bagatelle

cabals  

connubial

conventicles

coprophilia

coteries

curios  

evince

idyll

inimical

lachrymose

lapidary

limn

luxation

marmoreal

myopia

pabulum

periwig

ribbands

sartorially


Yes, I alphabetized them.  Also, yes, I've probably seen some of those before, but I'd be pretty helpless if asked to define them.  I apologize to both of my English-major parents.

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title.

I’ve put probably too much thought into this. I started it 4 months ago.

BAND/ARTIST: Simon and Garfunkel

1. Are you male or female? A Most Peculiar Man

                He lived all alone within a house

                Within a room, within himself

2. Describe yourself: Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall

                I am blinded by the light

                of God and truth and right

                and I wander in the night without direction.

                … and I must be what I must be and face tomorrow.

3. How do you feel about yourself? The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)

                Hello lamp-post,
                What cha knowin'?
                I've come to watch your flowers growin'.

4. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: Overs

                The game is over, over, over.

                No good times. No bad times.

                There’s no times at all.

5. Describe your current boy/girl situation: Wednesday Morning, 3 AM

                For I know with the first light of dawn
                I'll be leaving,
                And tonight will be
                All I have left to recall.

6. Describe your current location: America

                Michigan seems like a dream to me now.

7. Describe where you want to be: Homeward Bound

                And every stranger’s face I see

                Reminds me that I long to be

                Homeward bound

8. Your best friend is: Still Crazy After All These Years

                And we talked about some old times

                And we drank ourselves some beers

                Still crazy after all these years

                Oh, still crazy after all these years

9. Your favorite color is: Leaves that are Green

                Time hurries on.

                And the leaves that are green turn to brown.

10. You know that: Blues Run the Game

                Wherever I have gone

                Wherever I’ve been and gone

                Wherever I have gone

                the blues run the game

                Wherever I have gone

                Wherever I’ve been and gone

                Wherever I have gone

                The blues are all the same.

11. What’s the weather like: Cloudy

                Hey sunshine
                I haven't seen you in a long time.
                Why don't you show your face and bend my mind?
                These clouds stick to the sky
                Like floating questions, why?

12. If your life were a television show what would it be called: At the Zoo

                Orangutans are skeptical

                Of changes in their cages

                And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

13. What is life to you?  Bridge Over Troubled Water

                When you’re down and out

                When you’re on the street

                When evening falls so hard

                I will comfort you.

                I’ll take your part.

                When darkness comes

                And pain is all around

                Like a bridge over troubled water

                I will lay me down.

14. What is the best advice you have to give? The Sound of Silence

                People talking without speaking

                People hearing without listening

                People writing songs that voices never share

                and no one dared

                Disturb the sound of silence

                Fools, said I, you do not know

                Silence like a cancer grows

                Hear my words that I might teach you

                Take my arms that I might reach you

15. If you could change your name what would you change it to? Cecilia

                Jubilation, she loves me again.

                I fall on the floor and I’m laughing.

Well, I survived the half and my first trip back to South Bend. Here’s how the half went for one Liz Clouse, 24-year-old female, bib number 1177.

15 minutes until the start: Waiting to park. Waiting to park. Should have left the motel earlier. Waiting to park.

10 minutes to go: Parked! Now I have to pee. Crap. Lines for the port-a-potties are long. My dad suggests we go into the College Football Hall of Fame, because he experienced zero lines there last year before the race. We walk in, and see no line! …for the men’s room. My dad says, “See, just like I said! No line! But hoo-ee! Look at the line for the women’s!” He goes off to pee, and I think, “Thanks Dad. Remember? I’m a girl.” I went back to the port-a-potty line to wait with both men and women. It was faster.

2 minutes to go: Eek! Not quite at the start line yet!

1 minute to go: Here. Whew. That was cutting it a little close. I find the 10 minute mile marker and go stand there, which is pretty close to the back of the field. I find my dad just as the National Anthem begins.

Gun time: EEEEK! Time to do this!

4 seconds in: This is fantastic! I’m so excited! Wheee! Downtown South Bend smells like ethanol in the morning! I’m really glad I’m wearing sunscreen! I’m running a half marathon! WooHOO!

4 minutes in: I feel very benevolent and grateful for all that has happened in my life in the past month and even years before. I am here now only because of my history. I am very optimistic and know, at this point, almost half a mile in, that everything has happened for the best, and everything will be okay. I will be stronger. I feel great. I think to myself, “Who am I, and what have I done with the person who burst into tears at the expo yesterday?” Yeah, that happened. *shrug*

9:40 in: First mile marker! I really think this marker was a placed a bit shy of a mile… I admit I might have been excited and running faster than usual, but I don’t think I was running THAT fast, especially since I didn’t cross the start line right at gun time. Hm.

1.5 miles in: Running through an all too familiar neighborhood, I consciously have to choose running over crying with each step. I do. By the second mile marker, this too has passed.

4 miles in: I am really regretting that banana I had for breakfast. I should have just stuck with the Clif Bar. oof.

6 miles in: There’s a guy shouting “I’ve got GU! I’ve got GU!” I tell him that that’s really fun to say. I take some GU, which I wanted to have, but not quite yet—that banana was still making its presence known to me far too many miles into this race. I decided to leave my stomach alone.

7 miles in: More than halfway there! Whoa-oh! Livin’ on a prayer! Ahem. Sorry. This is the furthest I’ve run in a race! Wheee! Also, at this point the course is following a path along the river, and it’s really pretty. I think of Seattle, and the Elliott Bay Trail, although the water I’m now looking at is very brown. We continued along the river until about mile 8.5 and then turned into a neighborhood. Also, at this point I stopped hitting the mile markers every ten minutes. I’m getting slower, but only a bit!

8 miles in: Spectators are few and far between, and the runners are pretty spread out. I’m feeling the fact that I didn’t sleep very well last night. I finally break open the package of GU and taste a bit. Ooo! Candy-like. Flavor: vanilla bean. I only eat a little, because my stomach STILL feels a little uncertain about life after eating that silly banana this morning and (admittedly) too much pasta last night. 

9 miles in: This neighborhood rocks and sprinklers abound. Thanks, neighbors!

The Vaseline people have started making appearances! I enjoy them, though I am not chafing. ;)

10 miles in: Kids with squirt guns! YES! Only a 5K to go! Woohoo! Oh, and I can no longer calculate my pace at this point… or do basic math. I think something like, “Okay, I’ve been running for 1 hour and 40 minutes… so my pace is 14 minutes per mile. Um, no, I know that’s wrong, but um… uh… oh well, whatever. Later.”

10.5 miles in: There’s the first race course photographer that I’ve noticed! Sprinklers and GU make for a happy Liz at mile 10.5! At least I think I look happy in the picture. We’ll see. :)

11.5 miles in: The half course joins with the 5K walkers here. I feel fast! All the walkers were really encouraging too. Lots of cheers and “Keep it up”s. There was a definite sense of “Wow! RUNNERS! Cool!” Cool. There was also a lady yelling “Just one more mile to go! One more! You can do it!” Hm. I know she meant well, but cheers such as that, containing a half mile margin of error 11 miles into a half marathon… hurt a bit.  Ah, well. :)

Here, someone has drawn a giant anthropomorphic sun in chalk on the road, followed by the words “GO RUNNERS! YOU CAN DO IT!” Thanks, road, I think. Yes I can!

12 miles in: Okay, I’m tired now. The course turns onto a major road here.  No more shade, lots of sun on the asphalt, some road kill. Ugh. Don’t look at the dead duck. Don’t look at the splatted squirrel. Aack! Don’t think about that @#%* breakfast banana!! ew.ew.ew. The mentally hardest part of the course was along this stretch of road. Marathoners and 10K runners were turning left to run up the road to the stadium. The half-ers had to bypass this turn and run a quarter mile more along this road-o’-fun to some cones, run around the cones, run a quarter mile back, and only then turn right to head up to the stadium. I started looking at my watch and telling myself that I’d be done in 7 minutes. 6 minutes. 5 minutes. 3.

12.9 miles in: I pass the 26^th mile marker for the marathon. Wow, some people actually do that?! I wondered how I would feel if that spot had marked my 26^th mile of the day. A walker offers some encouragement: “Keep it up! 200 meters to go!” I agree. Why stop now?

13 miles in: Notre Dame stadium! Yes! Hello to the fabulous volunteers keeping the walkers to the left and the runners to the right in the deliciously downhill tunnel. Yay for recorded crowd noises and the Notre Dame Victory March! This year and last, the end of the tunnel confused me. The finish line isn’t always on the same side of the stadium, and the people standing at the end of the tunnel just, well, stand there. I made a gesture like, “Help! I’m confused! Where do I go?” and then they pointed to the right. I wonder if I’m the only person who gets confused at this point.

13. almost 1 miles in: The clock at the finish says 2:14 and change. I speed up a bit, because 1. Why the hell not at this point? I can die after I finish. and 2. Sub 2:15? Better than taking more than 2:15 to finish! Whee!

13.1 miles in: BEEP! Done. yes. Cold wet towel. Medal. Sweet. Water? Water. I walk around a bit and then stand in the LONG line for cups of fresh fruit. Awesome. I see a giant pile of bananas, and make a face at it. Nein, danke! Post-race food here rocks. There are bagels, apples, bananas, popsicles, and cups of fresh fruit with honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon, and grapes. Rockin’.

location southbound on 31 mood sticky teeth-y I hear the sound of the road

Home again!  Closet cleaning time!  I need to pare down what I’m keeping in my closets so that I can keep only the absolutely essential things there...  Aack!  This journal entry is prompted by the fact that I’m struggling to do that.  I’m going through a box of old notebooks of mine from grade school through college.  (Grad school notebooks are an entirely DIFFERENT problem...not for tonight.)  Anyway, a year or so ago I weeded out notebooks I know I’ll never look through again... I think those included chemistry and physics stuff, especially the college physics stuff with the giant course packet...  Anyway.  The box I’m looking through now holds old journals of mine (which I’m keeping!) and various things I’ve written, creative endeavors such as encountered in lighting design class, and random things I’ve drawn on.  I have an old textbook that I would have parted with long ago if I hadn’t sat in Walsh’s windowsill and drawn for hours on the first page of the article I was supposed to be reading in it. 

It’s hard for me to get rid of things I’ve written... especially if I know that in the process of writing whatever it is I’ve gained an insight into life—or an insight in general.  I read things that I wrote ten years ago and think “Wow, I really had that figured out back then.  What happened?”

Some excerpts:

“Writing is like giving birth.  At least bodies of babies are knit in the womb, and all we have to do is push!”  -from a First Year Composition notebook, Notre Dame 2002

“Well, I’ll see you whenever I give this to you.”

-from a note I wrote to someone whom I was dating at the time... I guess I never saw him after that.  Oh well!

9-20-1999

Top 5 things I would save

-BSB CDs
-BSB pictures and magazines
-photo albums
-scrapbook! & BSB pillow
-BSB videos

[oh, honey...]

October 18, 1999

            Oh the couch is strange

            very, very, very, very strange

            It’s bright, bright orange

            very, very, very, very orange

            It’s old, old, old, old, old

            very, very, very, very old

            Where has it been?

            No one, no one, no one wants to know!

            Oh the couch is strange!

            Strange, strange, strange, strange

            STRAAAAANGEE!!!

-ode to my sophomore English teacher’s couch... I didn’t say everything was GOOD... 

And there’s a story about Bruce the Puce Moose... who couldn’t get to the sluice because Zeus, the un-loose goose, wouldn’t let him pass by without some rutabaga juice.  I idolized Dr. Seuss.  (hehehe)

A selection of sophomore haikus:

Bovine flatulence
Is what History smells like
At least the classroom

My own volition
destroys affinity to
colloquial words

Small green sign right there
Message of faith, hope, and love
Tipped, folded, crooked

To do well, you must
forget necessities and
tumble down the stairs

eighteen minutes more
of this Algebra two class
Parabola what??

Mom barks at the dog
Dog barks right back, viciously
Interesting night.

I am a squirrel
Give me that gorilla suit
So I can be me.

mood nostalgic

It’s so beautiful outside today.  Unfortunately, we’ve been in this van since 9:30 this morning, and we’ll get out of it at midnight if we’re lucky.  We were at the motel from 1:00am until 9:15am… I did not run.  Maybe I’ll talk mom and dad into letting me run while they stop to eat dinner.  ;)  Really—we’re driving SO many miles, and I just want to run six of them!  Oh, and it’s Memorial Day weekend, and we don’t have reservations for tonight yet… hm.  We’ll see how that goes.  I predict some raised voices and some swearing.

Now, sitting in this overflowing, dark, smelly van in the midst of endless flatness, looking at pictures of mountains… I want to be back in Seattle enough to sit here and write cover letters instead of just staring out the window and longing.  I’ll add the grain of salt that I might not want to leave Indiana if I have a fantastic summer there… but that remains a grain.

My parents are listening to old love songs that kind of make me want to bang my head against the window.

Oh, Vista.  My start bar stops working every ten minutes.  11 weeks.  I am employed for 11 weeks this summer.  After that, who knows?  I would love to have access to the internet and a printer.  I guess I’ll be home tomorrow.  Home.  whatever that means, anyway.  I’ll be back in the house where I grew up, with access to expensive internet, cable, a printer, and a near-endless amount of food.  In Seattle, my mom asked if I threw bread crumbs away or put them outside for the birds.  I thought for a moment, remembering what I actually did do with bread crumbs… and I responded, “Neither.  I eat them.”

I slept a lot last night… I was asleep in the van when we got to the motel, and I carried my stuff in, got in bed, and fell asleep again.  I was actually awake before both mom and dad, but I didn’t get out of bed until they did.  Why?  ;)

Then, I ran about three miles around the hotel parking lot and up and down a local road by the hotel.  It was beautiful, and I had a view of the mountains, a train, and a local place of exotic dancing… just down the street from the truck stop.  Dad wants to get an early start tomorrow… and I want to do a 55 minute tempo run.  We’ll see how those two objectives fit together, along with the location and safety level of the motel surroundings.

I read my horoscope today, just because it was on a newspaper page next to me on the bed.  It said something to the effect of “You’re going about a project all wrong.  Try a different approach.”  Hmmm, I thought.  Couldn’t hurt.  I’ve got lots of time and writing implements… Perhaps it’s time for more brainstorming for my thesis.  I’m not really getting anywhere.  It feels like I’m trying to put together a 5,000-piece puzzle, but I only have 1,397 pieces.  Yes, exactly that many.  But some are still in disorganized clumps and not neatly spread out and right-side up and sorted by color.  Meh.

My parents and I have taken to calling ALL animals we see from our cars on road trips buffalo.  This began on one of the road trips we took when I was in high school, when we were seeing lots of buffalo… and has continued to this day, with animals such as elk, deer, moose, possums, pigs, cows, horses, squirrels…  etc.  This exchange just happened:

Dad:  BUFFALO!
Me:  Mmmm.
Dad:  Wait!  Those actually are buffalo!
Me:  Really?!  Yup, they are! 
Dad:  Joyce!  REAL buffalo!
Mom:  Ooooo!

We’re fucking on the interstate.  I hate going east.  Going west is exciting, freeing, into the sunset.  East is… east is full of earlier sunsets and endless flat lands and bleak gray skies for a solid six months.   East is home.

(Ask me about the “east” when I’m leaving it and loving it, and I’ll tell you about beautiful sunny runs along the St. Joseph river, incredible thunderstorms that wake me up at night, and fragrant, quiet June evenings full of fireflies.)

But now, I’m leaving the mountains, theatre, & people of Seattle, and I feel quite like I’m ripping a bandaid off, quick and sharp and painful.  Seattle makes me happy, and now I have to get rid of that for a bit and deal with the fetid infection underneath that I've been ignoring.  Hm.  The fact that I just made that analogy means that I need to do it… and bandaid-ripping pain has a shorter endurance and is less intense than even toe-stubbing pain.  I can do this—no problem.  Bleh.

The window next to me is tinted, and it’s beautiful and sunny outside.  Sad.  Sunny Mountains = Happy.

2:06pm Pacific time 

We just climbed up to Wild Horses Monument.  It’s so good to get out of the van.  I should do that, even when I don’t feel like it.  It’ll keep me sane.  :) 

mood hp-bleh.

Well, I haven’t come by the highway home yet.  But lo, it is ended.

My parents are two and a half hours away from Seattle and will be here tonight.  Leave it to my dad to cover 2500 miles in 3 days.  Yikes.  I get to be with them for the return journey.

Life is only a little bit overwhelming right now… That feeling of plunging headlong into the unknown is getting ever more familiar.  Instead of avoiding that feeling (and the tasks that must get done while I feel that way), I’m jumping in and doing stuff.  Soon, anyway.  :)  The dishes need to be done, whether or not I cry on them.

My grandmother is in the hospital, and has signed a DNR request.  She says she’s ready to die, and isn’t quite sure why she’s lived this long anyway.  My mom is feeling a little weird about this… my grandmother (her mother) was in Seattle when she found out that her mother had died.  My mom and I have scheduled time for sitting and drinking and talking.

Have I mentioned that I love this poem?

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost

mood like faking smiles

9:10am

Wow. Tomorrow is my last day at the Rep! This last week has been the busiest week I’ve had here... Giant Magnet! woohoo. Formerly the Seattle International Children’s Festival. I really love working it. I am also really tired. I’ve been here about 14 hours a day every day this week except Wednesday. Tonight’s gonna be a long one... I got here at 8:45am. I wonder when I’ll leave... hehe. 

Mom and Dad are approaching from the east like... um, like something slow and amorphous coming to assimilate me. They’ll be in Montana tonight. I’m hoping for eastern Montana; I’m sure Dad would like to make it to Spokane if he could though. Aack! Not that I’m not excited to see them. ;)

9:25am

I stand by my statement, kept mostly to myself, that I will not get married until I can fold a fitted sheet well. At this rate, it’s not looking good. ;) I can do crib sheets, but even a twin sheet is so much bigger than I am that it doesn’t go well. Maybe I’ll elect to have only one set of sheets and always keep them on the bed or in the wash. That way = no folding! Anyway, this paragraph is brought to you by my current task of folding cot sheets. I’m going to refold a flat sheet, go get some breakfast, and then face off with the fitted ones. Bring it!

9:50am

Elisabeth folded the fitted sheets. :) I saw lots of preschoolers on my way to breakfast.

10:22am

Aaaand the first show of the day has gone up 20 minutes late.

10:59am

Eek. I just sat in the SM office with Elisabeth, working on next year’s intern schedule. Sidi Goma, an act in Giant Magnet, is rehearsing with their drums in the dressing room. Loudly. Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia is Eric Carle-ing over the monitor. And to make it even better, one of those incessant, honking, run-the-battery-down car alarms is going off. heheheeeeee

I love young children because they’re so effortlessly creative and imaginative. Being around them on a daily basis inspires me and gives me energy. Yes, spending the day with preschoolers contributes to my energy reserves—often while simultaneously depleting them—but I think I come out ahead overall. Older children are more challenging for me to work with, because gradually, as they go through our lovely education system, they lose a lot of that innate creativity for the sake of conformity. As they get into middle school and high school, it gets harder and harder to encourage their imaginations to flow freely, especially in large groups of their peers. So, any creative work I do with children is easier with the younger ones because it’s more immediately rewarding. Creativity is a natural state of being for young ones. Ages 8-18ish remain a bit of an enigma to me. This is largely because I’ve spent YEARS working with preschoolers and young elementary students, but only patches here and there working with the older ones. I think I could get better at it if I spent more time doing it. I also think I SHOULD spend more time working with middle schoolers, because I think I could do it well once I figure it out a little bit. I think anyone that even remotely believes they could be good at working with middle schoolers should, in the words of Carrie Fisher, “DO IT!”

There are capers on the floor.

11:28am

I’m really glad it’s sunny outside. Every time it rains, it eventually stops. Gotta go start show #2.

11:45am

10 minutes late for show 2? Not as bad. My head is exploding!

11:54am

Clichés written or posted in the stage management office that are resonating with me right now:

“There’s the trip you plan and the trip you take.”

“Never regret anything that made you smile.”

12:07pm

So, in the coming days, I’m going to try to spend more time documenting this cross-country move/life shift than I usually do. I usually write a lot before the transition really begins (such as this entry), and maybe a little here and there during the move, and then write another big long entry after it’s all over and I’m feeling emotionally stable again. I don’t like writing when I’m feeling sad, scared, or bitter, because it usually turns out to be pretty ugly. This time, I’m going to accept that and let it be as it is. 

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

1:10pm

The third show—up 8 minutes late. Les Argonautes. Calllllm. Callllllm. You are callllm.

1:50pm

I’m hungry. Elisabeth just handed me a chunk of pound cake. Bad. :)

7:24pm

Almost at 5 minutes for the night show. I am just a little bit sleepy..zzzzzzz. Act 1 = 1 hour; intermission/scene shift = at least 20 minutes; act 2 = 90 minutes. Maybe we’ll be done by 11? I need to get my stuff out of the intern area. And my bike out of the pit. 

11:03pm
Leaving!  Whee!  I mean ZZZZ!

I spent 30 minutes recording the rehearsal hotline the first time I did it, but now, while working on my third show here, I can hit all the buttons in about 5 seconds and record the schedule without looking at the script.

I have become unafraid of the Bagley PCP. I, um, like it.

I have been given tasks such as: 

“Go find (something I haven’s seen for awhile that’s probably buried under lots of stuff). It’s probably somewhere in the production office, the stage management office, or the green room. I think it’s gray.” 

AND I have succeeded.

I have gone from not even knowing how to get to McMenamin’s to spending 3 or 4 nights a week there. Yes, I admitted that.

I’m getting good at identifying people by the sound of their footsteps coming down the stairs by the Intern Cave—which is cool. I’m also getting to know who washes their hands after using the bathroom and who doesn’t, which is, well, unsettling.

Tips:

Always take your keys when you go to make coffee in the green room. 

Always cut open the big coffee bags with scissors—the 3 minutes it takes you to go get scissors will more than make up for the 27 times you’ll have to wipe up spilled coffee grounds if you don’t.

Be careful when trusting the Bagley crew on any non-work related matter.

Go to Athina Grill on Queen Anne Ave.

Don’t lock your keys in the Stage Management office. :) That’s easier to do than it sounds.

Acquire lots of warm black things to wear backstage. 

Take a stopwatch and see how fast you can walk down the LOONG hallway from the stage management office to stage right in the Leo K. Intern fun!

Don’t smell the sponges. Just disinfect them.

Well, that’s it for me! Congrats to future Rep interns; enjoy your season!!