TWO blurbs

BLURB 1:
It happened a really long time ago. Someone spoke the forbidden word and the world has been doomed ever since. I don't know what the word is. Don't ask it of me because I don't know! Anyway, one guy did figure out the word and he said it over and over and over again because he hated the human race and he wanted to annihilate the whole thing. That was kind of stupid of him because he himself was human, and you would figure that any sane and decent human would not want to speak a word that would curse his own race--seeing as he as a human would have to put up with any curse inflicted upon himself.



But we all know that people are more liable to do something stupid than something clever--so the word was spoken and a lot of bad things began to happen. Buildings crashed, bombs were dropped, and families were torn apart. And all because of a silly word.



It just so happened that there was a word that could put everything right again and all anyone had to do was speak the word, but nobody seemed to want to do this either. In fact, the more and more the buildings fell, and the men murdered and the women left their children, the more people wanted to say the terrible word.



And then people started saying the word all over the place. The word itself became very common place. So common place, nobody even knew what the word meant anymore. The word was translated into every language and people stopped flinching at the mention of it. And soon, everyone forgot that the reason all the bad things were happening around them was because of a word and they started blaming the bad on other things like money and the solar system.

____________________________________________________________________________________

BLURB 2:
A woman was sitting by herself. Nobody could tell she was crying. This was because she sat alone. The amphitheatre where she sat had long been deserted, which meant that it made for a perfect place to go and cry by one’s self. The woman cried and cried because no one was there to stop her.




“Why are you crying?” said a man. The woman jumped at the sight of him.



“You scared me,” the woman said, looking up to see a man in a red petticoat. He looked to her like a ringmaster. She was smart enough to know that she was in a theatre, and not a circus tent, so she said:



“Are you an actor?”



“Oh,no. Are you?” the man replied with a smirk.



“Me?” the woman said. The thought of someone mistaking her for an actress was laughable, especially in her current conditions. Looking down at herself, she confirmed that she was indeed wearing the white linen dress that she had inherited from her godmother many years ago. It looked more like a potato sack than anything else.



“I am not,” the woman said.



“You sure are putting on a show,” said the man with a small smirk. He offered her a tissue.



“Oh, thank you,” she replied, blowing her nose. “I didn’t think anyone was in here. I certainly didn’t mean to interrupt you and your....thing” the woman stopped. Where had the man come in from? She had of course entered from the pit, a secret passage she had known about since childhood. But she had ceremoniously blocked off the opening. As far as she knew, all the other doors remained locked.



“I am a magician,” the man said, seeming to read her mind. “It is my job to appear out of nowhere.”



Before the woman could reply, the man had sat in the seat next to hers and taken her hand in his own. The woman drew in breath, realizing that it was ice cold. Looking into his eyes, the woman’s heart began to race. She knew this man from sometime very long ago.



“You are sad,” the magician said. It was not a question.



“I had been wishing, praying for it my entire life,” the woman said through choked breaths. “And now it is all ruined. Because it turns out, there was a mistake. And I have to give it back,”



“I helped you once,” said the magician. The woman’s heart raced faster. She was a little girl again, dancing circles around her father’s old friend. A man she knew to cast spells.



“I could say the words,” said the magician, “and no one would have to get hurt.”



“Would it hurt the baby?” the woman said, clutching at her stomach. Not even the bulkiness of the linen sack could disguise the bump where her stomach protruded.



“It would feel nothing,” the magician said. He released her hand. The woman didn’t speak, which seemed to mean an agreement had been made between the two of them.



“Aghata! Romancya! Eet beter vallence son agaust!” the magician cried.



The woman bent over crying.



“Stop it! STOP!”

Rollercoasters

When studying fiction, characters are revealed by a number of factors:
+Symbols
+actions
+What the character says about himself
+What other characters say about him

I am not alone in the quest of "finding myself." I believe it is something that we all have to do at one point or another. Me being a literary person, I often soul search by using these literary tools.

I believe my symbol is the rollercoaster. When I was young, I loved going to amusement parks (btw: I still love going to amusement parks.) I enjoy the most thrilling rides. The ones with the loop-de-loops, the towers that drop from hundreds of feet, the ones that flip you upside down and run backwards. The ones where you are on such a steep drop, you can't see what's waiting for you when they pull the lever. In other words: Anything scary and thrilling. The ones where you must face the "unknown." Tellingly, the "safe" rides make me sick. Don't put me on the swings, or the teacups....I will likely throw up.

In decoding the puzzle that is "self" I can't help but parallel this need for thrilling rides with need for a thrilling life. I need to know that I will be inched up at a slow and steady pace, before getting a bird's eye view of what's below me, and then dropped with sudden speed, without notice. I need to be sent through loop-de-loops, places where I don't know what is up from down. I need to be at the top of a U shaped drop, sitting on a mat, not knowing what I'm in for because I can't see what's ahead for me.

Of course eventually, I will get off the ride complete with exhilaration. Did I mention that I go to amusement parks with my best friends? Because when I get off, we laugh until our stomachs hurt. Because we know we just had the time of our lives.
I'm going to California at the end of January. I can't wait.

Bucket List

Travel is wonderful. I wish I could spend all my time travelling. It isn't even necessarily the destination that concerns me, it is simply the act. I love going to new places and trying to figure out how things/people work in strange and foreign environments. There are so many new things to learn when you travel. So many things to see, hear, witness. I love going from place to place, never having a home. Simply acting as a loan wanderer on the next adventure to who knows what.

I suppose travel satisfies some need in me to feel new. New places, people, things. Change. It is my greatest friend, but unfortunately, a friend that I don't see often enough...



Things on the bucket list that I have done
+Go skydiving
+Run a 5K
+Act in a play as someone truly inspirational (For me, this was Millie in Picnic)
+Work at a theatre (I will count both Vintage and Arvada Center in this list)
+Write something wonderful

Things yet to do
+Write a full-length something (play, book, ect...)
+Travel to distant lands and take loads of pictures and meet lots of people
+Help places and people in need with hands-on work
+Find a place to call home
+Marry a man who loves God
+Become financially stable and independent
+Have a good job


That's all I can think of for now...

Reasons why I am crazy PART UNO

 A writer writes what he knows. This is what I know: I am absolutely crazy, which is probably the reason my life parallels some sort of absurdist play. Thus I bring to you Reasons why I am crazy PART UNO:

 1. About two weeks ago, I came home from a long day of work and utterly convinced myself that I was going to die from skin cancer in the immediate future. I googled stage four melanoma. I sat examining my body for oddly shaped moles. I lay in bed tossing and turning over the list of all the times I had ever been sunburned. WHY did I let myself get so tan in Mexico, I demanded of myself. Why did I not bathe in SPF 50 daily? Why had I let myself become so susceptible to such a grotesque and ugly disease? Whether my worry was unfounded or not has no matter. I do have rather fair skin and melanoma is one of the most common cancers among adults. What is crazy is that I woke up the next morning completely unconcerned about the matter and went about my day.


2. I am completely unsatisfied with everything that I do. If I am working, I wish I had a day off. When I have a day off, I think my time would better be spent working. If I'm with friends, I wish I were alone. When I'm alone, I wonder why I don't go out more. You can see what a dangerous and difficult cycle this is. Thus, the absurdity.

3. When I am particularly annoyed with the way my life is going, I always imagine that I am going to move to some exotic and exciting place within the year. Or that I'll invent something. Or that I'll finally finish that novel. Or that I'll fall in love one day, and none of this will even matter then.

4. Speaking of over active imaginations, here's another story. My freshman year of college, I had to perform a monologue as a final assignment that determined whether I would be allowed back to the acting program for another semester. I rehearsed the crap out of that thing, wondering if my inflictions were right, making sure I wouldn't trip in my heels as I walked into the room, mulling over the monologue selection itself. Then I thought, what if, while I'm performing my monologue, someone shoots a gun at the window? Should I just go on with my monologue? Should I duck?  Or run from the room? What if I hit the floor and land on a piece of glass? Would they make me do my monologue again? "Calm down, Anna," I had to assure myself. Nobody is going to shoot a gun through the window. And if they do, just act like how a normal person would act if a gun were being shot at them....

Thus concludes Reasons why I am crazy Part UNO. Look out for Part II. 

Fast Food Nation

It is true that our country has an obesity problem and everybody seems to have a quick solution. Diet pills, tummy wrapping, liposuction. But perhaps our problems go alot deeper than food. How can they not, when our lives have become like fast food.

Never talk to someone longer than it takes than to figure out what they want. Give the customer what they want, whatever they want. Give them a product that looks great on the outside, but contains no real substance when you really get inside of it. Get in. Get out.

Is this not how we sometimes treat our relationships? Our money? Our religions? Our selves? Life is not a burger joint. If you really want to get to the heart of the problem, you have to be willing to cut out the fat.

The near-life experience

Congratulations "You just had yourself a near-life experience, fellas."--Tyler Durden, Fight Club.

Idina Menzel

Shows I have seen since last update: A Chorus Line (Union Colony Dinner Theatre), Hairspray (Arvada Center), Grey Gardens (Vintage Theatre), Moonlight and Magnolias (Vintage Theatre).

Update: Last night, I was lucky enough to have procured two FREE tickets to Izina Menzel. I have a friend who works at the symphony and graciously offered two great seats for my enjoyment. My friend Sara had already purchased tickets in the general admission seating, but we pulled some strings and WALA! She got upgraded tickets sitting next to me and my friend.

For those of you who need a musical theatre lesson: Idina Menzel is hugely popular in the Broadway world. She originated the role of Elphaba in Wicked and also played the original Maureen in Rent. Most recently, she began appearing on Glee.

Anyhow, it was my first time being at Red Rocks, and now I feel completely over-due because the space is beautiful. The Colorado Symphony opened with numbers from A Chorus Line and moved onto My Fair Lady.

Idina didn't come onstage until Act II, which wasn't a disappointment at all because the first act only lasted about 20 minutes. She ended up singing quite a few numbers by John Denver, then moved on to Broadway numbers (Don't Rain on my Parade, No Day but Today, and of course, Defying Gravity)

The biggest surprise of the evening for me, was that I laughed about as much as I would have watching a good comedy routine. Idina told funny stories, from being slightly ignored by Barbara Streisand, to making up rap songs for her newborn. I particularly liked the one about her recent appearance on Glee (which I actually know nothing about). She mocked the ridiculousness of singing Poker Face as an entrance for her mother character. Apparently, it made no sense within the story. She then went on to sing Poker Face.



Idina came on for two encores. For the first one she sang, The Way we Were. The second, Tomorrow.

All in all, an uplifting show. Made me want to do the same thing the next day. Watching the sun come out tomorrow would have been a beautiful backdrop against the carved boulders and the terrific music.