Three hours until rehearsal

Barely got any of the script memorized, I don't know if we will work on our scene today or not, it's the last one, but we will probably all be in the room for the whole six hours. I thought I heard birds singing a little while ago, but when I opened my window, there was only silence. Some geese had flown over in the distance, and a baby crow cawed across the street once or twice, and then a truck rattled past, but no robins or sparrows are singing here now.

There are these free late afternoon (live music) shows on Friday nights in August at Seattle Center. I was gonna go last night, but thought it would be better if I worked on memorizing my lines, plus I'm still really tired and I wanted a nap. I ended up reading about half of Art and Fear, and then came home to take a nap, but didn't get back up until now. I've got three hours. There's not really alot of text, the script is kinda' cluttered with so much stage direction that it's hard to find the lines. I've actually crossed most of it out. I want to get the lines down though, so I can work on the changes, figure out what I want moment to moment (I think we decided there were 20 beats.) I'm not sure what I want overall, I must want something. The lines feel reactionary, not assertive. The play is about love, in a general sense, so that would be a big overriding theme, but not specific in the scene.  I know I just said I wasn't going to discuss the show, but all this is so general to any process, it's not specific about this rehearsal and show.

I need to journal too, to figure out more about my character. I can't hold a pen right now, which is why I'm typing, my hand is really bad this morning: swollen, painful, has been most of the week. I need to find a doctor I can work on this food intolerance thing with. There have to be foods that don't freak out my immune system. I think I know what set this off, but I don't know how to heal it. I know it's possible, but I want to find someone that knows what they are doing, that regularly works with this. The regular doctors only offer drugs, which work on the symptoms, but that's not exactly the same as being healed.

Garden's getting watered

Still humid, but cooler and stormy now. (Very humid and warm last night, close to 100%, which is rare for here.) The crow family were outside waiting when I walked out the door this morning. The one, still off in the distance from the others. They must live in one of the trees of a neighbor, I put out some leftovers in the yard and they were watching from a couple rooftops over. There's a hummingbird sitting on a branch outside my window now, getting rained on. It looks like it might be singing, but I can't hear it. Probably looking for insects, there aren't any flowers.

There is a new source of robo-spam, I won't click on it, maybe it will go away.  If the ground isn't too saturated tonight, will attempt to salvage my two tomato plants that are still in those little pots, probably root-bound. Leaves are yellow, but I think that's a deficiency as opposed to a disease, at least I hope so. They've been in those pots almost two months now. I'll go even if it is raining, I need to weed. Really need to weed. This is the kind of weather plants love and the weeds are going nuts.

It's nice to have a bit of free time.

Ate lunch in the community center, it was pretty quiet. Sometimes someone plays the piano, but no one was when I walked in. I thought perhaps that was only during the regular academic year, but then ten minutes before I had to get back to work a student came in and began to play. Beautifully.  I also decided at lunch that it's not working for me to fall asleep every time I sit down, so goals: 1) no caffeine after noon, and 2) try to get to bed by 10:30 pm on most nights. I'd like to get to bed earlier, but trying to be realistic. At any rate, I need to get more sleep.

I think the "sense" a friend tried to talk to me, might have actually lodged inside my head. That could be a good thing. (Others have tried.) I will respect his choice to know me from a distance, if at all. Oh, guess I must've done alright on my final exam, I got an "A" for the quarter.

After gardening and walking home, I'm so tired right now, I might actually fall asleep before 10. (Pulled weeds for over an hour. That's a lot of greenery. Barely made a dent in it.)

Saturday, no singing robins

Really need to catch up on the rest of my life today, just not enough time for everything, even if I do say I value it all. Went to another play last night, got a ticket in exchange for watching the door and letting people in the building. It was a comedy, well done. A student production, great accents (multiple accents), great physicality and timing, and pretty fun in general. Unfortunately, I've been so exhausted lately that I fell asleep for parts of it (what else is new? been happening a lot lately) and so woke up thinking, "Wait, when did he get shot? Who is that woman, where did she come from and why are they hand-cuffed?" Still, well done, fast-paced, believable. The man next to me looked at me oddly at one point, I hope I didn't mumble anything or fall over on him. When I woke up this morning it occurred to me that part of my problem in my acting class is that we are not in rehearsal together enough, it really demands more time, and barring that (work schedules, finding rehearsal space, etc.) I need to know my own character inside and out when I get to rehearsal. Seems obvious, but I realized that in my rare longer speeches, I'm not seeing the scene I'm talking about, and I need to, and there are some other things I haven't gotten specific about. I'll have to think about them while doing other things because I'm meeting my scene partner in 5 hours and I need to go work on my garden and run a bunch of errands before that. The advantage of riding the bus is you don't have to think about driving, and so you can focus on other things. And pulling up weeds will hopefully clear my head.

I think I need to watch some old movies with witty dialogue and quick-paced verbal sparring. Katherine Hepburn comes to mind.

The play was The 39 Steps.