Christmas has Come!

Hello! I know everyone is anxious to know what I got for Christmas this year. I thought I'd go in the order I received it (to the best of my memory since Mom is shipping me the stuff she gave me and it's been a while since I opened hers). So without further ado:

1. The America’s Test Kitchen Book.

2. The most current season of America’s Test Kitchen on DVD.

3. Magazine subscription to Real Simple

4. Smithsonian Membership

5. A lovely journal and a book mark and some beautiful pens

6. Boots

7. A new digital camera, the Canon PowerShot SD30 in a beautiful Rock Star Red

8. A new cell phone because I HATED MY RAZR. I love my new Samsung t619.

9. A new white down jacket.

10. The new Product Red iPod Nano

11. New Coach sneakers (brown and gold)

12. Beautiful Veuve Cliequot Champagne set in a beautiful cooler case with flutes.

13. Dual Membership to the American Natural History Museum

I gave Bruce the book that Dallas helped me make and he got really emotional about it. It was the perfect gift and I’m glad I could pull it off for him. I will actually be spending the holiday alone in my house with the boys, so it should be interesting. We have our first real Christmas tree this year and so far the boys haven’t tried anything more annoying than trying to drinks the tree’s water out of the stand. Also, Pyam sent me the first Christmas card sent to Bruce and I, so (if you are reading this) thank you for that. It was really uplifting and Bruce has decided he likes you even though he hasn't met you yet. I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday!

(I was trying to put pictures and links to all this stuff, but I haven't quite mastered that skill yet, I'm still learning how this works.)

Long Time in Coming

Hello again from the craziness that is my life. The last few weeks have been crazy and strange and most of it in a not so great way. In my last post, I mentioned that my Grandmother had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in her jaw. My Grandmother - Marie Hieser - died on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. My mother went up to IL to help her siblings make arrangements and do whatever it is people do when someone dies. I tried to get to IL for the funeral and ended up stuck in Detroit. Bruce managed to get to me in Detroit so I was at least not stuck alone, but it sucked a lot (I HATE DETROIT AND NORTHWEST AIRLINES) and I felt like I let my mom down. Somewhere around the second or third weeks of December (whatever two weeks ago was), Mom had surgery in Houston. It was going to be exploratory surgery but ended up being a hysterectomy. She was in the hospital for a couple of days and couldn't drive for a week. She came through it fantastically, however it was a little difficult for me. Times like this, I wish I had a sibling or two running around to help take care of some of this stuff. I did, however, get to reconnect with Pyam while I was home and that was fantastic. I was with Mom until she got out of the hospital and then I went to Atlanta where my dad met my boyfriend for the first time. I also got to go to the GA Aquarium (which was AWESOME!) where I got to touch a little shark.

I was really worried about my dad meeting Bruce for the first time. Bruce had no idea what Atlanta traffic was like, so he was actually like an hour late (of all the times to be late, right?!?) but in the end I think it worked out fairly well. My dad went from being adamantly against the whole thing to just wanting me to be happy and not get hurt. I especially loved the part where I was sent away for an hour like a child so they could have a man-to-man talk. I'm glad they seem to have come to some sort of understanding, but I'm really worried about my dad.

Come to think of it, I'm actually very worried about both of my parents. With mom's friend Tom moving to Africa, she doesn't have much of a close support group left and I worry about her. Daddy wants to be happy and doesn't know what it would take to be happy. They are so much more alike than they think they are. In case anyone wonders where I get that whole philosophy of "if you let people get close to you, they can hurt you" - it came from both of my parents.

The best things that happened since my last post if that the show opened and closed, I finally got to spend some time with my boyfriend in daylight, I got to see both of my parents and already got all my Christmas presents, and at my office people seem to have been handing out bottles of champagne like water. More on the Christmas presents to come in a few moments in a separate post.

Change is afoot! (or is change a foot?)

So much has been going on in the past few weeks. Antigone is up and running. Bruce and I had another go 'round about our situation and now we're trying to make things work, there are only 10 days until Crazy is out of my house. I feel like I haven't slept more than two hours in a night for weeks on end. I don't even know where to start.

I guess the exciting stuff is that Antigone is up and running. It is always more fun to finally be doing all the things you’ve been planning and talking about for months on end. The action feels good and I feel like we have a really great cast. There is a gentleman in the show named Angus (who is playing Creon). I want him to live on my bookshelf and come down to read me Winnie the Pooh and Harry Potter. He’s Scottish with the accent and everything. It’s awesome.

Bruce and I got caught at work and almost got fired. It was stressful to say the least and I was very unimpressed by the way my company handled the whole thing (especially since we weren’t breaking any rules or company policies or laws, Barry just didn’t like it). The secrecy of all of it is wearing on me and it gets harder and harder to handle. We’ve come to terms with it for the moment, but I know that little issue will flair up again in the not too distant future. Now the theatre company has started up in rehearsals again and I warned him about the time commitment and told him I’d be constantly busy and he’d never see me, but I’m not sure he believed me. It should be interesting to see how we find our way through this one.

My Grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in her jaw and has been undergoing treatment for the past few weeks. She had an operation and she's been having a lot of set backs, so if anyone is reading this, please send some good thoughts towards Bloomington/Normal, IL and my family there.

That the update for the moment. More to come.

Negativity

So I was over at my formerly complicated man friend's house today and it struck me: How on earth did I end up spending so much time with someone who is so freaking negative all the time!?!?!?! What was I thinking! His ex-fiancee announced her engagement today and so he's down in the dumps because he feels like he's never going to find love again. 1. They've been apart for more than 10 years. 2. She's been with this guy for years so it is not a surprise. 3. He thinks this is the reason he's going to die alone? 4. What is so bad about his life? He's got a couple of different girl's he's starting to see, he's got a thriving business, an interesting theatre company and fantastic friends! Anyway, shortly after that, I'm helping him go through some stuff (he's been away for a couple of weeks: 3 or 4 weeks in Spain followed by 2 weeks in California) and I opened this book from Stanford. Apparently every five years, they put out this book of questionnaires that the Alumni fill out so people can find out where they are and what they are doing with their lives. I asked him what he wanted me to do with it and he told me to throw it away because the only thing it would do it give him an opportunity to see how much better all his classmates were doing than he was. Wow! I'm all about a little healthy competition, but jeez! What a downer.

I know my parents aren't pleased by the new boyfriend (the 20 year age difference doesn't much thrill them) but at least Bruce is upbeat and positive and he makes me take care of myself. He makes me feel like I can do anything and he wants to be supportive of me while I do it. Even when he doesn't understand it at all. This whole theatre company thing is a new experience for him. He thinks they work me too hard and he doesn't understand the part where I do it because I love it and not because I get paid large piles of money. It's so cute that he just keeps going, "And they don't pay you for this?" I miss him when he's in MA. Oh, well.

In other news, Crazy is supposedly moving out. I'm really looking forward to this event because then I feel like we can be friends again. My apartment is too small for three people and I love her, but I cannot live with her. Dallas is talking about moving in with Dov around December, so I should have my apartment to myself by the first of the year. Still trying to figure out how to pay for that, but I like the concept. My apartment is really too big for just me, but I suppose it will be nice to see what that is like. Bruce wants to move in here if we haven't found a place by then. I think if his divorce is not final, then he definitely will be. I'm understanding to a point, but I don't think it is a good idea for me to give up my apartment when he is still legally attached to someone else. Aren't mom and dad proud reading this right now.

My friend Pyam has a post on his blog about possibilities and he made a list of things that are important for him to do before he dies (a la Last Holiday). I think that is a good plan and I am going to work on my own. Stay tuned for that. I am also going to start trying to update my blog more often because I totally suck at that.

Off to bed for sleep now. I have call backs for our show tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to 8 hours of relative boredom. I'll be glad when rehearsals start so I at least have something interesting to watch. Good night!

Welcome!

Okay, so I have not blogged in a very long time. The reasons for this are many and varied, but let’s leave it at some people need to learn how not to take every thing so personally and I need to learn that not everyone needs a link to what is going on in my life. I last blogged on June 25, 2006. Since that time, my life has taken some very interesting turns in ways that I didn’t entirely expect. I guess I don't even know where to start, so maybe I will just pick up with where I am at and if anyone is confused or wants more information, let me know and I will clarify.

I just had probably the best weekend I've had in a very long time! My BF came to town on Friday night and the only thing he requested was that we have as much time to ourselves as I can possibly manage. I have a habit of scheduling myself into craziness, so he usually ends up along for the ride and he has been so sweet about it. Friday night we went to dinner at this great place in Bay Ridge called Casa Pepe. I've been trying to get him there for a while, but apparently this place is closed on Tuesdays and that is when I see him a lot, so it hasn't worked out well. On our way back to the house we passed a bar that had karaoke and I had to go in. I also asked him if it would be okay if I called Alicia. I know she likes karaoke and I knew she was at the house two blocks away and if she found out that I found and did karaoke without telling her, she'd be mad at me. Unfortunately, Bruce relented and I called her. She came to join us at this pub called The Three Jolly Pigeons dressed to the nines in a black, backless mini dress and heels and she was already totally smashed. We sang and we were having an okay time, but she was mad because she couldn't bribe the guy to let her sing more or move her up the list and she didn't think that was "fair". I've been trying to explain to her that "fair" does not mean Alicia gets to do whatever she wants and everyone else has to deal, but I'm not sure this is actually making it through. She tried to make me get rid of a guy she managed to rope in and I told her she needed to do that herself. I'm a little angry at her because she was in talks with Bruce(my BF)'s friend Todd to maybe see each other and he was going to come in to visit her. She told me that when she started seeing this guy named Sean (who I always want to call Seth) that she told Todd it wouldn't be a good idea for him to come visit. So when Todd calls Bruce and asks about Alicia's "Family Emergency" (ostensibly because he wanted to make sure everything was all right, but it is possible he was just checking up on her story), I get put in the awkward position of either ratting her out or lying for her (neither of which I want to do) and then she has the nerve to tell me it is none of my business when I ask her about it. It was none of my business until she lied to me and I got put in the position of lying for her. Now it is my business. Anyway, so the next morning Bruce and I decide to get out of the house (mostly because he doesn't want to be around her very much) and she's acting like I'm totally ditching her because we are going out without her and then says to me "Are you really wearing that?" (First of all I looked totally cute, second of all, I'm going wandering around, not to a freaking fashion show.) Bruce has been talking about us living together for a couple of weeks now and we've sort of been half assed looking for a place to live. He doesn't really know anything about the areas here, though, so we set out to fix that. We wandered around in Bay Ridge (where I live now) and the neighborhood is nice because you can actually have a house with a yard and all of that if you go only a bit further out than I am now. That's all well and good and I love my 'hood, but I'd really like to be a bit closer in. Then we wandered up to to Park Slope and had an afternoon drink with Justin and poked around that neighborhood for a bit. After that we went up to Brooklyn Heights to check out that area. Basically we wandered around Brooklyn holding hands and talking for 8 hours and then we came back to the house and cuddled on the couch and watch movies until we fell asleep. The only bad part was where we had to come back to my apartment where my roommates could come home at any moment as opposed to going back to our house where we could be alone. It was wonderful. On Sunday morning, we got up early and found this great little French restaurant for Brunch. I was giving him a hard time because he is of nearly entirely French decent and can't read or speak a word of it beyond 'Bonjour!'. I said between that and the fact that he's keeping a German girl, his ancestors must be rolling over in their graves. I really wish he hadn't had to leave yesterday. I also really wish we could accelerate all the other crap so we can really start our life together, but I suppose we all have obstacles for a reason. Gotta run and start some planning for the CES Convention in Las Vegas in January. More on that later!