QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK!!!!

Yeah, the Mighty Ducks is on one of our 4 channels. Thanks for that warmup, Tyler. Hah. Too bad I can't stay and watch it, its a high stakes high energy movie :-).

BUUUUUT I am busy! Yesterday I lighting "designed," teched, operated and ran a cue2cue for my first show as all mighty lighting god! The play is called "Haters," by Susan Pak, for the 10th annual Midtown International Theatre Festival or (MITF). There are three shows, today (Tuesday), Friday and Sunday at "Where Eagles Dare", Studio Blackbird, on 36th and 8th. Not that anyone who reads this is in town or available to come see it. "Sometimes the best friends make the best enemies," is a little soap opera-esque, but the cast and director do a great job. There are four characters, Mo Shin and Laura, best friends paired against each other, Mark - Mo's fiance and Laura's lover, and Glen - the IT dork that the girls prank on online. Aaannnnd of course Laura had a kid at nineteen by her stepfather, we find out later in the play. But my wonderful roommate is a wonderful director, and everyone living in my apartment is involved. Brian, Erin and I are working on a show again for the first time all together in 5 years! So we all walk in to the space for the first time and I'm looking around for the lightboard and can't find it :-). It's a small but decent space, reminding me a lot of the Jovennes 98 space in Puerto Rico. The tech guy shows me the light board which is a simple, manual, two preset, 8 channel board. No recording cues! So everything is a crossfade, one preset at a time! I play around with some looks, get the basics down and we start running, with my fiddling, learning, creating as I go. I ended up with about 20 cues for an hour piece. Now that I've done my first program and tech, I know what to do differently next time. You HAVE to be super organized! I re-ordered and clarified all my work after on a magic sheet of sorts, but it would have definitely helped to have been more prepared with a system while running. Now I know! I gained a lot of confidence from this experience, and it was fun!! Don't know how I would hold up with, say 50 lights and different colors and whatnot, but... I suppose in that case I wouldn't be setting all the levels for each channel and each look manually. :-)

The next show I'm involved in THIS WEEK, is "T.A.B." or "Trendy Asian Bitch," also written my Susan Pak. This is a re-mount reading of the original full piece, aslo directed by Erin. She has been working directly with the playwright for these two plays, getting them shown as much as possible. Her work deals with a sort of "American/white versus Asian" dynamic, dealing with girls' identity challenges. I am taking over Julia's original role of Kathy, the girl next door type, that apparently "was Julia" so I've got big shoes to fill :-P. We're throwing together some rehearsals in between Haters for TAB to go up on Saturday at Barrow Group Theatre, Studio B. The script for T.A.B. is very interesting with a lot of "special effects" and surreal writing. I like it a lot, I wish I could have seen the first production.

WELL, I'm off to my first time at S'MAC! with Cait! WOOHOO!

Catchya on the flip side.

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine

Groan. I shut my eyes tight and open them again, hoping to see something different in front of me. Open them to a new life, new world, new me. But when I do open them, everything is exactly how I left it 10 seconds ago. I strain for more light, leaning closer to the window to catch more bounce from the orange street lamp. It doesn't work and I give up, closing my favorite surprise of the day - my first copy of The Food Network Magazine. I'm halfway through but the rest will have to wait for later. Without looking I feel around for the remote control but my fingers find nothing. It's disappeared into the nest I have created on the couch. The nest I have been sitting in since 11am. I stretch my legs to the far end of the couch and close my eyes again, only to open them to the same disappointment. This is too much. I somehow manage to push myself out of my nest and struggle to flap out the door.

I walk around the village trying to clear my head. As I stroll through the streets in the warm air, people are bustling. Some restaurants are packed with people, others completely empty. I pass store after store after store, watching the lonely waitstaff and chefs hanging around an empty restaurant, just waiting for closing time. "In this economy...." 9:30 on a Monday night is not exactly a hopping time for many of these restaurants, but still its sad. These look like nice places, the decor is inviting and the places immacutely set for ghost customers. How long will they make it? Some stores, Australia on St. Marks, haven't been able to push through. A new cafe where an old one used to be is brightly lit but empty, a lonely dog sitting in the window and a solitary employee playing longingly with a glass of water. No customers, no employees. I'm reminded of the main thing I was trying to escape by walking. My unemployment. I am so unemployed its unbelievable. I spent all day looking today, but nothing is easy. It feels like summer vacation, I think the fact that school will not be waiting for me in a month hasn't quite hit yet. Friends have gone home for the summer, but they'll be back and we'll all be together in class again, rolling on the floor and complaining about processfolios or student teaching... nope. I don't know what I want to do. I enjoy being around people, and doing school. Those are things I'm good at. I like interior decorating, cooking, walking, meeting new people... what is that for a career? I feel hopeless and...
My mind flashes back through high school, college and up to now. I expected so much from myself, and I think others did too. Expected to "go far." And I did - New York, as far away from California as you can get still in the USA. And I think I did do some great things. High school was kick ass and so was college. I'm good at doing things well, on a prescribed path. But breaking away from that path? I'm like Kafka Tamura, lost in the woods. Only I'm not able to ditch the backpack and the spray paint and follow two ghost soldiers into the town that time forgot. Where is my sense of urgency and necessity?

Walking through the village to clear my head just reminds me of all the other times in my life I've needed to walk around in solitude trying to figure things out. I'm reminded of running away from my first love, running away from my second love, and my third, summer nights spent driving around, racing to get home before curfew, the excitement of getting ready and going out in foreign cities, dancing till dawn, pool parties and watching the ocean at night... Hoping someone would notice I was alone. Walking around waiting for something. Waiting for someone. Walking around waiting for myself to become something, for cats to talk and fish to fall from the sky. For every flower I picked, for every pair of eyes I've looked into at dusk, for every wish, for every missing you. Waiting. Just last summer, everything was so alive. I found overwhelming delight in each summer night, each glowing leaf and noisy cafe. Excited for what was coming. Now, everything is over and I don't know how to move forward. Day by day I hope, until something exciting comes along. Until then, waiting for the buzzer to honk or the phone to beep. Apathetically.


If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were you own?

Its a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps they're better left unsung,
I don't know. Don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow.

But if you fall you fall alone,
If you should stand then whos to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.


PS - don't try to make quesadillas with "Pam cooking spray - for baking."

Love is... -Time Capsule 2009

Dear Reader,
I am writing this entry at midnight San Diego time, 3am New York time. I have not slept for 43 hours. Things have been a whirlwind of events, but surprisingly I am not that tired. Thursday morning I woke up at 8am to babysit, then grabbed dinner with Julia and Brian, cleaned Alice and dropped her off with Sebastiano, had a margarita with Liz and Brycie, and came home to pack and clean. I hate coming home from vacation to a messy apartment . I should leave the house by 4:30am, so I decided to stay up until then. I had things to do and my energy was running high, I thought, sure I can make it until 4am, no problem. Stupid me, not realizing that “making it until 4am" also meant making it through the whole next day.

Fast forward to arriving in California. My mom picked me up, it was a little overcast which was disappointing, but we grabbed some sandwiches and headed to her brand new apartment downtown. It is GORGEOUS. I seriously can’t believe my eyes. It is so classy and huge and beautiful and overlooks downtown and the bay. I’m really proud of my mom. It’s amazing how different a person’s “style” can be without the necessities of children or men. Anyway, quickly off to the hairdresser for a cut! Since the divorce, my mom has found friends all over the place. She’s got a close group of girlfriends that all live downtown and they hang out, and she has surrogate daughters all over the place. Young girls that realize how cool she is and are close with her. Meschelle was one of them, she introduced me as “my sister!” and knew everything about me. It was a party. Literally, I had to keep my wine glass from getting bang trimmings in it.
With half an hour to spare, Mom and I did a quick shopping trip and got a dress for Rachel’s wedding. You’ll see pictures later… at the wedding. Then I was dropped off at my Dad’s office for beer and wii with his work buddies. Tennis is hit or miss, but I always kick his ass at bowling and boxing. Then we all met up at my godparents house, Nancy and Ike, for some steak, and the biggest, most sentimental surprise of my life:

21 years, 2 months, and 18 days ago, I was born. 20 years ago, 8 months and 18 days ago, Nancy, with the help of my mom, collected some important “artifacts” from 1988, and my life as a baby thus far (6months old), and wrapped them up and put them in a box, sealed tight with the instructions, DO NOT OPEN UNTIL APRIL 2nd 2009. Tonight, after dinner, the first time being together with everyone since I turned 21, I was made aware of that box for the first time.

Now, I have not seen baby relics. My parents don’t have old toys or clothes or any tangible sentimental objects or recordings of what I was like as a baby, so this was truly a surprise. I grew up an only child of four parents, and the love that they all gave me poured out of the cardboard vessel and flooded the room and our eyes. Having “grown up” and graduated college and living life out in the Big Apple, it is so nice to feel like a child again, and feel the connection with your parents as parents and no longer people. For a night I was able to see them remember me as I was 21 years ago, and see how much they love me and have enjoyed watching me grow, and see them relive a past that I am the center of, yet also completely removed from memory.

Contents: (In order of opening)

• One cassette tape. “Lisha Tape: Oct ’88 Side 1”
* We had to figure out if we still had a cassette player anywhere…

• One Birth Announcement
* Printed at home by Dad on a really old computer, it has a line design of a hangglider with my baby face in the pilots seat – “Just Launched!” What dorks.
Model: Lisha Corinne Brown
Launch Window: Saturday April 2, 1988, 7:09am (PST)
Hook-In Weight: 7lbs 8oz
Span: 20.5 inches
Ground Crew: Jeff and Joy Brown

• One set of baby pajamas.
* This is where we all lost it and the crying didn’t stop anytime soon. The one piece is so so small. It is really hard to believe I was ever that tiny.


• 13 Little Lisha photograps
*YES! I had a Mohawk! Obligatory naked on a blanket shot, sleeping,yawning, etc. My parents look soooo pretty and happy. Then there’s my favorite where my dad’s foot is the length of my entire body (he’s 6’6”…big feet, but still).
I think I should submit this one to Awkward Family Photos.com
Am I the only one who thinks that my dad looks like Geoff from Ace of Cakes?


• One $50 Savings Bond


• One – “A Not Very Typical Day in the Life of Lisha Corinne Brown, October 2nd, 1988, Her 6th Month Birthday
* Mom and Nancy recorded everything I did at time intervals. On my 6th month birthday, we all went hanggliding. 1:45 Started to chase dad….driving….driving….driving…. we got a kick out of that one. As I was reading it my dad was getting excited, thinking he might have had a long flight that day. Sure enough after many hours of driving, 5:45 – found Dad in Palm Springs. WOOHOO!!! SKY GOD!!! 6:15 – stopped to eat at Wendys. Lol. 9:50 – played on the floor in the family room while Mom and dad watched the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics. Way to go 1988.

• One copy of Olympics edition Sports Illustrated

• One Copy of the San Diego Union Tribune form Oct 2nd.

• One cement cast of my foot, amaturely done by Nancy in a margarine container.


• One bottle of 1983 Cabernet Savignon. Will NOT be drinking that :-P.

We found a cassette player and we able to play the tape. It was Nancy talking about all the different experiences I’ve had and what it was like these past 6 months and what they hope for me. Then a recording of the Joan Baez song, “Forever Young.” I have never been so touched in my life. Following the song was a good 30 minutes of Nancy recording me crying hahaha, and then the radio’s top 10 of the week.
What a night. It’s truly incredible to know how much your family loves you. Irreplaceable.

Todya

on the corner of 74th and Amesterdam, I fed an eager bird that took the food, sent a chirp signal, then flew off to her babies! The nest was in a streetlight pole. I never thought I would get to see baby birdies eating in NYC.

Then I fell over my bag lady cart, spilling myself, my laundry and coinage all over the pavement... AGAIN.

NOW I am drinking and eating cake with BRIAN.


DONE!

Ghettoooooo

The Chuck E Cheese I went to at 10 am this morning with the family I nanny for was way up in Harlem. All the kids there tried to steal tokens and tickets from my two white 4&6 year olds. You had to have serious street smarts to make it there.

Lisha is...

tired of being ignored.

Putting others before herself and others not caring

Thunder and Lightning

New York City. Thunder and Lightning over the city. In a huge cloud, with the power to light up the city as bright as time square. Nature, with the power to shake and stir the apartment buildings and the people in them. Thunder to rock the bed I sleep in and the windows I look out of.

Tonight and last night have been scary with the storms. The thunder last night was so loud I could have swore lightning stuck within inches of me. Then I found out it was the same for everyone. Nature - with the power to wake up EVERYONE on the ILSE OF MANHATTAN.