I've found that my subway commute goes by much faster if I use the 30-45 min each way to read a magazine, newspaper, or a good book. Recently, I've decided to use that reading time to educate myself more on acting. The book, "Audition" by Michael Shurtleff has been on my shelf for a few years now; I suppose at some point during undergrad I was told it was a book every actor should have. Since coming to the city I have been told my numerous sources that it is a MUST read, hence I have begun reading it.
I think it is great so far and wanted to share this amusing, yet ever so truthful quote from the prologue:
"To go into acting is like asking for admission to an insane asylum. Anyone may apply, but only the certifiably insane are admitted. I've always thought it's better to give up sanity. Settle down and admit you're crazy or you wouldn't want to act. When you find out what acting is like and what the odds are, and you still persist, the proof of your own insanity is inescapable. Accept it. Most actors make themselves unhappy searching for sanity, by insisting on thier normalcy; its a grave mistake. The life of an actor is a bit easier to take if you admit you're bonkers."
So there you have it, I admit that I am "bonkers," especially being in NYC, there are actors EVERYWHERE!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Adrienne's Visit
I am proud to say that it has only been one week and a day since my last entry! I need to back track a bit to talk a bit about our first few days back after the new year ….
My good friend since middle school, Adrienne came for a short visit the day after we returned to the city. In the few days we were here we got to see two Broadway shows, Spring Awakening and Legally Blonde. I have already seen both of these but love them so much I would see them again and again. Also, the first time I saw Spring Awakening, two of the leads were understudies. I must say, seeing Lea Michelle play Wendla is the only way to see that show, she is phenomenal! Also, they had just replaced John Gallagher Jr.’s role with a guy who is from the TV show Lost, and the adult female role is now being played with a woman from Grey’s Anatomy. Funny, but those are the only two tv shows I actually watch, so I enjoyed seeing the actors in a stage performance.
Adrienne and I also spent a day shopping in Manhattan! We made our way down to Soho and Canal Street which is a mixture of high end fashion boutiques and tents with designer knock-offs. We were absolutely freezing the entire time but wandered amongst the Canal Street vendors looking for cheap souvenirs and a new purse for Adrienne. It was quite the experience seeing as how to buy anything you have to barter with the vendor, something neither have much experience with or are very good at we realized. While trying to barter for the purse Adrienne wanted we attempted to ask for a really low price (thinking we would end up somewhere in the middle) but the woman just said “no” and then turned and walked away. We stood stunned, not knowing if we had offended her or if this was just part of the game. We walked away and then came back 3 minutes later giving her the amount she had asked for but having to pay $4 of the amount in change. Next time our plan is to bring someone with us who knows how to barter better, or I guess barter at all for that matter.
The other moment of excitement during Adrienne’s visit was when we saw a giant rat in the subway up on the platform next to us! I don’t mind seeing them run along down on the tracks, but this big guy was running along right next to our feet! We both screamed and ran … causing ‘true NYC-ers’ and Mike to laugh at us. The problem was, the rat then ran underneath a garbage can and kept poking its head out to see if the coast was clear. Every time he popped out, we screamed and he went back to his hiding place until finally he made a run for it and kept running through our screams of terror!
Sadly, Adrienne’s visit wasn’t longer and so she returned to Seattle after a few fun-filled days. Mike and I look forward to our next visitor, whoever it may be, because it gives us an excuse to get out there and do all the tourist stuff! Mike or Adrienne, you should post about your “Mike and Adrienne Day-O-Fun” you had while I had to work.
My good friend since middle school, Adrienne came for a short visit the day after we returned to the city. In the few days we were here we got to see two Broadway shows, Spring Awakening and Legally Blonde. I have already seen both of these but love them so much I would see them again and again. Also, the first time I saw Spring Awakening, two of the leads were understudies. I must say, seeing Lea Michelle play Wendla is the only way to see that show, she is phenomenal! Also, they had just replaced John Gallagher Jr.’s role with a guy who is from the TV show Lost, and the adult female role is now being played with a woman from Grey’s Anatomy. Funny, but those are the only two tv shows I actually watch, so I enjoyed seeing the actors in a stage performance.
Adrienne and I also spent a day shopping in Manhattan! We made our way down to Soho and Canal Street which is a mixture of high end fashion boutiques and tents with designer knock-offs. We were absolutely freezing the entire time but wandered amongst the Canal Street vendors looking for cheap souvenirs and a new purse for Adrienne. It was quite the experience seeing as how to buy anything you have to barter with the vendor, something neither have much experience with or are very good at we realized. While trying to barter for the purse Adrienne wanted we attempted to ask for a really low price (thinking we would end up somewhere in the middle) but the woman just said “no” and then turned and walked away. We stood stunned, not knowing if we had offended her or if this was just part of the game. We walked away and then came back 3 minutes later giving her the amount she had asked for but having to pay $4 of the amount in change. Next time our plan is to bring someone with us who knows how to barter better, or I guess barter at all for that matter.
The other moment of excitement during Adrienne’s visit was when we saw a giant rat in the subway up on the platform next to us! I don’t mind seeing them run along down on the tracks, but this big guy was running along right next to our feet! We both screamed and ran … causing ‘true NYC-ers’ and Mike to laugh at us. The problem was, the rat then ran underneath a garbage can and kept poking its head out to see if the coast was clear. Every time he popped out, we screamed and he went back to his hiding place until finally he made a run for it and kept running through our screams of terror!
Sadly, Adrienne’s visit wasn’t longer and so she returned to Seattle after a few fun-filled days. Mike and I look forward to our next visitor, whoever it may be, because it gives us an excuse to get out there and do all the tourist stuff! Mike or Adrienne, you should post about your “Mike and Adrienne Day-O-Fun” you had while I had to work.
A puppy's dream
Zoka dreams of becoming a fire dog.
Every time the trucks scream by, he stiffens up, raises his head and just starts howling. I hardly hear Zoka bark and yet he howls like crazy at sirens.
Just about the cutest thing.
Unfortunately for Zoka: fire dog academy has a 2 foot 7 inch height requirement.
Puppy dreams shattered.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Mike's Thoughts
Watch out... I might add a few thoughts here and there to the beautiful Elisa's blog.
Yikes! On the bottom of each entry, it should say who posted.
Yikes! On the bottom of each entry, it should say who posted.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Video Tour of Our Apartment
Here is a link to youtube where we have uploaded a short video-tour of our apartment. The first weekend we were back in Brooklyn we spent three days finishing all the painting and decorating of our apartment. We even made another trip out to IKEA (shocking, I know!) but this time took the free shuttle from Manhattan and had a much less stressful trip!
Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyqJSV3mBZk
Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyqJSV3mBZk
A very overdue post
Well it has now been over two months since I last wrote on this blog. I apologize to those of you who were keeping up with my entries and have been left hanging the past few months. I’m going to do my best to re-cap all that has happened since my last entry.
For Thanksgiving my dad and brother flew out to NYC and both stayed at our cozy little apartment. We went to my cousin’s house in Cranbury, NJ for Thanksgiving Day and had an enjoyable time spending a holiday with my Dad’s side of the family for a change. There were about 14 of us in all including my grandma, aunt and uncle, three cousins, my great aunt and uncle, and some of my cousin’s family from the other side.
The day after Thanksgiving, Daniel, my younger brother came down sick with a really high fever. This was actually the third time in a month he had been hit by a fever and so after a day of trying to fight it, he went down to the ER of the hospital which is luckily down the street about a half mile from our apartment. They admitted him since they were unsure of the cause and he was severely dehydrated. He was scheduled to fly home the Monday after Thanksgiving but ended up not getting released from the hospital until the following Friday. Luckily, my Dad was also in town and extended his stay as well, since he spent every day at the hospital with Daniel. He is much better now and what the doctors finally concluded was that he had a bacterial infection in his throat that then went and attacked the tissue around his heart. Because he is young and healthy the doctors said his body was able to fight it off fairly well and with the help of antibiotics he felt almost back to normal when he flew back to North Dakota and went back to school. Unfortunately for both him and my Dad, all of their plans for their time in NYC were left undone. Daniel did get one day after he got out that he was able to go to a Jazz club in Manhattan and my dad stayed through the extra weekend and we went and saw Les Miserables. Although I had just seen it a month earlier with my mom, quite a few cast members had changed already and the woman playing Fantine was actually the original Broadway’s Cosette. Being that it is my Dad’s favorite show and he’s never seen it live on stage, we both had a very enjoyable time.
Right after my Dad left we were visited by some new and very unwelcome company … MICE! We built two gigantic IKEA closets in our apartment that we use for our everyday clothes and so the one closet that is part of the apartment is used for storage and holding our dress clothes and jackets. After opening the door and seeing a mouse jump out of a pocket one morning we immediately called our landlord and he brought us some mouse traps. (The ones that are a piece of banana flavored cardboard that the mice get stuck to.) After leaving the traps in the closet for a few days and catching quite a few mice, we realized we needed to empty out the closet and figure out how they were getting in. The four or five hours we spent cleaning out the closet were the most disgusting five hours of my life! The mice had basically had a field day in our closet and pooped and peed on EVERYTHING!!!! We filled two garbage bags of clothes that had to be dry-cleaned and another bag and half of clothes that could be washed and dried. We had to wipe poop off of everything and even throw some things away. Once again, we are very fortunate to have gotten a good landlord who paid the $250 dry-cleaning bill. The exterminator came and left a bunch of poison and told us how we had to cover the holes the mice had chewed in our closet. The whole mice ordeal lasted at least two weeks and in that time we caught, and poor Mike had to dispose of, a total of six mice! Since all this happened during Mike’s law school finals, I had to be brave and fill all the mouse holes myself. Mike will tell you that I went crazy, but I was determined to make sure no mice ever chewed through into our apartment again. In all the holes and cracks I stuffed steel wool, then super glued a piece of cut-out pie tin over it, and finished it off with a layer of duct tape. Since then we have not seen any more mice or their droppings. We did for a little while hear them clawing inside the walls trying to break through, but so far my barricades seem to be holding up!
Mike made it through his first semester of law school and survived a very long two weeks of finals. He is still awaiting his grades for the semester but feels as though he did all right, especially considering he is in the upper sections and all the classes are graded on a curve. Both of us were very much looking forward to our Christmas break and coming home to Seattle.
We flew back to Seattle and once again, brought Zoka on the plane with us. The waiting at the airport and the flight itself were not a great experience and we have decided that in the future we will have him put underneath the plane or pay to have him boarded while we are gone. Once we finally made it to Seattle everything was great and we had a wonderful holiday with both our families celebrating together up in Bellingham. After Christmas we tried to see as many people as we could down in Seattle but have realized just how hard that is and that next time we will try to plan our time a little better. So if you didn’t hear from us or see us while we were in town, we really apologize and hope to see you next time we come for a visit!
I have done my best to recap the past few months of our adventures and promise to go back to writing at least every two weeks. My internship is over and I’m now working part time, taking dance classes, and actually going on quite a few auditions each week. But I now have a little bit more time to write in my blog and promise I won’t leave you in suspense this long again! Thank you for reading!!!!!
For Thanksgiving my dad and brother flew out to NYC and both stayed at our cozy little apartment. We went to my cousin’s house in Cranbury, NJ for Thanksgiving Day and had an enjoyable time spending a holiday with my Dad’s side of the family for a change. There were about 14 of us in all including my grandma, aunt and uncle, three cousins, my great aunt and uncle, and some of my cousin’s family from the other side.
The day after Thanksgiving, Daniel, my younger brother came down sick with a really high fever. This was actually the third time in a month he had been hit by a fever and so after a day of trying to fight it, he went down to the ER of the hospital which is luckily down the street about a half mile from our apartment. They admitted him since they were unsure of the cause and he was severely dehydrated. He was scheduled to fly home the Monday after Thanksgiving but ended up not getting released from the hospital until the following Friday. Luckily, my Dad was also in town and extended his stay as well, since he spent every day at the hospital with Daniel. He is much better now and what the doctors finally concluded was that he had a bacterial infection in his throat that then went and attacked the tissue around his heart. Because he is young and healthy the doctors said his body was able to fight it off fairly well and with the help of antibiotics he felt almost back to normal when he flew back to North Dakota and went back to school. Unfortunately for both him and my Dad, all of their plans for their time in NYC were left undone. Daniel did get one day after he got out that he was able to go to a Jazz club in Manhattan and my dad stayed through the extra weekend and we went and saw Les Miserables. Although I had just seen it a month earlier with my mom, quite a few cast members had changed already and the woman playing Fantine was actually the original Broadway’s Cosette. Being that it is my Dad’s favorite show and he’s never seen it live on stage, we both had a very enjoyable time.
Right after my Dad left we were visited by some new and very unwelcome company … MICE! We built two gigantic IKEA closets in our apartment that we use for our everyday clothes and so the one closet that is part of the apartment is used for storage and holding our dress clothes and jackets. After opening the door and seeing a mouse jump out of a pocket one morning we immediately called our landlord and he brought us some mouse traps. (The ones that are a piece of banana flavored cardboard that the mice get stuck to.) After leaving the traps in the closet for a few days and catching quite a few mice, we realized we needed to empty out the closet and figure out how they were getting in. The four or five hours we spent cleaning out the closet were the most disgusting five hours of my life! The mice had basically had a field day in our closet and pooped and peed on EVERYTHING!!!! We filled two garbage bags of clothes that had to be dry-cleaned and another bag and half of clothes that could be washed and dried. We had to wipe poop off of everything and even throw some things away. Once again, we are very fortunate to have gotten a good landlord who paid the $250 dry-cleaning bill. The exterminator came and left a bunch of poison and told us how we had to cover the holes the mice had chewed in our closet. The whole mice ordeal lasted at least two weeks and in that time we caught, and poor Mike had to dispose of, a total of six mice! Since all this happened during Mike’s law school finals, I had to be brave and fill all the mouse holes myself. Mike will tell you that I went crazy, but I was determined to make sure no mice ever chewed through into our apartment again. In all the holes and cracks I stuffed steel wool, then super glued a piece of cut-out pie tin over it, and finished it off with a layer of duct tape. Since then we have not seen any more mice or their droppings. We did for a little while hear them clawing inside the walls trying to break through, but so far my barricades seem to be holding up!
Mike made it through his first semester of law school and survived a very long two weeks of finals. He is still awaiting his grades for the semester but feels as though he did all right, especially considering he is in the upper sections and all the classes are graded on a curve. Both of us were very much looking forward to our Christmas break and coming home to Seattle.
We flew back to Seattle and once again, brought Zoka on the plane with us. The waiting at the airport and the flight itself were not a great experience and we have decided that in the future we will have him put underneath the plane or pay to have him boarded while we are gone. Once we finally made it to Seattle everything was great and we had a wonderful holiday with both our families celebrating together up in Bellingham. After Christmas we tried to see as many people as we could down in Seattle but have realized just how hard that is and that next time we will try to plan our time a little better. So if you didn’t hear from us or see us while we were in town, we really apologize and hope to see you next time we come for a visit!
I have done my best to recap the past few months of our adventures and promise to go back to writing at least every two weeks. My internship is over and I’m now working part time, taking dance classes, and actually going on quite a few auditions each week. But I now have a little bit more time to write in my blog and promise I won’t leave you in suspense this long again! Thank you for reading!!!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)