1. My dormitory
2. Holyoke High School. I had a visitor's pass to walk down the hallway.
3. Hampshire County Correctional Facility. I had a visitor's pass there too.
4. The Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies.
No one really thinks about it, but they visit a lot of interesting bathrooms. For example, in the previous post about my arduous journey to Amherst, one silver lining was that I didn't have to pee in the awkward green toilets just outside of Leominster. Instead I peed in toilets far far away from where I should have been. Oh well.
I really don't find bathroom humor hilarious (mostly) but I just had this thought today.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
I'm in a Comedy and I'll Never Leave the Stage
But really. I never leave the stage.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is opening at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies October 9-11 and 16-18. Ticket costs and showtimes to be announced. In the meantime, every rehearsal is a fun-through!
This 1607 Beaumont play is an overt cross between Shakespeare and Monty Python's Holy Grail. A troupe of actors has begun their rendition of "The London Merchant" when a Citizen interrupts and demands a play more to his liking. His obnoxious, bloodthirsty nouveau riche wife (Yours Truly) pipes up, offering her manservant to play the part of the chivalrous Grocer errant. Rafe becomes THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE and travels around the stage making the troupe's play a farcical mishap.
We can't stop laughing. There are coconuts and penis jokes for all. Come to the play!!!!
*Also if you want to be in it we still have two parts open. Eeeeee.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is opening at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies October 9-11 and 16-18. Ticket costs and showtimes to be announced. In the meantime, every rehearsal is a fun-through!
This 1607 Beaumont play is an overt cross between Shakespeare and Monty Python's Holy Grail. A troupe of actors has begun their rendition of "The London Merchant" when a Citizen interrupts and demands a play more to his liking. His obnoxious, bloodthirsty nouveau riche wife (Yours Truly) pipes up, offering her manservant to play the part of the chivalrous Grocer errant. Rafe becomes THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE and travels around the stage making the troupe's play a farcical mishap.
We can't stop laughing. There are coconuts and penis jokes for all. Come to the play!!!!
*Also if you want to be in it we still have two parts open. Eeeeee.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Back to School
My alarm went off at 5am. The car had been packed the night before (thank the Gods) and I stared at my beeping phone with the poison of a thousand arrow frogs. Or something like that. Struggling into my clothes, I grabbed the few last minute things that needed to be put in the car. My ascent of the stairs was troubled with a few false starts and several meetings of my hips with the railings.
The smell of coffee assaulted my dulled brain. Like a zombie I stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed a mug off the rack. My angelic mother, my beautiful thoughtful mother had started the coffee early. I spent ten minutes completely zonked on the couch, noticing only that the sun had yet to show its face.
I'm of the opinion that really, if the sun isn't up, we shouldn't be up. It used to be that way you know. People woke up when the sun did, or just before, and worked until the light was gone. That makes sense to me. None of this, wake up at the ass-crack of dawn (or sleep until all the good parts of morning are gone) and stay awake until the ass-crack of dawn.
"But I digress." By 5:45, my mother, my bags, and a travel mug filled with the elixir of the gods were somehow contained inside a tiny Toyota Camry, setting forth on our quest to Amherst. The conversation was great, even if I occasionally forgot what I wanted to say. By 7:30 it was time for a pit stop.
Usually we stop just outside Leominster, at a very breezy, green toileted rest stop that is only mildly sketch. This time, we decided to go someplace different. Cleaner. With food. McDonalds, do not fail me.
We managed to find the only McDonalds located more than half a mile off the exit and shot two birds with one stone: the coffee had been running low. Back on the road, we snarfed down hash browns and Egg McMuffins. After a few failed tries to get back on the highway (That says South, and we're going West! Mom says, and with her innate ability to get us hopelessly lost no matter how simple the directions are, I ignore her.) At last, sanity and consciousness came to me. It is now 8:30am.
It comes time for us to turn onto 202. Amherst is only 45 minutes away.... but everything looks kinda... odd. We pass exit 15 and I turn to my mother: "We're taking the next one, exit 16."
We pass exit 13A and 13 B, both headed to... Rhode Island? I realize something is horribly wrong. We take exit 12 to turn around (again.) I realize the signs that should be saying 'US-R-2 West' actually read 'I-495 South.' I turn to my mother again and say apologetically, "Mom, I don't want to burst your bubble but did you turn onto Route 2?"
"Of course!"
Hmmmm. Exit 16 is for Franklin and Pawtucket RI. Right. Mom realizes that at 6:45 she did not, in fact, take Route 2. We are a good 70 miles off course. No biggie, we'll just be an hour and fifteen minutes later than expected. 5 hours in the car... no problem...
We arrive. I nearly kiss the ground with joy. I head to campus police to collect my key, and we park by my dorm. In 5 trips we manage to get everything in. Crazy how awesome those hand dollies really work! I test my key. ...It doesn't turn. I try again, since sometimes I'm very keytarded. No dice. I check out the numbers on the back... and realize that this key is for the room two floors down from mine.
Well, shiite. It's Saturday. The Locksmith won't be in. I go back to campus police and tell my sad, sad story. They call in the locksmith. 45 minutes later I'm in my room. Everything goes swimmingly, and we're even able to get my fridge out of the garage at work! Awesome.
The rest of the day is beautiful. The farmer's market gets me stocked up on bread and fruit (and yummy peach smoothies mmmm.)
Two days later, I have everything but my printer (somewhere in the dearths of work...) and things are looking great! Wait for updates on classes: Intro to Buddhist Traditions, Sexuality and History in the Contemporary Novel, The Graphic Novel, and Historical Perspectives of the US Criminal Justice System... otherwise known as JAIL since it's taught in a local prison facility with inmates as classmates. My number one priority: don't get shanked.
The smell of coffee assaulted my dulled brain. Like a zombie I stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed a mug off the rack. My angelic mother, my beautiful thoughtful mother had started the coffee early. I spent ten minutes completely zonked on the couch, noticing only that the sun had yet to show its face.
I'm of the opinion that really, if the sun isn't up, we shouldn't be up. It used to be that way you know. People woke up when the sun did, or just before, and worked until the light was gone. That makes sense to me. None of this, wake up at the ass-crack of dawn (or sleep until all the good parts of morning are gone) and stay awake until the ass-crack of dawn.
"But I digress." By 5:45, my mother, my bags, and a travel mug filled with the elixir of the gods were somehow contained inside a tiny Toyota Camry, setting forth on our quest to Amherst. The conversation was great, even if I occasionally forgot what I wanted to say. By 7:30 it was time for a pit stop.
Usually we stop just outside Leominster, at a very breezy, green toileted rest stop that is only mildly sketch. This time, we decided to go someplace different. Cleaner. With food. McDonalds, do not fail me.
We managed to find the only McDonalds located more than half a mile off the exit and shot two birds with one stone: the coffee had been running low. Back on the road, we snarfed down hash browns and Egg McMuffins. After a few failed tries to get back on the highway (That says South, and we're going West! Mom says, and with her innate ability to get us hopelessly lost no matter how simple the directions are, I ignore her.) At last, sanity and consciousness came to me. It is now 8:30am.
It comes time for us to turn onto 202. Amherst is only 45 minutes away.... but everything looks kinda... odd. We pass exit 15 and I turn to my mother: "We're taking the next one, exit 16."
We pass exit 13A and 13 B, both headed to... Rhode Island? I realize something is horribly wrong. We take exit 12 to turn around (again.) I realize the signs that should be saying 'US-R-2 West' actually read 'I-495 South.' I turn to my mother again and say apologetically, "Mom, I don't want to burst your bubble but did you turn onto Route 2?"
"Of course!"
Hmmmm. Exit 16 is for Franklin and Pawtucket RI. Right. Mom realizes that at 6:45 she did not, in fact, take Route 2. We are a good 70 miles off course. No biggie, we'll just be an hour and fifteen minutes later than expected. 5 hours in the car... no problem...
We arrive. I nearly kiss the ground with joy. I head to campus police to collect my key, and we park by my dorm. In 5 trips we manage to get everything in. Crazy how awesome those hand dollies really work! I test my key. ...It doesn't turn. I try again, since sometimes I'm very keytarded. No dice. I check out the numbers on the back... and realize that this key is for the room two floors down from mine.
Well, shiite. It's Saturday. The Locksmith won't be in. I go back to campus police and tell my sad, sad story. They call in the locksmith. 45 minutes later I'm in my room. Everything goes swimmingly, and we're even able to get my fridge out of the garage at work! Awesome.
The rest of the day is beautiful. The farmer's market gets me stocked up on bread and fruit (and yummy peach smoothies mmmm.)
Two days later, I have everything but my printer (somewhere in the dearths of work...) and things are looking great! Wait for updates on classes: Intro to Buddhist Traditions, Sexuality and History in the Contemporary Novel, The Graphic Novel, and Historical Perspectives of the US Criminal Justice System... otherwise known as JAIL since it's taught in a local prison facility with inmates as classmates. My number one priority: don't get shanked.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Babies?
I've been working one of my favorite jobs for a full year now. My employer keeps telling me she feels like she's getting away with something every time I come over... and my wards say "Shoe." Yes, my lovely children, babysitting is a fun job. Most of the time.
Last night I covered "sleepytime" while the Parents went out for dinner. However, the departure was so delayed that sleepytime came before the Parents left. They decided to put the kids to sleep themselves (SCORE.) Sammy, the 4-year-old, is a prince. He crawled in bed and stayed there, quiet as a mouse. Good man. Millie... a little monster at 18 months... cottoned on to the idea that when she fell asleep, Mama and Dada were going away. So she screamed her little curly blond head off. After about 10 minutes of ear-piercing wails, the Parents plunked her in my lap and said, "Toodles! We're off!" Kudos, Parents. I applaud you.
Millie got to stay up with the big kids for a while, which pleased her to no end. Her older brothers, 19 and 21, enjoy long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners and being covered from head to toe with stuffed animals, apparently. Sorry, ladies, they're taken. Millie was exhausted, but nobody tell her that. Millie had two and a half bottles and two pizza bones before she finally started crying... when I sang the sleepytime song.
I'd had enough of that.
"Millie, it's sleepytime, no matter how hard you cry."
"Nee' Mama!"
"Mama's on a date, you got me kid."
"Nee' Sammy!!"
"You want Sammy?"
"*hiccup* Yeah..."
Fast talking, Kat, fast talking. "Well, Sammy is asleep and if you want to be with Sammy you have to fall asleep so you can dream together."
She looked at me like I was crazy, a new look I swear she developed just for me. But two lines into "The Three Little Pigs" she was out like a light, two full hours after sleepytime. She didn't even open her eyes when I put her in the crib.
Washing my hands of the two snoring children, I took up my grandma project, crocheting, and endeavored to finish a row before the Parents came home. The brothers had disappeared as soon as Mt. Millie erupted. I had the place to myself...
All of a sudden, I hear "It's Learning Time! Woof woof! It's Learning Time! Woof Woof! Play with me!"
I thought maybe Sammy had woken up to play when I came in with Millie. I came back into the bedroom, and saw a satanic red light in the playpen.
Lucifer's Toy has awoken.
This "Learning Time" puppy, possessed by the devil, continued to make ridiculous amounts of noise until I picked him up by the ear and dragged him into the kitchen. Peeling off his velcro back parts, I turned that sucker off.
Peace and Quiet. Thank goodness. Ten stitches more and the Parents walked in, glad to have a few hours away from the Monsters. I drove home, thinking "My job here is done."
Moral: No matter how much you love babies, they're devilish little suckers. And toys that make noise should be banned.
Last night I covered "sleepytime" while the Parents went out for dinner. However, the departure was so delayed that sleepytime came before the Parents left. They decided to put the kids to sleep themselves (SCORE.) Sammy, the 4-year-old, is a prince. He crawled in bed and stayed there, quiet as a mouse. Good man. Millie... a little monster at 18 months... cottoned on to the idea that when she fell asleep, Mama and Dada were going away. So she screamed her little curly blond head off. After about 10 minutes of ear-piercing wails, the Parents plunked her in my lap and said, "Toodles! We're off!" Kudos, Parents. I applaud you.
Millie got to stay up with the big kids for a while, which pleased her to no end. Her older brothers, 19 and 21, enjoy long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners and being covered from head to toe with stuffed animals, apparently. Sorry, ladies, they're taken. Millie was exhausted, but nobody tell her that. Millie had two and a half bottles and two pizza bones before she finally started crying... when I sang the sleepytime song.
I'd had enough of that.
"Millie, it's sleepytime, no matter how hard you cry."
"Nee' Mama!"
"Mama's on a date, you got me kid."
"Nee' Sammy!!"
"You want Sammy?"
"*hiccup* Yeah..."
Fast talking, Kat, fast talking. "Well, Sammy is asleep and if you want to be with Sammy you have to fall asleep so you can dream together."
She looked at me like I was crazy, a new look I swear she developed just for me. But two lines into "The Three Little Pigs" she was out like a light, two full hours after sleepytime. She didn't even open her eyes when I put her in the crib.
Washing my hands of the two snoring children, I took up my grandma project, crocheting, and endeavored to finish a row before the Parents came home. The brothers had disappeared as soon as Mt. Millie erupted. I had the place to myself...
All of a sudden, I hear "It's Learning Time! Woof woof! It's Learning Time! Woof Woof! Play with me!"
I thought maybe Sammy had woken up to play when I came in with Millie. I came back into the bedroom, and saw a satanic red light in the playpen.
Lucifer's Toy has awoken.
This "Learning Time" puppy, possessed by the devil, continued to make ridiculous amounts of noise until I picked him up by the ear and dragged him into the kitchen. Peeling off his velcro back parts, I turned that sucker off.
Peace and Quiet. Thank goodness. Ten stitches more and the Parents walked in, glad to have a few hours away from the Monsters. I drove home, thinking "My job here is done."
Moral: No matter how much you love babies, they're devilish little suckers. And toys that make noise should be banned.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Check out my polka dots.
Who says all the lessons we learn have to be silver? Why can't they be orange, blue, dark green, vermilion, or gray? I wanted to have a place to write stories of my life, which many find humorous. I pride myself on optimism and finding the silver lining, but sometimes the most humorous stories come from the color in my stories, light and dark. I wanted to play with my writing, my storytelling, and the sense of humor I've just begun to recognize.
If you know me, you know how much I adore colors, the brighter the better. I'm also a huge fan of colorful stories, poems, and anecdotes. This blog is my gift of color to whoever chooses to read it.
No one knows about this blog yet. I don't know if I'll send it to my friends and family- so many of my stories involve them, and God forbid I offend someone by an off-color description of them. Maybe it will be just my little secret. My little, public URL, world wide web secret.
No stories today, just an introduction. But keep looking- I'm certain the first story will be coming soon.
If you know me, you know how much I adore colors, the brighter the better. I'm also a huge fan of colorful stories, poems, and anecdotes. This blog is my gift of color to whoever chooses to read it.
No one knows about this blog yet. I don't know if I'll send it to my friends and family- so many of my stories involve them, and God forbid I offend someone by an off-color description of them. Maybe it will be just my little secret. My little, public URL, world wide web secret.
No stories today, just an introduction. But keep looking- I'm certain the first story will be coming soon.
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