Detached

I haven't written for a while, and that's mainly because I've been busy. By day I'm often at Chili's, waiting talbes again. I'm hoping this won't be for three or four more years. At night I've got rehearsals for My Fair Lady, and those are going splendid, thank you. I really don't have much to say about them. As long as you're working with decent people, it's pretty much going to be good. The only change in the good rehearsal pattern comes when you find yourself paired with not so decent human beings. I know the theatre world can be full of those, but I don't think I've met any in this show. It's been great, but like I said, what more can I relaly say about it. We rehearse, and we rehearse, and then we rehearse. Blocking, singing, acting, etc.

Anyway, I was having a stretch of a few days where life was just difficult. I wasn't getting enough sleep, but even when I did, I was still rather ornary, and though I was doing my best to be thankful, to be at peace, and to be basically everything I've wanted to be, I found myself worse for wear. I finally had a serious prayer time the other night, and after that I've been doing a lot better. It's not like I don't pray. When good things happen, I thank God for them joyfully; when I'm in need, I pray for what is on my mind. I do my best to expect the best, to think positive, and to relax under stress. But somehow, I find that there is absolutely no replacement for good strong earnest reliance on God. Maybe it's very much a spiritual thing. I think there's like some kind of oppressive spirit over this whole place. Though I do not like blaming all my hardships and trials on demons around every corner and under my bed too, I nonetheless believe that there are good and evil forces at work, of which we are not physically aware. As the scriptures say, "your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour." And yet Peter says to guard yourself against evil desires, which war against your souls. It seems quite unfair that we should have both our enemy and ourselves to contend with. I suppose, it more than evens out, if we have God and ourselves on our side. But life is hard sometimes. I miss my support network, people I need to see, people I need to talk to, to benefit from their wisdom and be uplifted by their company and creativity. Sometimes I feel starved here. Sometimes I feel detached, like I'm way out of my element, which I guess I am. At the same time, I'm living a life of faith, and it's challenging and adventurous.

So thanks for your prayers, those of you who take the time. Good things are happening all the time, and I have much to be thankful for. So here's to life and to the Spring. It's a very nice day outside today. I think I'll go to a drive-in tonight.

I knew it

I knew it! I totally knew it!

So I'm browsing nbc's website for shows that I may wish to watch, and I decide to check out the new show, Raines, with Jeff Goldblum. First off, I like the actor. He's not like my idol or anything, but I usually like him in whatever he does, and this show is no different. The show has a unique spiin to a detective story. Goldblum is the detective Michael Raines, who sees visions of his victims. The visions are not the victims themselves, coming to haunt him, but they are his own imagination, and they change to fit his understanding of the events as he learns more during the case.

So the victim shows up, and you learn that he has a history of this sort of thing happening, and it seems like he thought it had gone away. When it happens, he goes to a friend of his who knows his situation, meets in some office first, and he meets him several other places throughout the episode, each time talking about the case and talking about his vision of this girl who has been murdered. I got the sneaking suspicion and near the end I was almost certain of it, and I was thinking making some kind of prediction on my blog or something, when they actually come right out with it. As they're talking, Raines reveals that his friend is indeed one of his visions. It is a fact of which he is perfectly aware. It left me laughing, and I just had to brag that "I knew it!" I know it wasn't that difficult to piece together, but I liked being able to catch it, and it made the show very entertaining for me. I really like Jeff Goldblum in this show, and I really like the show itself.

Also, I watched an episode of 30 Rock, and was pleasantly surprised, but not really by the show itself. It was okay, entertaining, fun to watch and everything, but what really made me exuberant was seeing a guest appearance by none other than Brian Murray. For those of you who don't know who Brian Murray is, he's a stage actor who is now in the Theatre Hall of Fame, and he was Pope Pious IX in Edgardo Mine at the Guthrie, the show in which I played an extra. He was a magnificent actor and great to work with. He came in, playing the father of Alec Baldwin's character in a little family spat that was the focus of the episode. I was just delighted to see him, short as his role was, and it brought back memories and made me smile.

Speaking of theatre, rehearsals start for My Fair Lady in a week and a day, and I am really pumped. It'll just be awesome to be on the stage again.

I bought a bike the other day. Found it on Craigslist. It wasn't too much, and I like the bike. And I was talking to the guy I sold it to, and he said he and his wife have season tickets to the Grand Theatre, so they'll be seeing the show. It was cool to be like, "I'm in that show!"

Paycheck

I'm watching the movie Paycheck right now. It's actually not all that bad. It's about an engineer who builds incredible devices and then gets his memory erased, so that he doesn't know what he's done. On this assignment he ends up building a machine through which people can see the future. Only he sees terrible things, and after his memory is erased he finds himself running from death with only clues and little items that he had the forsight to send himself from when he saw the future. It's kind of cool. But somewhere along the line, they figure out that the future telling machine will actually make the world worse. They see pictures of the future, and they realize that knowledge of the future heightens all the world's dilemmas. Knowledge of war leads to preemptive strikes. Knowledge of economic failure leads to stock market panics. Through knowing the future. the people lose their choices. Take away the mystery, says Ben Affleck, and you take away hope. You take away drive, you take away strength and bring despair. I dont' know that this would be true, but I can imagine. If you knew what kind of failures awaited you, perhaps you wouldn't even try. But where would not trying get you? Absolutely nowhere. But trying and failing, that is not the end. It is merely a step along the path. It reminds me slightly of Minority Report. The attempt to change the future vs. the complacent acceptance of what will be. They're some interesting ideas.