I'll prove a busy actor in their play ~ as you like it

It has been far too long since I visited my thoughts, engraving them to everlasting life with art of the written word.

I haven't journaled. I haven't blogged. I haven't written a poem. I've signed my name on the dotted lines of the "Merchant Copies" of wine shoppes and fine dining establishments, but that's about it.

In the past month, I have not had one day off from work, dancing, acting - performing, rehearsing - nothing. It's my own fault, but I've traded in one passion for the other, leaving the pen to rest and my keyboard dusty, as my body has grown weary and my brain is on autopilot; learning lines, remembering choreography, trying to remember blocking and vocal inflection. Trying not to have a mental breakdown backstage during tech rehearsal as I continued to drop my lines on stage. It's been a really long year already, and yet, it somehow has flown by all too quickly.

SWING! opened and closed after a three week run and packed houses, great reviews and the like. I even got mentioned in a review being noted as: "If an award were given to the cast member who perfectly captures the look and vitality of the swing era, I'd have to give it to Lauren Atkins*, who looks as if she just stepped off a bandstand of the era, right after sending her beau off to do battle with Hitler himself."

I found this flattering, albeit a tad funny, as from thenceforward on, before we performed the USO numbers during the show, I made it a point to exclaim to everyone that I was sending my beau off to fight the fuhrer... Ah! The life of an actress!

Of course, once SWING! was up and running, I started full time rehearsals on my off days for Fat Pig, leaving practically no time for myself, let alone anyone else. I've been tired, and well, run-down to say the least. The week before SWING! opened, I found myself really sick with walking pneumonia, and it lasted throughout the entire run of the show, and I didn't find myself pneumonia free until three days before the opening of Fat Pig. Thank goodness. Three weeks of pneumonia was more than enough.

We have four more performances of Fat Pig left, and then I'm setting sail for America on board the ship of dreams, as Titanic the Musical opens in April. We've been in rehearsal for a couple weeks, though I've missed most of them due to performances.

I even had to create a calendar of the next three months with my schedule, just to combine all my separate lives that I somehow lead, and I sent it to Billy with a note saying, in a nutshell, "Honey, I love you, I know my life is crazy, but if you see empty spaces on my calendar, please pencil yourself in." Pathetic. I think I have 2 days off until the first of May.

My ventures lead me astray and I feel like I'm constantly waving to him from a distance. I'm lucky that he keeps his horse saddled and ready at a moment's notice, galloping at full speed toward my rescue if my life takes an unexpected pause. Perhaps I should slide up there next to him and let him ride me off into the sunset -- but that would just be too perfect wouldn't it? I'm never going to be able to jump on that horse when I love to feel the earth beneath my feet. I feel so grounded and steady, so strong and ready for anything that comes my way. I don't know that I could trust a horse to lead me down the path I have already decided to follow on my own.

I digress.

I don't suppose there was a rhyme or reason to this entry, but I've been feeling disconnected from my heart and needed a little space from my other life. It's nice to slip away into the world of thoughts and wade through the sea of word puddles for a little while. But now I have to brush up on my lines for the show, as I have a performance later, despite the fact that Annaliese should be waking from her afternoon nap at any moment, and I will have to sit cross-legged on the floor with an adorable eight month old and play peek-a-boo until her parents get home from work.

Peek-a-boo...I see you...you know, we unknowingly play this game with ourselves and others and forget that even when we put our hands over our eyes and can't see past the darkness, the light is all around us and eyes are always watching, smiling, peering into our world. You may close your eyes and shut out the world, but when you open them and smile, the world breathes you right back in...

*Atkins was my married last name and I still use it for the stage as of now.

to seek new friends and stranger companies ~ a midsummer night's dream

I had rehearsals both Saturday and Sunday which kicked my a**. Toward the end of rehearsal, I pulled a muscle in my quad. I've been trying to nurse my leg back to health with no avail. I should be staying off of it, and keeping the heating pad on it in 20 minute rotations, but instead, I'm chasing kids during the day and dancing on it all night. I have no clue when my leg will get better. Hopefully by tomorrow night, as I have an entire evening of Lindy Hopping.

I have a new and amazing friend who seems to really fulfill me in a different way from the way I feel with most of my other friends. I just love being around her and I can't wait to get to know her even better. Our personalities click in a way that I haven't had in a while, and I genuinely like being around her. (We snuck away and had secret martinis at the bar when we were supposed to be in rehearsal on Sunday)

Sunday night, a few of us went to Dave & Busters and acted like big kids, playing games, running around showing off how many tickets we won, trying to outsmart each other with trivia, shooting whores and gangsters from the wild west saloons. It was a damn good time.

Quote of the evening:
Billy: (after wandering off and discovering a new game that we had yet to play, and then gleefully returning to tell us of this new and interesting game)
"So, I think I found my new favorite game! You see, I was a polar bear and I had this club and I had to beat the fish over the head with the club! It's the best game EVER."

Yes, that's my boyfriend.

And then later on that night, after feeling a little tipsy from our earlier cocktails and beer swilling, we snuggled in with glasses of wine and watched an episode of The Secret Lives of Women: I'm a Husband Beater. Simply romantic, isn't it? There is something so absolutely intriguing about that show. Sometimes you learn that these secret lives of women encompass weird fetishes like wearing diapers and sleeping in adult sized cribs, and drinking from baby bottles, and sometimes you learn that your next door neighbor soccer mom, is really a glorified prostitute who works at a brothel, and sometimes, you learn that there are women who are so controlling that they actually abuse their spouses. It makes my life seem so completely normal.

Since neither of us had to work yesterday, Billy and I went to the Adventure Science Center and were once again, big kids. We walked through the solar system, took pictures in front of dinosaurs and journeyed through the human brain.

I ended the night with a four hour dance rehearsal, and a comical ride home with one of my best friends. We talked of personality match-ups, relationships, how we think the rehearsal went and our sex lives.

I'd say, overall, I had a very eventful weekend.

i am weary; yea, my memory is tired ~ coriolanus

I am exhausted.

As of yesterday at 3:30pm, I had already worked a 40 hour week and then continued to work until 5:30pm, and was back at work this morning for yet another day of work from 7:30-5:30pm.

Last night we had a ridiculously high impact rehearsal that required a lot of energy and stamina. From 6:45-10:45pm, we rehearsed swing numbers, jive, lindy hop -- we basically put the entire first act together with a very short 4 minute break to shove granola bars down our throats and guzzle water - a break just long enough to give us an energy boost that would enable us to keep dancing.

Drenched in sweat, I left the studio exhuasted, body ready to sign out of life for a little while.

With a shower, a glass of wine, an ice pack on the ankle, and an hour of winding down in the arms of my boyfriend, watching Sports Center (okay, so I wasn't really watching, I was in a complete daze) - I was in bed by 1:30am, and ready to be taken away with slumber.

I'm now on my third cup of coffee this morning and have a RedBull waiting for me in the fridge for my afternoon pick-me-up.

Photo/Publicity shoot for the show tomorrow at noon.

Rehearsal from 2:00-7:00pm.

Sunday's rehearsal is from 2:00-6:00pm.

I'm taking the day off on Monday. I think it's necessary.

she dances featly ~ the winter's tale

After two days of intense rehearsals this weekend, my mind wasn't synchronizing with my body in the slightest.

In the middle of rehearsal, after learning an extremely fast swing number without the addition of music, I felt confident in my abilities and felt as though I had grasped the steps in their entirety.
Then the choreographer said: "Alright, from the top, with music."

I stood in the middle of the dance floor with my hands in the air, knowing that at some point, I was supposed to end up in that position, my eyes wide with the confusion of realizing I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. So I just stood there in what I knew was supposed to be the ending pose.

When the music stopped I blurted out:

"You think you get the choreography, and then you realize...there's music..."

Life lesson #4,298:
"Just when you seem to learn that 2+2 = 4, you realize that 1 + 3 = 4 and that 20 - 16 = 4 and then you realize that there are so many more numbers you have to understand before you can get the simplest of equations."

better foot before ~ (merchant of venice)

After another ten hour work day yesterday ~ this time with Annaliese (the 5 month old I take care of Tuesday through Friday) ~ I was downing my third cup of coffee in an attempt to rejuvenate my soul and to drum up an excitement for a "date night" with my best friend. Now, usually, "date nights" are fun and I look forward to them. However, Jess was eager to start out our date night with a Hip-Hop class at the Y, which is exactly the question I kept asking myself the entire car ride to the class: "WHY am I putting myself through this?"

Being that I have had two intense days of rehearsal for the musical "SWING!", and thus spending hours of dance rehearsals mastering the art of Lindy Hop and Jive, and knowing that I have rehearsals 6 days a week for the next 5 weeks, I was looking forward to a night off from dancing. Jess insisted that we take this class, and I, knowing that she was due to pick me up at 6:00pm, was still keeping my fingers crossed that she would somehow change her mind and retract her decision to drag me to class.

My quads are still sore; my inner thighs pulsating with the rhythm of the "G.I. Jive" and my a** was begging for a night off. Eight hours of non-stop dancing within a 24 hour time period after being out of the studio for over a year, seemed exhausting enough.

At 5:59pm, I saw the headlights shining through the frosted air, lingering over our driveway, as Jess pulled in to steal me away to our 6:15pm Hip-Hop class.

Here's the thing. I'm a good dancer. I can groove, I can jive, and I am still a ballerina at heart; but when it comes to "gettin' down and dirty" with styles such as Krumping and Pop-and-Lock, my white girl genes tend to send me back to the land of tutus and ballet shoes, leaving the beat droppin' and booty shakin' behind.

By 7:30pm, I was drenched in sweat and my choreography filled thoughts were racing from move to move, trying to remember all the "hits" and "isolations" and "body rolls". I have merely only admired this style of dance from the comfort of my own living room while watching "So You Think You Can Dance", and never had I really attempted this style before. My eyes were bulging as I tried to imitate the dance teacher's instruction, attempting to take the moves from her body and make my body recreate them. Ha. I kept hearing the teacher say: "Don't make it pretty, just thrust your body and hit the moves hard!"

Yeah...

After leaving the gym, we decided to conclude our "date night" at our favorite wine bar -Rumours- in which I indulged my taste buds with a delightfully oakey, yet somewhat pear infused Savignon Blanc, a bowl of steamed mussels and a hummus plate. The bartender seemed less than thrilled to be catering to our vino requisitions, and I could swear I caught him rolling his eyes as we passed friendly conversation his way, or when we requested a second glass of wine. Even after attempting to converse with him on a common ground of shared interests such as stage and film, he simply tossed the congruences aside and flippantly whisked away our empty wine glasses.

The wine, food, and atmosphere of Rumours? positively delightful.
The not-so-sommelier behind the bar in the tacky plaid shirt? positively dreadful.

Our night concluded with an array of antique hats, mink stoles, and old newspaper clippings. Jess' future-mother-in-law had given her a box filled with her fiance's grandmother's things, and we stood in front of the mirror taking turns modeling them for our reflections.

It's always a much needed rejuvenation to take a few moments out of your busy life and spend it with someone who makes all those other moments matter the most.

And the beat goes on...

*the picture at the top reflects the shirt worn by my dance instructor. it makes me happy.

all our yeseterdays ~ (macbeth)

This is my first attempt at blogging...ever.

As I tend to be somewhat of a journalist, my old-fashioned ink to leatherbound journals tend to win over the battle with keystrokes and mousepads. So, here we go.

I've been told recently by a dear friend of mine, that his wish for me this year of 2010 (or as I prefer to say "0-ten"), is this:

"I am hoping for you, in 2010, that you find your voice and experience your talent on a larger level than just the isolated community production here and there or the occasional note-posting on FaceBook with your writing. Nothing wrong with either thing...but...you got it girl...now believe and just go and do it."

Well, this blog site isn't Broadway, and it isn't Variety magazine, but it's a start. It's a documented accountability of my daily life and a visual encouragement for myself, to pursue my dreams, and keep notes of just exactly what my life consists of and how to make that consistency even better.

Though my life as a nanny by day, actress by night and writer by every other time inbetween is some of the most rewarding work I have ever done, I might be ready to turn off the night-light and switch on the spotlight for good.

But for now, the kids have awakened from their afternoon nap, and I have a whole world of fairy princesses, and far away lands filled with trains and pirate kings awaiting me...that is, until rehearsal at 7:00 tonight, in which I will trade in my sneakers for character shoes, and step into a world of dancing and singing...

And so it continues...