So, I'm all moved in. Well, not ALL, as there are various and sundry items still kicking around my mom's place (like my hair brush, as I discovered when I got out of the shower and had nothing to tame my hair with.)

But all the essentials, except for food, are here. My bed is even here, so I can sleep here now. I just got out of my shower in my new place, and I'm really getting settled.

It makes me think of how much my life has really changed in the last year.
Some things include the most amazing changes....I love kickboxing with a passion I can't describe. And it's evident in little changes people notice every day. When we were moving my mattress yesterday, my brother was all impressed by how strong I was.

And today....though my abs will hate me for it tommorow, I kept up as well as I could with Olivia's fight ab combo. It's really nasty. You want a workout that will make you cry, I'll share it with you.

I also managed to run two and a half laps today without stopping. A new record for me. I have to thank my fellow classmate, and motivational coach Shawn for that one. He's awesome at encouraging people.

But I've also realized how keenly I miss some of the things from my life a year ago. I sorely miss the cuddling and casual touching that was a part of my circle of friends. I would even cuddle with my best guy friend hanging out in the King's Head. My mom has this great picture of my former friends and I in a cuddle pile on the couch. I kind of feel a little like one of Laurell K. Hamilton's leopards in the regarding to tocuhing. I like it, it heals me in a way that few other things can, and I just don't get it that much anymore.

Thank heavens I still have one or two friends that like the hugs. But I miss those puppy piles.

Other things to note: The oven is nearly clean enough to cook in, the internet is hooked up, and I actually have a phone. Now, if I could just manage to get some food to my apartment....
Posted by Arieanna at 6:07 PM |

So, the day yesterday basically started out with me hitting the snooze on my alarm clock about twenty times. I really, really, didn't want to go into work yesterday. I truly could have used another 8 hours of sleep.

Truthfully, working at GWL all day, then heading straight over the the theatre every night is kind of taking it's toll on me. I leave the house before seven in the morning, and don't get back till ten at night. In addition, every day but tuesday we were short staffed at GWL last week. And it will be the same this week. Also, with my schedule, I haven't made it to kickboxing in a week. So, my energy is right at an all time low.

I was intending to stay late at work yesterday to do a little catch up, and only head to the theatre for the proper call time, but by four o'clock, I'd felt like I'd come out on the loosing end of an encounter with Sylar. That is to say totally brainless.

So I headed over to the theatre, and even though it was the last show of the week, and even though Rob was coming to see it because it was his birthday, my heart just wasn't in it last night.

Why, you ask? Usually I'm ecstatic and at my happiest when I'm stage managing something. But yesterday was Olivia's fight. And I'd been waiting to watch her fight for all the months that she was training and riding our asses extra hard in class, as she has a tendancy to do when she's going to get in the ring.

In other news, someone had swiped my watch and flashlight from the booth, and turned off the VCR, which, without a remote or a tape, I couldn't turn back onto TV/VCR.

Luckily, one phone call later and Rob was bringing me a watch and a videotape. Quiet a Godsend (though not as much as I would have liked. When he arrived, there was no trace of a hospice nurse, a japanese cubicle drone, a geneticist, a painter, a politician or a cop on him. DARN!)

The show went well, and at the end, I turned my cell phone back on, hoping to have a call from Naiomi telling me the results of the fight. Nada. So, I called and left my classmate a message, asking her to call me back.

When she did, she informed me that Olivia hadn't fought yet, and I should get my ass down there.

So I did. Rob and I actually ran all the way from the Ellice Theatre to the Convention Centre. When we got there I took my last 40 dollars out of the bank to buy the ticket. But Rob came through again. He knew someone with some clout, and we were let in just in time to hear the results of the fight right before "The Predator's".

She won, which I was never in doubt of. Surprise was, it went to decision, and she went all six rounds. Olivia had been worried about that. I was proud of her for pushing her own limits. You could tell by round four that she wasn't going for a knockout because she wanted to see if she had the legs.

We were also lucky enough to run into some of the guys from class who invited us to sit with them. It was nice to discuss the mechanics of the fight with Ron and Tim, and not be talked down to. They knew that I was aware of what I was talking about, and they didn't act as if, just because they'd been taking more classes then me, that they were superior. It was a nice change for me.

Well, Rob and I slipped out right after the fight in order to speak to Olivia and then head over to the King's Head, where we celebrated his birthday with dinner, a beer, and a chit chat with Francis.

That's right, I'm not going to hide and take it lying down. I'm not going to let other people make me feel unworthy, or as if I don't have a right to be somewhere.

I'm not the same person I was a year ago. My confidence in my self, my body, and my intelligence has all skyrocketed. The tiny bit of me that has always been a fighter has been brought to the forefront and nurtured so that it has become such a significant part of me that I won't back down from things that scare or indimidate me. The tricky thing about a fighter? They walk into the hits. They discover that they hurt less that way.

So, congrats to Olivia for the win. (LJ readers, that's her in the icon.) I'd also like to thank her. She is a very large part of why I'm becoming who I'm becoming. So thank you!
Posted by Arieanna at 12:19 PM |

It seems that the show I'm stage managing for Stoppardfest, "Jumpers", not only got some great advertising with the pictures in the Free Press last thursday, but we also got a decent review in this mornings paper:

Jumpers a humorous workout


Wed Jan 24 2007

By Kevin Prokosh



IS there a more wearying workout than attempting to follow every taxing twist and strenuous backflip in the theatrical gymnastic display that is Tom Stoppard's Jumpers?
Count on a spike in calls to chiropractors. Stoppard makes audience members' exercise muscles rarely used in theatre to bear an unnatural amount of wit and weight.

Jumpers leaves you breathless, amused and somewhat disoriented in contemplating a unique blend of Monty Python-esque loopiness and deep philosophical questioning set against a murder investigation. As performed by an amalgam of two local troupes -- Persnickety Players and Echo Theatre -- Jumpers is more memorable for the comical highjinx than the cerebral musings about the existence of God.

The English dramatist's 1972, full-length followup to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an ambitious undertaking for any theatre but for a modest collective at StoppardFest it requires some deft manoeuvres of its own. With no room on the crowded Ellice Theatre stage for a team of acrobatic-philosophers to bounce around on, co-directors Michelle Boulet and Carolyn Gray screen a short film that precedes the live action for the next two hours.

It's a wild scene-setter as we are introduced to Dorothy Moore (Charlene Van Buekenhout), once the first lady of the musical stage and now unable to sing due to a nervous breakdown triggered by a moon landing. She struggles with her lyrics as she loses the spotlight to the jumpers. The boisterous party, which features a secretary (Boulet) being wheeled around on a table with dwindling pieces of clothing, ends badly when one of the acrobats (Gord Tanner) is shot and killed.

Cut to the stage, where Dorothy is struggling to hide the dead body in her boudoir while her middle-aged husband George (Kevin Klassen), a second-rate moral philosophy professor, is dictating a speech for a major lecture. While he pursues high-falutin' theological truths he misses the true meaning of daily visits paid to his wife by Archie Jumper (Graham Ashmore), the chairman of his university's philosophy department.
The plot races off in all directions, more at the pace of George's pet hare Thumper than his tortoise Pat. What makes most sense is Jumpers as a story of a collapsing marriage and George's retreat from life into the solitude of theory. He can't answer the cries for help from Dorothy -- who he calls Dotty -- and prattles on and on.

Klassen conquers some of Stoppard's most dense monologues and more impressively appears to understand what he's talking about.

Sorely, that isn't the case for many in the audience who perk up with the comic prospects that come with the arrival of the smooth-talking dandy Archie, wonderfully performed by Ashmore, or the show biz-obsessed Inspector Bones, also well-acted by Rob McLaughlin.

Van Buekenhout earns high marks for depicting Dorothy's quivering fragility through equal parts flirty sexuality and crippling doubt.

Stoppard succeeds in appealing to the mind and the funny bone in Jumpers but ultimately misses the heart.


kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca

Theatre review

Jumpers

Persnickety Players & Echo Theatre

To Feb. 2

Tickets: $12

3 1/2 stars out of five

I'd love everyone local to come on out and check it out
Posted by Arieanna at 6:00 AM |

Okay, I know that certain people don't like the fact that I have a dark side. Certain people who at the beginning of the year would have called themselves my friends, and nay, maybe my family, would not want me to be anything but shiny and happy in this journal.
Guess what, that's unrealistic as hell. Deal with it.

Just because I write something on this journal doesn't mean that I'm going to slit my wrists or something. In fact, it's the total opposite. I'd like to quote an Anna Nalick song here, just to prove my point: "2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me, Threatening the life it belongs to."

I'm part-writer at heart. If I get it out of me, perhaps this piece of heavy, heavy lead will lift off of my heart and allow me to breathe again.

On a normal day, I'd probably go and try to hit things. But, given that climbing the stairs while doing laundry has made me nearly cough up a lung, I'm thinking that that's not necessarily a good idea.

Laundry. That's what's kind of giving me the heavy heart today. Laundry is what I was doing last year at New Year's eve. But I was doing it with Steve. And then we had a lovely night in. And then, at midnight, he told me he loved me for the first time. It wasn't long after that he was gone.
So, I'm really, really, hurting today. And there's not exactly anything keeping me from dwelling. I did laundry. Just like last year. And now, I'm pretty much home alone just watching the clock tick away how much alone I am till midnight.

My heart is especially heavy because I don't have a lot of friends left to do things with. The couple I do may have asked me in passing if I had any "big plans", but I don't think anyone even thought of inviting me to participate in any big plans. (Except CQ, but that's not who I'm referring to here.) Why don't I get invited to do things with groups of people? The fact that what friends I have left treat me as if I'm the person I was months and months ago hurts. I know how to go out and have a good time. Make nice. Interact with people. I'd like to celebrate the birthday of a friend. It seems that I'm just not fit to take out in public these days.

I'd really like to be out in public tonight. Instead, I'm sitting home with my mom. I'm doing laundry, which reminds me oh so much of last year, and is bringing nothing but crushing pain. And no one actually bothered to ask me out for a New Year's drink.

I can count the number of my friends on one hand. If you count yourself amongst them, I would actually be overjoyed to be invited out on a group excursion once in a while. I'd like to feel like a friend, not an obligation.

I'm not dying of depression. I laugh, and party, and giggle, and "flit around making people feel good". I don't go out to have fun and sit around crying instead anymore. It's taken a lot of writing, crying, medication, talking, and hitting of things to change that. I'm the person you've partied with before. In fact, I worked really fucking hard to get back to that person. I wish people would give me a chance.

Instead of being invited fun places, I'm now told about them in the past tense. It really does suck.

I'm sitting at home, feeling heavy as lead, remembering last year and trying not to cry. I'd rather be out having fun. Seems no one's willing to give me that chance anymore.
All I want for New Year is not to be thought of as a leper.

I'm not depressed 24/7. In fact, I'm hardly ever depressed anymore. Certainly not when I'm with people that make me smile, having a good time.

If I was your friend, ever in your life, and helped you through something, or even just gave you a hug and a word of comfort when you needed it. A place to stay, a shoulder to cry on, an ear on the other end of the phone on a stressful day, or even just a smile at the right time, it's time that you paid that back. I at times need those things back in return.

My new year's resolution is to have people stop treating me like I'm broken. I've fixed myself. All I want you to do is treat me like I'm me, and not a fragile piece of glass.

Happy New Year all.

I asked myself "was I content,"
with the world that I once cherished?
did it bring me to this darkened place
to comtemplate my perfect future
I will not stand nor utter words against
this tide of hate
losing site of what and who I was again

I'm so sorry if these seething words I say
impress on you
that I've become the anathema of my soul

I can't say that your losing me
I always tried to keep myself tied to this world
but I know where this is leading me
no tears
no sympathy

I can't say that your losing me
but I must be that which I am
though I know where this could take me
no tears
no sympathy

gracefully
respectfully
facing conflict deep inside myself
but here confined losing control of what I could not change

gracefully
respectfully
I ask you "Please don't worry,"
not for me
don't turn your back
don't turn away
Posted by Arieanna at 11:44 AM |

I'm looking for prayers, chants, spells, and good old well wishes.

My little three year old niece Hailey has pneumonia. It's so bad that they're putting in a chest tube tonight with a sugery at 6 pm.

We're all a little scared for our little Hail Storm.
Posted by Arieanna at 10:08 AM |

I've spent the last few months learning a lot about the nature of people, and of friendship, and what that word really and truly means. And what it means to me.

Sad songs say so much...

Well, Saturday proved to me that I have more friends then I might have realized. And that your true friends don't mind if you bust into tears. You don't have to apologize, or feel guilty, or be terrified that said person will no longer be your friend. If they truly are your friend, they will not shy away from your tears. They will just want to know what it was that made you cry.

And there won't be a limit on it, or a deadline. It won't be, 30 times I'll watch you cry, but 31 and I turn my back on you as if you never existed. As Joey told me one day when I nearly backed out of girls' night because I couldn't stay composed, "If you had 365 bad days a year, not that I'd want you to, but if you did, you would still be my friend."

I'm learning this more and more every day.

What made Saturday such a lesson? Well, it was the B and B, I'd have to say. Or more, a bunch of the attendees of the B and B.

It was my second B and B, yes, you read right, second. If you have any doubts on that one, ask around. Most of the people from "the crowd" have heard the story. And yes, I think that "the crowd" is becoming more and more "MY crowd" every day.

You have your doubts? Well, I got in crap for not being at the party at two of the groups' house the night before. Two of them I hang out with on occasion on Goth Night at the Die Maschine. A mutual friend of ours took that ugly vest and made a flogger out of it. Very cool. One of them treated me to a brilliant scalp massage as the evening was dying down and I was getting a headache.

And one of them, upon asking me where my two former best friends were, got treated to a rather watery display of emotion. She was shocked, I have to say. And why? Because she had no idea that said friends were not talking to me. So, not only did they not tell me why I am no longer one of their friends, they failed to tell other people as well.

My apologies again, girl. You were so wonderful to me. You did not, in any way, have to offer what you offered. And I'm sorry if it put you in a rather uncomfortable position.

I'm glad I got a chance to say goodbye. I'm sorry for not being able to come to you. But thank you for the goodbye you did give. It meant quite a lot.

I thoroughly enjoyed my second B and B. I got to talk to a lot of people that I don;t see all that often. I got to dance by myself and not feel awkward. And I got to see that though certain people may glare down their nose at me in a way that leads me to believe I'm a stain on their perfect life, without even giving me a reason why it's so, not everyone sees me that way.

And when I though that I wouldn't be able to hang with some of my circle because awkward had set up base camp at their table, I was kind of shocked to see that my circle got up and found a new place to set up shop.

Things are very different in my life then I'd been led to believe.

I can't thank you all enough for just being there. And for helping me to find myself. And for allowing me to count on you.

Thank you for showing me that there are people willing to be the kind of friend to me that I always try to be to others.
Posted by Arieanna at 9:57 AM |

I'm sorry that I haven't written lately. I feel really crap about it, actually. Once again, my circle of support and friendship has basically been whittled down to those of you I met online or only know online, and less than a handful of other people. And I really don't want to be a crybaby on my lj. thestormcellar recommended that I try to keep positive, and talk about positive things on the journal. I've been trying to do that.But dag nab it! Sometimes I just need to talk about it. And I just really have no one left in my life to talk about it with, ya know? What's even worse is that I've alienated all the great people that I used to have in my online life as well.

I'm having a hard time of it this week, and I'm super-lonely on top of it. There's nothing like opening up your e-mail to see that you have 0 messages. Not a one. Not even junk mail.

I had a super rough weekend. Mostly because of the date, and what I would have been doing, had my life not taken a complete deviation because of circumstances beyond my understanding.

I'm sorry that I'm not happy all the time. I really am. I try. I try very hard. I don't think people really know just how hard it is to struggle through life the way I and people like myself are. It's a struggle just to get out of bed and live each day. To breathe in and out. To put one foot in front of the other and keep walking. To not just give up.

If I could put you in my shoes for a minute, just so you could understand where I am, I would. But I would never do it for longer than that. Because no one deserves more than a minutes here.

It all kind of came to a head late Saturday night, early Sunday morning. And the worst part is the complete and utter sheer blinding terror I have at telling anyone at all that anything at all is wrong with me. Because I don't know which tears will be those few too many, and send the people that have accepted me running just as the last people. I certainly can't share with people that I'm upset. Lord knows that that is not at all what friendship is about.

People can't know that I'm upset, or hurt, or sad, because I honestly don't think I could stand losing one more person in my life.

My view on friendship now is so skewed. I must be happy, and pleasant, and cheerful and fun to be around at every second. Because some tiny thing that I did an hour ago, or a day ago, or a week ago, will cause people to stop talking to me. And they will never even let me know what it was that I did. Y'know, so that either a.) I can try to repair the damage, or b.) I can avoid doing it to the next people I try to make friends with.

And all this is going through my head when the people I was with asked me what was wrong. And I lashed out, because lord knows it would be far easier for me to hurt them and know what I did to drive them away then if they left just simply because, once again, I'm not good enough, or exactly what people want me to be.

Guess what? I'm not a puppet. I'm me. And if you truly are my friend, as I try to be back to people, then you'll care for me as I am. Bad points and all. That's what friends do.

I do have to be grateful for Justin, even if the fight he and I had nearly tore the last shred of sanity I had from me. Because even though I drove him away, he wanted to make sure that I was alright. That I would speak to him again. That we weren't mad at each other. That we were still friends. And when I couldn't find the words to apologize, he assured me that I didn't need to. That he knew. Then he just held my hand.

This is what I get from a month of friendship. My heart screams and asks why in the world I can't expect the same treatment from over a decade's worth. And it kills me. Because with Justin, right now, I simply like him. And though it means a lot, it's not enough. Because I lost people that I love. Who swore they loved me.

But it makes me wonder. If they loved me, as they claimed, how could they take one of the few things in my life worth struggling to live for, themselves, away from me?
Posted by Arieanna at 3:24 PM |

I blame this entirely on pinky0007 and boredom during lunch at work.

I answered in the comments on her journal. If you feel like it, do the same in mine!

IF YOU'RE ON MY FRIENDS LIST,I want to know 20 things about you. I don't care if we've never talked, never liked each other, or if we already know everything about each other. I really don't. You are obviously on my list, so let me know with whom I am friends!

1.Your Middle Name:
2. Age:
3. Single or Taken:
4. Favorite Movie:
5. Favorite Song:
6. Favorite Band/Artist:
7. Dirty or Clean:
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:

HERE COMES THE FUN ... ... ...

1. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
2. Whats your philosophy on life?
3. Would you have my back in a fight?
4. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?
5. What is your favorite memory of us?
6. Would you give me a kidney?
7. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
8. Would you take care of me when I'm sick?
9. Can we get together and make a cake?
10. Have you heard any rumors of me lately?
11. Do you/have you talk(ed) crap about me?
12. Do you think I'm a good person?
13. Would you drive across country with me?
14. Do you think I'm attractive?
15. If you could change anything about me, would you?
16. What do you wear to sleep?
17. Would you come over for no reason just to hang out?
18. Would you go on a date with me if i asked you?
19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
20. Will you repost this so i can fill it out for you?
Posted by Arieanna at 12:04 PM |