May 2011
2 posts
January 2011
6 posts
“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are...”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
and for my next trick, I'll ruin 2012!
Yesterday right before I left the house to go do the show my cat drooled directly into my eye (shut up, we were cuddling while I was lying down on the couch). Within about 40 seconds my eye had swelled almost to the point I couldn’t open it. Antihistamine drops and a Benadryl reduced the Quasimodo element enough that from the stage, at least, I looked like a normal human. It kept tearing up...
December 2010
4 posts
My office, my clubhouse
We’ve been doing nine shows a week and selling out for many of them, coming close for the others. I’d never heard the house packed with 1800 people before. When you get up around 12 or 13 hundred the applause starts to sound like furious rain as we’re scrambling into place for bows. At 18 hundred it sounds more like thunder and when you get a good house, like we had last night,...
It's beginning to look a lot like insanity
My family gave me a good bit of shit about having to make the trek out here for Christmas. Nobody gets to leave the show for the holidays, so it was that or else have a fractured family Christmas. Then because of the weather back east they got stuck here. It looks like they’ll get a flight out today. But one of my sisters has found a boyfriend amongst the stagehands, actors, and other...
I tried to write a post about what’s been going on with me and why I can’t (don’t want to) talk about it on the internet, but then Tumblr threw it away on my behalf. I’m not writing it again because I have to go. Thank you to everyone who’s reached out to me. I’m not dead and I’m not dying. I’m not even unhappy; far, far from it, in fact. But...
November 2010
41 posts
Swung-out, with a sonnet
When we do a ten-show week (which happens a lot over the holidays) our dance captain swings us out of the show one by one so that our torn-up bodies can have a fighting chance at recovery. I was swung out for our tenth and last show of the week. I sat in the dance warm-up room, listened to the show over the monitors, and wrote a sonnet.
Then come with me to sunsets never seen, Let us allow a...
Anonymous asked: Good evening. Is ballet the inspiration for your poetry, or something else? It's marvelously sordid!
Shakespearean sonnet from the dressing room,...
My legs became his throne, my breast his crown; I was his mink-lined cloak; he wore me well So I began to stand alone, to drown In my own hips, to know the subtle smell, The call to arms for men who would be king. Undressed at his command I then took charge; The battles that we won began to sting And I confess my victories were large But only his had teeth; so I was torn By him at last, a tigress...
Petrarchan sonnet from 5am
The body of your voice enlivens mine, You speak me into secrets I can’t share; Is it a crime to break what I’ll repair, To sneer at what I’ll later make a shrine? There’s nothing in our nights that is benign, Your rogue caress is destined to impair My watchful woman’s charm against despair. Dismantled, I am supple, cheap, divine. Disaster stands alone beside your bed,...
yesterday I wrote poems: bonus edition
Woe! the waves are all crashing upon the shore’s shit And it’s really bumming me out Because the shore didn’t do anything It just sat there, being a shore, and got crashed upon Anyway It’s like life isn’t fair or some shit like that Because nature is so harsh But still so good-looking Like that guy I once dated Fuck him
yesterday I wrote poems: villanelle edition
Although I know that love can sting and bite And well-lived life has taught me to beware I choose this path as though it were delight
I trust in my own conduct to be right And bathe in the perfume of our affair Although I know that love can sting and bite
The courage that it takes to love outright, Itself a heady drug, will have me swear I choose this path as though it were delight
And yes! the...
yesterday I wrote poems: sonnet edition
The rhythm of your heart heard through your chest Beats out a song I must lie still to hear, A challenge not to sabotage your rest Though my own pulse rebels with you so near, Refuses sleep, demands instead to dance And leap right through this midnight quiet dream, A mutual breath composing our romance, Our limbs the chords, amusing hymns our theme. My energy must break against your form, Reshape...
Life goes on
My sister has to share a key card with some of the others in the theater where she works. As an experiment she began referring to the key card as Dylan McKay. “I’m taking Dylan McKay with me to lunch.” “Has anyone seen Dylan McKay?” “I accidentally took Dylan McKay home with me last night!” People would shake their heads and tell her she was crazy but now...
On selfishness
therealkatiewest:
To me, the self is all important. Self discovery is a path I would hate not to walk. Examining why I do things and why I feel the way I do about situations I find myself in often consumes me. I am concerned with bettering myself, with expanding my own ideas, with pushing myself to my limits. Exploring the idea of self and how people feel about it, and how this in turn...
Poisonville: a Wilde/Whitman summit →
poisonville:
A chance reference to Whitman in an essay on Wilde’s short-lived tenure as a classics scholar in the NYRB led me to Whitman’s recollection of their meeting.
Loved this until I got to the part where Stoddard relates their discussion of “how insipid is the love of women.” My feelings were hurt. Also, disappointed in these two heroes of mine? A deliberate reverence for...
thetomsibley:
INSUFFICIENT FARE always feels like a stake in the heart.
This made me homesick. The Las Vegas equivalent is the gas light in the car. It’s equally good at picking moments when I’m late, tired, or lost to show up as a helpful reminder that life will never be smooth sailing and that the people who do appear to be coasting are doing a really good job of handling it and...
I started working with metal...
lotusblossom:
I am a very cautious person and prefer security over risk. I am uncomfortable walking downstairs without being able to see the steps (yet another reason I am not a dancer).
Peripheral vision, eye on the last step. It appears you are looking straight ahead, and the part of you that is Juliet or Clara or Aurora, that part really is looking straight ahead, or at the prince, or at...
my little paper boat
Today at the barre I had one of those days where doing “what you’re supposed to do” for ballet (turn out, straight knees, articulate through the slightly supinated ankle through the sole of the foot into the toes) felt like burning, especially down the back of my right leg. Every day starts with that burning, now that I’m in my thirties. Usually it’s gone in about ten...
Bad news regarding Spiderman the Musical →
misterhippity:
aatombomb:
theweekmagazine:
The opening performance has been delayed until January, partially because the director is still trying to figure out how to make the characters fly. Two actors have been injured rehearsing a maneuver in which they are “launched from the back of the stage like a slingshot.”
That in itself is enough to make me want to go see it, whenever it opens.
...
chanel-number-six:
APPLE BOTTOM JEANS (JEANS!)
BOOTS WITH THE FURRRRRRRRRRRR (WITH THE FURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR)
A favorite day: some of the singers who are in the opening scene go up the stairs to the stage singing this song in operatic voice. Hauling their hoop skirts and top hats and velvet cloaks, singing, “Reeboks with the straaaaaaps!” and harmonizing “She hit tha flo,...
Anonymous asked: I'm sorry to hear that you're sad. Tumblr misses you.
inothernews:
Due to a ballot measure being voted down, it’s still officially called the “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”
During the show last night we’d get our updates on election news in the wig room, which is right next to stage management, which means they have good wifi. Also there’s always somebody cooling their heels in there because no...
