." I had never heard this word before so I leaned over to see how it was spelled.
"Oh! Gullah?" I asked excitedly.
"Gullah?" Nikki repeated. "Is that how you pronounce it?"
"Are you talking about the slave culture from the South?"
"Yes." She sounded completely baffled that I would know such a random piece of knowledge.
"Yeah. That's all over the islands where I'm from. The Gullah-Geechee culture? There's an island near mine where they even still speak the language."
"You've heard about this?"
"Of course. Gone to festivals, been to the island. It's a big thing down there."
Nikki was dumbfounded. "Wow. So do you think you could do some research on this, too??"
"Definitely," I said, already scribbling down the titles of some books I knew would be helpful. "Maybe I could even call some people who I --"
"Yeah, that's great, Georgia." Nikki was already turning towards her computer, tuning me out. "We can discuss that later."
The next few days at the theatre followed this pattern and I was typically dismissed after only three hours of "work." I began to worry that my decision to leave a paying job on Mackinac had been a mistake. However, I looked forward to the weekend when I would see one of the opening performances of Skokie Theater's new show and was to hear a talk-back after the show as well.
When I arrived at the theatre Sunday afternoon, I did my usual fifteen minute game of "Where's my supervisor?" Upon finding her, Nikki asked if I could record the talk-back after the show. Of course I could. It was the first meaningful task I had been given all week! A man named Stephen approached and began asking Nikki the logistics of the talk-back.(And just to bring everyone up to speed -- the show Skokie Theatre is producing at the moment is a brand new musical comedy revue of songs by Stephen Schwartz. For those of you who do not know Stephen Schwartz, he is the composer and lyricist of the musicals 'Wicked', 'Pippin', and 'Godspell' (among a plethora of others), the movie 'Enchanted', and has even contributed a few songs to 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' and 'The Prince of Egypt'. Basically, a musical god who is on par with Stephen Sondheim ('West Side Story', 'Sweeney Todd', etc.))
I stood next to Nikki awkwardly as she continued to talk with this man. The more they talked about how long the talk-back would last the more I wondered absurdly, "Is this Stephen Schwartz?" I laughed because Number One: I would assume Nikki would introduce me to someone as influential to musical theatre as Stephen Schwartz; and Number Two: wouldn't I feel the tingling of some sort of holy presence if I were one foot away from such a musical god? I certainly felt something around him, but I chalked it up to the awkwardness of not being introduced to somebody when they come up to talk to your friend/acquaintance.
While in my seat waiting for the overture to begin I flipped through the program. My heart dropped as I found the "About the Writer" page. There was Stephen Schwartz. There was the man who was less than two feet away from me a mere five minutes ago. I quickly scanned the auditorium. My musical theatre-senses had been correct: I was in the same room as a walking legend.
My irritation at the missed introduction with Stephen Schwartz dissipated momentarily as the musical began. The songs were catchy and heartfelt and I found myself suppressing tears quite often (this could have also been because the musical was about leaving your friends and family behind...fuck you, Schwartz.).
Right before the last song, Nikki came to where I was sitting and asked if I could go into the lobby and make sure I knew how to work her tape recorder. The song was nearly over when I returned to the back of the house. I surveyed the faces of the audience to see if anyone had become as emotional as I felt during the performance. Thankfully there were a few tear-streaked faces. I jumped when my scanning suddenly landed on the man standing just to the side of Nikki. Stephen Schwartz. In the triangle the three of us formed I was now just inches from the man whose song I had been listening to on my way to the theatre that afternoon. I weighed the pros and cons of "losing my balance" just to nudge his arm; just to say, "I touched Stephen Schwartz!" Luckily, the show ended during this debate and Stephen and Nikki quickly moved forward as the audience began to stand in ovation.
The Musical Mastermind gave a short talk about the beginnings and transformation of the show, which had apparently been twenty-two years in the making (with a fifteen year gap, mind you). A few audience members asked questions and then Nikki announced that Stephen had spoken to the Chicago Dramatist Guild the previous night.
The Chicago Dramatist Guild is a group of playwrights (amateur and professional) currently based in Chicago. This was the event Nikki had originally invited me to and then inexplicably UNinvited me to. Me -- someone who Nikki is very aware is interested in playwriting. I drove five hours north to Atlanta one week just to sit in on a session the Atlanta Dramatist Guild meeting was having with the playwright Gary Garrison. At the end of the talk-back Nikki told me to transcribe everything I had recorded and come back to the theatre on Tuesday. She then walked off, chatting excitedly with a theatre student who had been emailing her recently. I think I'm going to see if the Goodman is looking for volunteers.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Another Suitcase in Another Hall
Well here we go again, folks. 'Lost in the Woods' has once again changed its theme and will now just focus on what is apparently a constantly changing life in my twenties. This seems to be a theme with everyone around my age now. Friends are moving to Seattle, Ann Arbor, Boston, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, going to grad school, working for bakeries, trying to find any entry-level job possible -- all transient and all just trying to figure out what to do post-undergrad. The general consensus over the past year has just been a resounding, "Where do we land?"
I moved to Chicago four days ago. I came here for a theatre internship that will hopefully be my "foot in the door" for whatever it is I want to do with my life. I found a nice duplex apartment in Evanston about three miles from the theatre where I will be working and am living with two other post-grad twentysomething girls. I'll admit that I am very much the type of person who takes transitions very rough, but after having adjusted to Mackinac so easily, I was ill prepared for the onslaught of emotions that took over the moment I boarded my last mainland bound ferry and have really yet to stop.
Already sad and nervous about having picked up my entire life again to move to a new place alone, I sought solace in my internship. It was going to be great. I was going to meet the other interns (hopefully people similar to myself in age and demeanor), learn about all the exciting stuff I was going to do, and hopefully make some friends. I arrived at Skokie Theatre* just before noon. The monotone secretary buzzed me inside and I entered an enormous, grand lobby. My spirits lifted a little as I thought, "This is a REAL theatre." I don't know what I was expecting, but I was already feeling pleasantly surprised.
The theatre office left a little to be desired for when compared to the lobby. Everyone was inside unstable looking cubicles and there wasn't the normal chatter I've been accustomed to in office rooms. The woman who was to be my supervisor, Nikki*, took me around the office, introducing me to everyone. After fifteen minutes of this she took me into the lobby and loosely went over the season line-up of shows before handing me two plays.
"You can take these home and read them if you'd like. Or a coffee shop maybe?"
I looked at her a moment, confused as to what exactly she was saying. "And come back?" I asked.
"You can just bring them back Wednesday." (It was only Monday and my first day off was already Tuesday.)
"Can I read them here?" I felt a slight anger rise in me. Here I was: sad, scared, and lonely. I had once again uprooted everything to move to a place where I knew almost no one and all for a half hour of introduction?
"Sure! If you'd like. We can discuss the plays when you're done. Come find me when you finish this one and we'll discuss it."
I read the play until about 2:15 p.m. I went and found Nikki. She took the script from me, asked if I liked it and then said I could go home...Let's hope my second day is more encouraging.
I moved to Chicago four days ago. I came here for a theatre internship that will hopefully be my "foot in the door" for whatever it is I want to do with my life. I found a nice duplex apartment in Evanston about three miles from the theatre where I will be working and am living with two other post-grad twentysomething girls. I'll admit that I am very much the type of person who takes transitions very rough, but after having adjusted to Mackinac so easily, I was ill prepared for the onslaught of emotions that took over the moment I boarded my last mainland bound ferry and have really yet to stop.
Already sad and nervous about having picked up my entire life again to move to a new place alone, I sought solace in my internship. It was going to be great. I was going to meet the other interns (hopefully people similar to myself in age and demeanor), learn about all the exciting stuff I was going to do, and hopefully make some friends. I arrived at Skokie Theatre* just before noon. The monotone secretary buzzed me inside and I entered an enormous, grand lobby. My spirits lifted a little as I thought, "This is a REAL theatre." I don't know what I was expecting, but I was already feeling pleasantly surprised.
The theatre office left a little to be desired for when compared to the lobby. Everyone was inside unstable looking cubicles and there wasn't the normal chatter I've been accustomed to in office rooms. The woman who was to be my supervisor, Nikki*, took me around the office, introducing me to everyone. After fifteen minutes of this she took me into the lobby and loosely went over the season line-up of shows before handing me two plays.
"You can take these home and read them if you'd like. Or a coffee shop maybe?"
I looked at her a moment, confused as to what exactly she was saying. "And come back?" I asked.
"You can just bring them back Wednesday." (It was only Monday and my first day off was already Tuesday.)
"Can I read them here?" I felt a slight anger rise in me. Here I was: sad, scared, and lonely. I had once again uprooted everything to move to a place where I knew almost no one and all for a half hour of introduction?
"Sure! If you'd like. We can discuss the plays when you're done. Come find me when you finish this one and we'll discuss it."
I read the play until about 2:15 p.m. I went and found Nikki. She took the script from me, asked if I liked it and then said I could go home...Let's hope my second day is more encouraging.
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