My life in BCS through musicals.

In 14 days I'll be moving back to San Antonio. After 3 1/2 years I've come to really love this place and the people. When I first moved here I hated it, I was so homesick I wanted to just pack up and head home. My boss joked back then that when I went home for Christmas that year she wasn't sure I would to come back! It was bad. But over Christmas I made the decision that would end up changing my life here. I looked up information about the community theatre that did musicals in town and decided to audition for one of my favorite shows. It was through this threatre that I met some amazing people and three very special ladies who would become my closest friends while living here. So it's only fitting that as I get ready to head home I commemorate my time here through songs from the shows I was a part of.

***warning sappiness to follow***

The first show I did was in the February and March of 2013. Sunset Boulevard one of my favorites growing up (my step-father had been obsessed with it). So I knew the show very well and was so excited to be in the cast and have a bunch of fun random little parts. I love the music for this show, it's Andrew Lloyd Webber on crack, fun harmonies and crazy piano, it was a fun show...well kinda dark but still really fun. The costumes were cool and 40s-ish? and it was fun to be back in character shoes after taking about a 9 year break from doing musical theatre. I wore my hair in a snood because I will always have too much hair for my own good. The song that always comes back to me is "This time next year", it takes place at a New Years party and everyone is singing about their hopes and dreams and plans for next year. I've been planning and talking about this move for almost a year now too so it's great that it's actually finally working out. My only resolution this year was to find a job, get into law school and move home- all those things are happening so I consider it a successful resolution so far.

The next show I got to do with the theatre was 9 to 5- sooooo fun! I mean Dolly- come on how could you go wrong? This show had a lot more dancing in it than I was used to/qualified for but it was just a blast! We started rehearsing for it at the end of May 2013 and it ran sometime in the Summer. So since it was summer I feel like all the cast just had a lot of fun with each other, we went out almost every night after rehearsal and it was just too much fun. I feel like all the songs were particularly meaningful to me and if I thought about certain ones I would get a little teary. I feel like the show just spoke to me so much because I had left a husband, started a new job and was feeling all the overwhelmed feelings too! "I just might" always made me tear up and we were in really low lighting so it was all sorts of emotional, "Shine like the sun" was so great too when you listen to the lyrics, but I think "Change it" is the song that really fits my time here because it was a song I always looked forward to and it cheesily plays into my own thinking. If you don't like something then get off your butt and change it! Whenever this song comes on my playlist I can't help but sing along and smile, and tear up because I'm a sappy mess.

Then I took the fall off the next semester but came back in December 2013 and January 2014 for Jesus Christ Superstar. JCS has been my favorite musical for as long as I can remember. I've seen it at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio at least 3 times as well as 3 community productions and have wanted to be in it forever. I was so thrilled when I found out I got to be in this one because I love the show but also it was Director selected, no audition. It only ran one weekend because it was a fundraiser show and it had an abbreviated rehearsal schedule, but again it was a super fun show, the dancing was a weird sort of modern, and we needed to wear kneepads under our flowy hippie dresses. It was just a cool experience once you got past all the bruises. "Heaven on their minds" will always be my favorite song from this show- I just love it so much, but for a song that I feel represents my time here in BCS or my attitude I think "Could we start again please" is it. Not that I want to do over anything because I've loved every experience I've had here, but because I want to relive it! I would have joined the theatre community a little earlier, done some shows in the fall now that I know what my schedule looked like, but I just want to relive it all again! This who experience was unexpected for sure.

Immediately after JCS I auditioned for Little Women the show in which at 28 I played a 12 year old blonde girl from Massachusetts. Don't worry no one believed I was 12. I was so shocked when I was cast as Amy March, I believe I started screaming at 6AM when I woke up and saw the cast list. My mom was staying with me and just started laughing. This was another fun show to be a part of, a super small cast compared to the other shows I'd done. One of my favorite things about this show besides the awesome people I got to work with, were the costumes! So fun. My wedding dress was gorgeous, my back from Europe dress was shiny and pink and my dresses as young Amy were super cute with the aprons on top of them. Then of course getting to dye my hair Blonde was fun too. Yes blonde's really do have more fun I promise. I killed my hair, but it was so fun to completely change my appearance so drastically for a show. (I'll never do it again!) This is a show I was pretty much completely unfamiliar with the music prior to the show, so I'm so glad I did it because there are some great songs in it. When I think back on this show I think the song at the end of the first act that everyone loved belting out backstage or in their cars is the one that sticks with me the most. "Astonishing" it's a great song to pump yourself up and tell yourself that you're going to do the best you can and you're going to be great at it. You'll conquer everything you need to, to reach your goals. So I love it. 

The last show I did at the theatre was a very different experience than all the others before it, so that's why it was my last. It wasn't bad it just didn't have the same feel and this was the point where I started to realize that the theatre had served it's purpose here to connect me with some amazing people and new friends. So my last show was the summer of 2014 for Legally Blonde. I had already started to dye my hair back to it's natural color now, so it's a good thing I was cast as Chutney the curly haired killer daughter. I was also a law student but all these roles could be done as a legal brunette. This was another dancing heavy show and I feel like it was an excellent work out between the "ethnic movement" and the prison jump rope scene.  The music for this show is just fun and happy and another great motivational song that I always come back to is "What you want". This is the number we wore band uniforms and hot shorts for (good god the hot shorts). But Elle is studying for her LSAT and trying to get into Harvard and she has to deal with all these distractions while studying and I feel like I lived that this whole song last year, studying for my LSAT and applying for law school and jobs and having so much up in the air, but I still did it all my own way and it paid off in the end...like it did for Elle ;)

So that's it! My sappy journey through musicals! I have so many pictures from these shows and some great stories, a few injuries, some good and bad costume choices and questionable eyebrow makeup. I used the word fun too many times, but that is what it was. As someone who used to be very opposed to fun, I learned to enjoy it and embrace it. I met some amazing people and created memories I'll cherish forever. I'm so glad I went out on a limb here and got involved with the theatre, my life in BCS would have been very different and possibly much shorter if I hadn't. Thank you theatre community!

***I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that in Summer 2015 I did do a brief thing with another community theatre in town, but I only came in for one song or olio during their intermissions and then left, but it was a super fun and cool experience too with the Stage Center, it was really fun to see how a different theatre in the community worked and I wish I'd done more there in my time here***

Favorite Memories in my Red Ford Focus

I know I'm probably getting way too emotional about my little red car but I have had some great years in it.  I got my little red Ford Focus the Christmas of my Sophomore year at TLU after I was in a horrible accident in my little silver Ford Focus on Highway 90 outside of Seguin.  The car was totaled but it was the idiot in the F150s fault so I got to get a new car.  Everyone was convinced that the Focus was what saved my life since the paramedics didn't know how I got out of my car seeing how all the doors were pinned shut.  So another Focus it was!

5 1/2 years later the little red Focus has been in one major accident on 1604 on my way to my friend Carrie's wedding.  It was raining and some old lady pulled into my lane and smashed the front passenger side in.  A nice southern fireman came and asked if I needed any help or if I was injured, I stupidely told the truth and said no...and watched him drive away.  I blocked traffic for miles, my dad came and stood with the cops and laughed at me as I paced back and forth on 1604 in my beautiful blue dress and 4 1/2 inch heels on the phone with my insurance company trying to arrange for my rental car.  I had the whole situation totally under control, behind the tears.  About 20 minutes after the accident my sister and her boyfriend at the time (hubby now) passed us pulled over to check out the damage- they too were on the way to a wedding they joined the laughing cop and my father on the side of the road.

The car has been good- no major problems and it can be packed to the gills.  I could get my entire dorm room in that car in one load.  I've moved twice in it- same apartments though.  I drove though a tornado on the way to camp one summer- that car was a trooper! I bought my first set of tires for the car two Christmases ago.  I have changed countless flat tires in high heels while either on  my way to Cowboys or coming home from Cowboys for the car- I have since stopped going to Cowboys.  Then of course there was that time on Christmas Eve when someone backed into my car in the HEB parking lot then drove away.  Luckily at the time I was dating a nice boy who fixed cars and got that all taken care of for me.   Unfortunately the car is not as resilient when it comes to running into partitions on the side of 410, but seriously it came out of nowhere!  So there are a few scratches on the passenger side and one on the front bumper where my brother-in-laws car and mine became close friends one evening when a sleepy teenager fell asleep along a curve in the road.

Besides the few cosmetic improvements I've had done to the car I've also done some maintenance things, I've had the breaks replaced, an axel replaced and the alternator replaced just last week.  It's been a great car and I'm sad to let it go.  I'm planning on getting another Focus this weekend.  They're safe little cars and get great gas mileage.

Bye little red, I'll miss you!

Moving Part II: Unpacking Sucks just as much as Packing Does

How come no one ever talks about unpacking sucking? Is it cause moving is actually so horrible that it dwarfs the horrible-ness of unpacking?  I hate unpacking.  My old kitchen was tiny, so why doesn’t my new bigger kitchen want to hold all my pots and pans?   Why do I have 23 blank books? (or what normal people would call journals) 23 is entirely too many.  About 7 of them are filled and others have writing on like 2-3 pages but I don’t know where to put them.  In  my old apartment they were on my bookshelf but since it’s now “our” bookshelf it seems less appropriate.  Needless to say it’s slow going unpacking everything.   While packing the old apartment I found boxes in my outdoor storage that I never unpacked from when I first moved in after college.  It was stuff I obviously didn’t care about so I got rid of most of it- if I hadn’t used it in 3 years it was probably unnecessary anyway.    

So back to Saturday night… 

After I walked into the filled new apartment and realized there was still a hell of a lot more to do before we could say we’ve actually “moved in” I walked through all the rooms of the apartment to assess the situation. 

Dining room: filled with boxes for the kitchen, dining room, living room and extra bar stools that need to find a home

Kitchen: filled with boxes and cleaning supplies

Living room: furniture arranged in a way that is can’t be sat on, flatscreen laying down on the love seat with paw prints on it (made mental note to kill the cat)

Guest bedroom: full of bags and suitcases of clothes! Everywhere clothes and more clothes and a side of clothes!

Bathrooms: every counter top covered and stuff in the sink.

Bedroom: vacant middle space with all the furniture to the extremities of the room and the mattresses leaning against the wall where I couldn’t possibly use them for the desired sleep

LOUD GROAN/SIGHing and moderate crying ensued. 

I cleared off space in the bathroom to find towels and soap and proceeded to take a nice long bath.  Found a cleanish extra large t-shirt threw on some shorts and went and got Taco Cabana.  When I got back to the apartment I found my laptop and cleared off a spot on the couch to sleep.  None of the unpacking was really necessary till the next day anyways.

Bruce came home around 1:30 and helped lay down the mattresses so we could sleep in our new bedroom.  Then on Sunday we ran some errands and began unpacking.  Bruce put together the bedroom set and I started to work on the Guest Bedroom.  That night it was so nice to sleep in our actual bed in our new home.

The rest of this week has been spent very slowly unpacking.  I’m slowly trying to unpack things, little by little.  Everyday after work I give myself a little goal and so far it’s gone pretty good.  The guest bedroom is all set up and that’s good cause we have our first guest this evening.  Bruce’s sister is coming down to pick him up to go to Houston. 

So that means I have the new apartment to myself this weekend.  I’m gonna get serious about unpacking the rest of the kitchen and fixing up the dining room.  I’m just ready to have everything in there settled.  

Does anyone actually like moving? Part I

Since we started dating Bruce has practically lived with me. No seriously, 9 months ago it started with just the weekends, then just Thursday through Sunday, then Wednesday through Monday and sometime in January he just stopped going home.  I recommended that he just “officially” move in and he thought it was too soon.  In February I told him I’d stop bugging him about it and the next moment he brought it up like it was his idea.  In mid-March we looked at apartments in my complex and found a floor plan we loved they told us we could move in May 1^st.  I spent most of March and the beginning of April stressing about packing and how I was gonna move this stuff.  Bruce told me to not stress we still had time before the move.  Then one day it was the middle of April and OMG the move was just two weeks away! 

I started things slowly, packing all my books into a HUGE box and then Bruce saying it would be too heavy and me unpacking them.  I tried to do all the laundry in the house; not knowing how long it would be till we could get a new washer to go with the dryer my dad was giving us.  I’d wake up in the morning to see that Bruce had packing amazing quantities of things while I slept.  He can get more done in the hours between midnight and sunrise than I get in any full day of trying to pack.  How did he fit 300 DVDs into two boxes that he was able to carry by himself?  How did he do that?

So the week before the move Bruce had Sunday off.  We rarely have days off together so I thought we’d go see a movie then come home and pack.  Bruce decided we should make a date out of it.  So we went to the Alamo Drafthouse and REALLY made a day out it.  We started around 2PM and ordered just a couple of beers then we sprung for the Growler, which is 2 liters of beer.  We had a beer before the movie, a Growler during the movie and then refilled it before we went home (don’t worry it’s legal because it can seal shut).  When we got home I headed in to start packing and Bruce tells me he’s invited his friends over to hang out real quick.  Real quick turned into all-night and 6 AM came too quickly Monday morning.  So NO packing was done Sunday and Monday night I was so tired that little packing happened then too.  Bruce luckily got to work and was a packing machine.  By Tuesday Night my tiny apartment was filled with boxes and suitcases full of all my stuff I’d accumulated over 3 years. 

Wednesday I got the keys and started making trips back and forth to the new apartment dropping things off.  Thursday Bruce spent the day moving stuff with his friend Mark.  Friday I was on my own again making small trips of stuff, trying to get all “packed” things to the  new place so Saturday we could do the furniture and get completely out of my old apartment. 

We started Saturday morning off around 10:30 AM with Bruce, my dad and my brother Michael in from Lubbock.  I was supposed to have one of my students there to help but he totally bailed and didn’t even call! But that’s okay the three guys I had are awesome and rocked. In about 2 hours they got the couches, the coffee table, the rest of my heavy packed stuff and pretty much everything except my bed and dresser out of my apartment and into the new place! I was impressed.  For the amount of stuff I had they were just plowing through!  Then my brother ended up having to go spend time with his family so it was just Bruce and I for a while.  My dad came back and did another quick run with us but eventually he left too, but took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill for us.  (Seriously a 40 gallon bag of clothes for Goodwill and two big bags of shoes and purses) Then we waited…

Bruce had to go to work around 4 and at 3:30 his friends to help us with the rest of the stuff arrived.  The stacked washer and dryer took forever for them to get down the three flights of stairs.  Once that was out of the way everything else was pretty simple.  Bruce’s friends Mark and Steph were so great and helpful and my friend Mike took my washer and dryer off my hands in exchange for his washer.  Bruce took off around 4:30 and Mark, Mike and Steph stayed to help till about a quarter to six.  At that time I had to go back to my old apartment to clean and turn in the keys. 

Walking back into my old apartment at 6 on Saturday made me feel totally defeated.  I’d lived in that place for 3 years, the carpets were filthy, to say the least, and I’d never washed my baseboards, and don’t get me started on the scrubbing the oven.  At 9PM I called Bruce almost in tears, the vacuum had stopped working and I had chemical burns on my right hand, I was done and couldn’t possibly spend anymore time cleaning that apartment.  He said “Don’t cry, baby, we’re in this together now, go home and I’ll get the last of the stuff after work”.  I took out some trash, locked the doors and turned in my keys.  I walked into the new apartment hoping to feel relieved but then I realized I had to UNPACK.

…to be continued.