bostonsarah22's Xanga

Yes we did.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:10:27 GMT

I don't think I have ever been as moved by a scene in American politics as the scene at Grant Park in Chicago right now, after Barack Obama has been elected President. To see the people there -- blacks, whites, young, old, women, men, children ... everyone so incredibly happy and mobilized and hopeful for the future. I'm not going to lie, I'm tearing up a little (I'm a dork, I know).

After eight years of the politics of fear, we now have the promise of change. And don't get me wrong -- the economy sucks, we're fronting a war we can't afford, healthcare is shoddy, the list of ailments we are facing is long and daunting. But right this moment, watching the hope and happiness ... I just think it's amazing.

Obama 08. Yes we can.

... for the record, McCain gave an eloquent, gracious, and moving concession speech. I wish his supporters had acted as classy as he did, instead of booing the every mention of our new president like a bunch of adolescents.

Open up your plans and damn, you're free

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:09:51 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkHTsc9PU2A

Obsessed with that song/video.

Haven't written in here in, oh, five months.

Really, really content with life.

So content that I just went for an interview for a job at a newspaper in New Hampshire and I'm pretty sure I'm turning it down in favor of staying in Boston and just ... writing and working and being happy.

Didn't picture my life turning out this way post-graduation, but in the end, maybe this is better.

I'm learning just to be happy on my own.

Oh, also:

“I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. 'Can I interest you in the chicken?' she asks. 'Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?' To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

- Author David Sedaris, on undecided voters

Love him. VOTE, PEOPLE.

Anyway.

Maybe I'm crazy for feeling so relieved that I get to go back to my home in Boston now and not worry about when I have to leave it.

Or maybe I'm lazy, or just plain stupid.

Oh well. I'm happy.

Like my dad said ... when the right thing comes along, I'll know it. He can hear it in my voice when I know what I want, and he didn't hear it. C'est la vie.

Peace and love, cause I've already got happiness <3

Do I stay or run away and leave it all behind?

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:40:41 GMT

Sometimes, I want out of this town so bad it physically hurts.

Where do you go when you can't stay here but you can't go home? Is there somewhere in the middle?

I just want a clean slate already.

But until then I'll be just fine on my own

Mon, 19 May 2008 16:46:22 GMT

I'm a graduate. I'm unemployed. I have a new roommate. I'm being forced to move out of the city in September. I'm still utterly single. I'm wisdom toothless (like I had wisdom to spare). I'm broke. I'm confused and helpless. I'm happy and free.

That's about all I know in life these days, and the only thing I can bring myself to do about it is listen to The Wreckers and keep on trucking.

Set - An obstacle course which, throughout the rehearsal period, defies the laws of physics by growing smaller week by week while continuing to occupy the same amount of space

Monologue - That bright, shining moment when all eyes are focused on a single actor who is desperately aware that if he forgets a line, no one can save him

Bit Part - An opportunity for the actor with the smallest role to count everybody else's lines and mention repeatedly that he or she has the smallest part in the show.

Dark Spot - An area of the stage which the lighting designer has inexplicably
forgotten to light, and which has a magnetic attraction for the first-time actor. A dark spot is never evident before opening night.

Stage Manager - Individual responsible for overseeing the crew, supervising the
set changes, baby-sitting the actors and putting the director in a hammerlock to keep him from killing the actor who just decided to turn his walk-on part into a major role by doing magic tricks while he serves the tea

Lighting Director - Individual who, from the only vantage point offering a full view of the stage, gives the stage manager a heart attack by announcing a play-by-play of everything that's going wrong

Makeup Kit - (1) Among experienced community theater actors, a battered tackle box loaded with at least 10 shades of greasepaint in various stages of desiccation, tubes of lipstick and blush, assorted pencils, bobby pins, braids of crepe hair, liquid latex, old programs, jewelry, break-a-leg greeting cards from past shows, brushes and a handful of half-melted cough drops. (2) For first-time male actors, a helpless look and anything they can borrow

The Forebrain - The part of an actors brain which contains lines, blocking and
characterization; activated by hot lights

The Hindbrain - The part of an actors brain that keeps up a running subtext in the background, while the forebrain is trying to act. The hindbrain supplies a constant stream of unwanted information. Such as who is sitting in the second row tonight, a notation to seriously maim the crew member who thought it would be funny to put real Tabasco sauce in the fake Bloody Marys, or the fact that you need to do laundry on Sunday.

Stage Crew - Group of individuals who spend their evenings coping with 50-minute stretches of total boredom interspersed with 30-second bursts of mindless panic

Message Play - Any play which its director describes as "worthwhile," "a challenge to actors and audience alike," or "designed to make the audience think." Critics will be impressed both by the daring material and the roomy accommodations, since they're likely to have the house all to themselves.

Bedroom Farce - Any play which requires various states of undress on stage and whose set sports a lot of doors. The lukewarm reviews, all of which feature the phrase "typical community theater fare" in the opening paragraph, are followed paradoxically by a frantic attempt to schedule more performances to accommodate the overflow crowds.

Assistant Director - Individual willing to undertake special projects that nobody else would take on a bet, such as working one-on-one with the brain-dead actor whom the rest of the cast has threatened to take out a contract on.

Set Piece - Any large piece of furniture which actors will resolutely use as a safety shield between themselves and the audience, in an apparent attempt to both anchor themselves to the floor, thereby avoiding floating off into space, and to keep the audience from seeing that they actually have legs

Strike - The time immediately following the last performance while all cast and crew members are required to stay and dismantle (or watch the two people who own Makita screw drivers) dismantle the set.

Actors (As defined by a set designer) - People who stand between the audience and the set designer's art, blocking the view. That's also the origin of the word "blocking," by the way

Stage Right, Stage Left - Two simple directions actors pretend not to understand in order to drive directors crazy. ("No, no, your OTHER stage right!")

Lovin' that Dirty Water

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:49:07 GMT

There are some times when I can't wait to get out of this place. When it's raining and the whole city seems to take on a shade of grey, when I can't sleep because of jackhammers outside my window, when the buildings seem taller and closer than usual and I feel like they're bearing down on me and I'm suffocating, when I can't afford to get dinner or have a beer, when the failing economy hangs heavy on every face I pass, when past mistakes and burned bridges seem to lurk around every street corner. When all I want to do is pack up my car and drive off into the sunset, any sunset, in any direction, and start a new life. A clean slate, a fresh beginning, where no one knows my name -- because after five years, that place certainly isn't Boston anymore.

And then there are some times, like this weekend, when I couldn't picture leaving. When the sunshine highlights every corner and nook of the brick buildings, when the night burns bright and vibrant, when the sound of an acoustic guitar drifts through my open window, when I don't need to check what inning the Sox are in because I can hear Sweet Caroline on my way home, when I think of all the love and laughs I've been lucky enough to have -- the people I've met, the good far outweighing the bad, the people I've yet to meet, the kisses in the rain and sunshine and overlooking the city lights, the blurry Sunday mornings at Thornton's, aimless walks down Newbury Street, jumping in Copley fountain on a summer night, the hum of Huntington Ave, looking up at the lights of the Pru, waking up at 6 a.m. to see my name in the Globe, five years of memories and dreams and challenges and promises broken and kept and pleasant surprises and late night parties and lazy days and love and heartbreak and college life all wrapped up in one tangled, beautiful mess. And it's times like that when I know, without a doubt, that I could stay here forever and ever.

Boston, you will always be my home <3

Catching baseball fever

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:44:59 GMT

(L-R) Kyle Snyder, Mike Timlin and Jonathan Papelbon during a workout at the Tokyo Dome.

Clearly, they're all arguing over who gets my hand in marriage.

Peace, love and baseball season! <333

And no need to wonder what's been on my mind.

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:11:41 GMT

In love with this song right now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb0kb7NSwKo&feature=related

(it won't let me embed it for some reason? anyway, go listen.)

Mess in the morning and reckless on my knees

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:24:43 GMT

So seriously, where does the time go?

It's Spring Break 2008. Two years ago this week I was sailing on a catamaran in Puerto Rico. This time last year I was on a 10-day backpacking adventure with Steph through Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels. I guess that could really be the theme of this blog -- reading back through, my life chronicled in infrequent postings, I just can't help but wonder how time always goes so fast.

Once again illustrating the unpredicatble irony of life, Steph is once again in Paris. She's spending a week with Dave in Beauvais, where he's living in France till August, which is also where we flew into after our harrowing Ryan Air experience (less so for me thanks to the 20-euro bottle of Absolut in the duty-free shop). Walking along the Seine, I can remember saying something along the lines of "We might never be here again!" Just goes to show you I suppose -- who knows where we'll all be in a year?

Anyway, things have been really good here in my last semester at NU (I feel as though I should have a button where I can cue scary music anytime I say something relevant to graduating). Worth noting:

==> The Giants won the Superbowl and Mike Rio and I floated through a week-long equivalent to a football orgasm as our ultimate underdogs pulled out the ultimate upset. I'm surrounded by the sports guys in Boston.com, and I'm sure they just wanted to smack the smug grin off my face as they walked around lamenting about the "worst loss ever, boo hoo." Whatever, I listened to them reassure each other for two weeks that the Giants didn't have a fighting chance on a cold day in hell so really it was just poetic justice.

==> I did the sound for NU's production of Measure for Measure. I only managed to screw up one night, and while it was a big screw up (think chainsaw sound effect when there was supposed to be music ... cringe) overall it was a super fun way to earn a few credits. I've started to get to know some really fantastic people in the theatre program -- they are certainly not all fantastic, and there's a few I'd like to straight up slap around a bit, but overall they're just a really fun, quality group of people that I enjoy being around, and it's fun to meet some new people and do new things before I leave. There's a trip to New York City in April that I signed up for and I'm not going to lie, I'm really excited about it. We get to see two plays in two days and just sort of have free reign around the city -- it's going to be an amazing time.

==> Robby's class. Basically it's a lot of time commitment and really tedious work, but I'm going to cautiously say that we're getting somewhere. I could tell you about what, but then I'd have to kill you (I've always wanted to say that).

==> I'm going to Florida with my family this weekend. Incase I haven't mentioned this before, my parents have been kidnapped by pod people. Anyone who's known me before college remembers how strict and uptight my parents were pretty much all through high school -- they loosened up a lot my senior year but prior to that, they were the strictest parents around. My dad was legendary in Monson High School for being the most overprotective, uptight, scary ass son of a bitch you'd ever seen. My grandmother has lived in Florida all my life so my brothers and I used to beg my parents to let us take a vacation ... we never went until I was in high school and even then it was like pulling teeth to get my dad away from work. They've slowly been loosening up as I've gone through college (I tell my brothers at every opporunity that one day they will thank me for breaking our parents in), and in the past year they've essentially just turned into pod people. They took a week-long vacation to Mexico with like 20 other people (uh, what?) and drunk dialed me and my brothers from the beach (you haven't really lived until your dad is yelling "Hola, seniorita!" into the phone at you). They came back to Mass. and almost immediately took a trip to the city for a random brunch one day, which is so unlike my dad, because he hates Boston. It was the morning after closing night of the show, so I was on a solid three hours of sleep, and my dad was like, "How'd you like to go to Florida?" Somewhat confused, I said, "Uh, sure ... when?" And he's like, "Oh, I dunno, I was thinking like next weekend?" I'm pretty sure in my sleep-deprived haze I just looked at them and asked "Who are you people?" Anyway, I digress. I'm heading home tonight after work and we fly out early Friday morning. I checked the weather report and it doesn't look completely promising, but since we've gotten older it's just a lot of fun to get the family together, we make each other laugh, and for that reason I'm excited to go even if the sun isn't going to shine every minute.

That's pretty much all there is to report on this end in terms of the mundane every-day kind of stuff. Work is going well, school is going well, I keep myself busy and really have no complaints whatsoever. I just can't believe it's March already and I have two months left of my college career. As of the moment it looks like I'm going to try and stay in the city this summer, work at Boston.com and unless I can bump up my hours perhaps get another job as well, and just keep sending out my resumes and hoping I'm in the right place at the right time. Mike got a job offer in New London, CT so he might have to sublet the apartment for the summer, which would be unfortunate because we make great roommates but c'est la vie, the real world beckons.

********************************************

I'm about to go on a rant here, so forgive me. I spent about two hours on the phone with Jess last night (we do that sort of thing) and we talked a lot about soulmates. Which is something that I always sort of refused to acknowledge -- I thought people put too much stock and meaning into the word, and became too preoccupied with finding "the one, true love," blah blah. I didn't really know if I believed in it at all, I bought more into the theory of finding someone you can share a life with and making that the best possible life you can. But I dunno, lately it's something I've been thinking more about and Jess and I brought up a few good points. Like, is there only one kind of soulmate? People search and search for that one person who will complete them -- what about twins, siblings, best friends? Couldn't those people count as soulmates too -- people you are incompete without? And if you are lucky enough to find The One, how do you know beyond a doubt? I've heard it before -- "you just know." Well, what if you're convincing yourself that "you just know" because that's what it's supposed to feel like? And what happens if you do find The One, and things get messed up beyond repair? Star-crossed lovers are a favorite topic throughout history -- there's something so compelling about two people who get caught up in something bigger than them, something pre-ordained, and no matter the circumstances can't do anything but get swept up in it. But what if you get your shot and ruin it? Then what? Can you ever really leave that person behind and start fresh? Or will you spend your life trying to fill the hole that opened when they left?

Just some things I found curious and wanted to put on paper, I guess. Oh, and one of several amazing quotes from last night:

"So we would go from abused puppies to golddiggers?"
"I think that would be an upgrade."

This is why we're best friends, Jess.

This has sort of turned into a marathon entry, so my apologies to anyone who actually reads this thing (you're pretty few in number, anyway). Perhaps if I updated more often I wouldn't write a small novel. Oh well.

I suppose I should get back to work so I can leave on time :)

Peace, love, and Florida sunshine <3

All you need is love.

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:39:07 GMT

This has not been a good year for me in terms of love lost, but somehow my faith in the utter truth of this statement has never wavered. This goes out to everyone I love, I never ever forget how incredibly lucky I am to have you all in my life.

May everyone be as blessed as I am to have so much love in life.

Happy Valentine's Day.

_______________________________________________________

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. <3