Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Midsummer Night's Dream

Midsummer Night's Dream update:

Tomorrow night is press night. I found this out Monday last week, and have killed myself trying to get a kickass costume together. Thankfully I have a great seamstress (Mary), and a fab hairdresser (Brandi), who really helped me out. I now have awesome hair (asymmetrical cut with cranberry streaks) to match my badass dress (goddess style, cranberry satin with an iridescent reddish/purplish organza overlay - accessories - gold.) Hopefully I can post some pics.

Oh - I'm apparently a pedophile now as well. Or, well Oberon made Titania a pedophile. Confused? Well, the person who was to originally play Bottom, the character Titania is made to fall in love with dropped out. He was in his 40s, and kinda looked like a Parrot-head (Jimmy Buffett fan) - blond curly hair, sunburn, Hawaiian shirts, etc -but he was perfect for the part. However, he had to drop out due to come family emergency. The directors had stretched their pool of actors just to get Oberon (who is fantastic by the way), and so had to move the roles around a bit and put one of the actors we already had in the part. So now Bottom is played by a 16 yr old, and I feel like a total pervert every time I have to hang all over him during rehearsals.

Still, it seems like a good show, and you should come out to see it just because you love me.
Shows are June 29th - July 1st, July 6th-8th, 13th-15th, and 20th-22nd. Fri and Sat shows start at 8pm, Sunday at 2pm, and doors open 1/2 hr before showtime. Tickets can be bought at the Silver Chest (LC), Omni (Gville), and Enchanted Memories (HS). $10 adults, $8 kids and seniors. If any of this info if wrong, Ill post on update.

One Million Dollars

Oh.My.God.

*sigh* It's been awhile since I've written any library blogs, I suppose because I didn't have any material - until today.

Let me backpedal a bit and tell you about one of our regulars. He's a big, tall guy, 20s, who used to come in to use the internet - let's call him Coltrane. I never thought much about him, but in the last few months he's been wandering, talking to himself or anyone who will listen. I think he's schizophrenic, but I don't have any proof, just a comparison in behavior to other people I've known. Anyways, Coltrane's always been harmless - example: I was telling a patron about Midsummer and my role in it, when he walked by and overheard me say something about being queen of the fairies. Well he just giggled when he heard that, and on my way into work the next morning, shouted "Hey Fairy Queen!".

Well today I was shelving, and he came up to me and asked me if I liked my job, and asked my favorite book. I couldn't think of anything, so he asked me what I would buy if I had a million dollars. I told him I didn't know, hoping he'd go away, but I should've known better. Instead, he kept throwing things out until I finally said a house in London. Then he starts telling me about his castle, and I can come visit it, and it's the biggest one there (except for Harry and Will's), except he has to wait for his grandma to die before he can give me the money.

He kept coming up to me saying things like that. Then, I was at reference and he came up and said that he had been sitting on his couch, thinking about going to the bank, and getting a million dollars and giving it to me, but he didn't. Oh- but he would if I wanted him to, and did I want him to do that? He said he'd give it to me so I wouldn't have to work here anymore, and I said that was nice, and a million would go a long way. He said "Alright, but you have to make love to me first - remember that." Oh. My. God. That totally crossed the line from harmless to a little weird/scary.
He then came back and said "I've been watching you ever since I moved here, when I would come to get online (he obviously still comes in to get online), but I couldn't ever do anything because of the police". I'm a little curious as to how this day is different from all the other days he didn't say anything. These snippets of what you could call a conversation happened over about an hour between his wandering back and forth. He came back again after that, and started towards one of the chairs, and said he was going to sit there while I thought about whether I wanted the million dollars. (I had already told him no at this point). I said ok, but he'd have to be quiet. That lasted for about 20 seconds, and then he left again.

The other gem from this morning was a woman wanting to come in to complain. She had checked out a book (a recently published book too) that had addresses for publishers. She sent some manuscripts to Jacksonville, and it had been three months and she hadn't heard anything back. She asked the post office, and obviously they couldn't tell her anything, so she came to us. Some phone # she had gotten didn't work, and the operator couldn't give her a number. Maybe your manuscripts sucked, and they didn't bother to contact you. OR maybe they haven't had the time to read it. She ended up convincing herself that someone had put up a fake address just to steal people's work.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Bow to the Queen!

After all, Stephanie means "crowned one". However, that's not why you should bow. You should bow because I am going to be playing the part of Titania, Queen of the Fairies -insert fag hag joke here- in the summer production of Midsummer Night's Dream down in High Springs.

I'm so psyched! There aren't actually that many lines, but it's one of the most recognizable characters from the play. If any of you are in the area at the end of July, beginning of August you should come check it out!

Friday, May 11, 2007

Panic! At the Homestead

This morning - 1:30 in the morning to be exact - I was awakened by my sister saying that we got a phone call to be evacuated. It was a recorded phone call, and it gave no time by which we should evacuate, only a phone # for more info, which was of course, busy.

Well Kellie made the mistake of telling my mother before we formulated a plan or figured out what the hell was going on, and as my mother always does in these situations, she panicked. She started rushing around, grabbing and packing everything she could. Kellie tried calling some of her friends who lived out here as well, and none of them had gotten phone calls.

Then my aunt Susan called. Apparently my mother had gotten a hold of the phone and called her. (Why - I have no idea - she lives in VA). Kellie and I were trying to reason, saying we at least had until morning if we did have to leave, and she kept going "No, I-10 is closing down". Right - when do we use I-10? Almost never. And that's north of us and they're evacuating everyone north of I-10.

She persisted however, and had us gathering things she could sell if we needed money when our house burned down. Kellie finally made her call Gloria, my mother's pastor (for lack of a better word), and her husband was the voice of reason. They live out this way too, and he said they hadn't gotten any phone calls either. He promised that he would help us get out if we needed to evacuate. That satisfied her (this is about an hour later), and we were able to go back to bed. Frank called back shortly saying that he talked to an emergency worker, and apparently they made the automated phone area too large, and they were having to call people back to tell them to stay home. I'm glad we waited and were cautious (well, Kellie and I were). If my mother would've had her way, we would have been out of the house by 2:30 this morning just driving around, or headed to her friend's house in Gainesvile.

I slept until 10, when my mother woke me - again, to tell me she was going to stay with her friend Dawn out in McAlpin or O'Brien. I stayed behind, and they left directions to her house. I think they're doing it to give her comfort and placate her, but depending upon how bad the smoke gets, I may go too.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

How Can We Sleep When Our Beds Are Burning?

Lake City has had some pretty frightening conditions over the past few days. There have been some wildfires to the north of us (some started by that wicked lightning storm we had last Saturday).

This past Monday, at about 2 in the afternoon, the whole atmosphere was a deep yellow, and ash rained down. I thought today was going to be like that too, but it got much worse. Yellow turned to amber, which turned to orange, and then to red. Very eerie. Here are some pics:











Those orbs are the ash reflecting the flash in the camera. Those pics were taken at about 3:45 today. I tried to get a shot with my watch in the field, but it was so dark, and the flash to bright, you couldn't see the time anyways.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Yoshimi, They Don't Believe Me

Last night was pretty kickass.

I went to the FREE Flaming Lips concert sponsored by UF. Caitlin and I went to G-ville earlier that day and ate @ Chutnees with her parents. (Awesome food btw - everyone in the area should go try it). Then we went to an Indian market, and I bought henna and she bought rose-flavored yogurt shake. (Yum, flowery). Then we just hung out at the mall for awhile. (After having an encounter with some rather enthusiastic salesmen [well, boys] at Best Buy)

Anyways, we got there @ 4:30, and thinking it would be like last year, I was hoping to get a parking space right by the field. No such luck, so we had to park on Frat Row, but that was ok. We got to the field and I said "Ok, so we need to look for people we know", and Cailtin looks up and goes, "How about them?". It just so happened that Daniel, Timmy, Mary, and Silas were walking right in front of us at that moment. We decided to station ourselves right in front of the sound board so people couldn't push us, and settled in.

5 o'clock was when it was supposed to start, but they were still doing sound checks then. (Cool note - the band is very hands on, and did the sound checks themselves, even playing a full song for us) 6 the first band played - Star Death and White Dwarf (or something like that). They were ok - much better on the instrumental only songs. Later we found out that's Wayne's (lead singer of Flaming Lips for those not in the know) nephew and his band. Cute. The Rapture came on next, and though I had only heard one of their songs before, I really liked their set.

About 8:30 Flaming Lips finally came on. They opened with Firebird Suite, and Wayne got into this giant inflatable ball and walked out over the crowd. There was this giant screen behind the band showing all sorts of bizarre clips, and confetti shot out of cannons. There was was also a flock of santas and a horde of aliens that stayed onstage and just danced to every song. The singer also had this weird cane thing that shot out paper ribbons and confetti onto the crowd. It was a pretty incredible show - there were people dressed up (last count, like 5 fairies, a turtle, a robot, 2 hands, a nun, Animal, and Captain Hook/Morgan). At one point in time Wayne got out a nun puppet and was leading the crowd in singing the chorus of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" with it. I was also pelted in the back of the head several times with glowsticks, but I picked them up and threw them up to the front of the crowd. By the end I was freezing and my feet hurt, but it was an amazing experience and everyone should try to go to one of their shows.

I've decided that the singer could totally be a cult leader. Every time he came onstage (even when not performing) people went nuts. He also talked about self-empowerment, love, (oh - and a good bit of W bashing) and he just has the charisma to do it. There were a ton of people there too. House of Blues holds about 2,000, and I'm pretty sure there were more than that - I'd say about 3,000. Next weekend is going to seem so dull by comparison.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Uninspired

I am feeling rather uninspired. I can't really think of anything to write about - I think the Blog Supergroup has spoiled me. I only have to think up a topic once every 5 weeks! So - if there are any loyal readers (or any readers at all) who have an idea for something they'd like to see written leave a comment and I'll see what I can do. It can be comedy or whatever your heart desires - I need the challenge.