I suddenly realized that it's the first of December and it's Holidailies time! So even if I still haven't got a comuter and really cannot update and have no time, I still want to be a part of it, so here you go!

So, how do I write an entry out in space like this when I plan on writing all of my old entries surrounding it (yes, I know how likely you think that is, Tracing)? I guess I can just pretend that they are already there and not try to do a "what I have been up to since October" kind of summary. So here goes:

So yesterday I got up early and went to the library and downloaded Mom's edit of my edit of her edit of the Christmas card, made it fit properly on the age, printed out the pictures that I wanted to use, and went to work. While I was there, I spread out the pictures on my podium, borrowed some tape, and created the cover in about ten minutes flat. Just like usual.

It looked pretty good, and on my break I went to the post office and sent it out. So the Xmas card is done! At last! It's like my taxes every year, it's always much faster than I think it will be, and I always procrastinate forever, and the relief when it is done is palpable.

Of course, posting it was no great joy--the queue was miles long, then I noticed the automatic postage machine was working, and ran over to join that queue. Which would have been great, but for the fact that the guys in front of me were sending out about 30 ackages that had to be weighed and entered seperately, each one taking at least two minutes.

As I started bleeding out the eyes, a postal worker came by and said that there was another machine downstairs, and me and the girl behind me fair leapt over the balcony to get away from the Great Mailing of 2004. Of course, there was another queue, but at least everyone was only sending one thing. One guy had to use four credit cards before he found one that worked, but I was inured to waiting by then. I was a stoic.

And it's over! And anyone who wants a Xmas card from me this year had best mailto:hedgehog@hedgehog.net> send me their address, because remember? No computer means no Xmas card list!

Hi ducks, miss me? I sure do miss you.

It's been so easy not writing for this long, partially because I haven't been reading anyone else's journals, but I have been randomly catching up on Eliza's vacation entries (I am horrified to hear that there's a Starbucks on the Royal Mile!) and I thought, "Hey! Wait a minute! I can do that, I used to do that all the time!"

So I am. So my computer is down and I keep trying to reload xp without destroying my files and it just isn't happening and I will be VERY SAD, but the reason I haven't been writing here in the blog is because I discovered that you can save drafts, so then I started doing the thing that got me so fucked to start with, partially writing entries and then not finishing them and gettnig farther and farther behind. Enough of that!

So I'm writing an entry today and I am posting it today and when I get my computer back I will start from where I am at that minute and I HAVE SPOKEN!!!

So, what's happening now? Let's see, in July I directed two one-acts, Chamber Music by Arthur Kopit and Dunelawn by Terrance McNally, which were good, but I had very little rehearsal time and a million actors and two very hard shows, so I didn't do with them what I really wanted to do with them. Mark and I got to work together for the first time, though, which I enjoyed very much. He's a really good actor, though he was never entirely pleased with his performance in Chamber Music.

Next, I got to act in an evening of one-act plays by William Inge that Le directed, which was why I didn't go to JournalCon, since our performance dates were right over that weekend. We did five plays and I was in four of them--one was only an off-stage voice, but in one I was the lead and in two others I had solid supporting roles. The plays, for you theatre geeks out there, were The Tiny Closet, To Bobolink For Her Spirit, and Memory of Summer.

I loved them all, but Bobolink was the most fun, being a big-ass comedy where I was the central character, and who can argue about that?

Immediately after finishing that show, I went straight into rehearsals for another two one-acts. Le said I should get right back on that horse. We kicked around some ideas for some scripts, and finally he suggested two more Inge plays, People in the Wind, which is the one-act version of Bus Stop, and The Mall, which is a terrific piece that is never done.

I wasn't that enthusiastic, but then he said that he'd give me Mark and Kelly as Bo and Cherie in People in the Wind, and I was sold right away. Patrially to get to work with Mark again, and partially because Kelly has wanted to play that role for ages, and Le never wanted her to, so she's getting a shot at it in the shorter version.

I love these plays, they have turned out beautifully. They are playing tonight and tomorrow at Creative Place, call 212-769-7973 for reservations if you are lying around in the tail end of the hurricane that we've got here thinking, "Gee, I really want to go out in that, I wonder where I could go?"

I have lots more stories to tell you, but do you know what? They are going to have to wait! Because I am uploading this RIGHT NOW!

Love you lots.

Hello, ducks!  Yes, again I am being fucked up the ass by my computer.  I need to reload XP, but do not actually have a copy of XP that I can find, so I am waiting for the kindness of friends to lend me a copy.
 
Anyway, back to good old blogger dot com and updating from the library, though this time it is the Weehawken library and not the Hollywood or Glendale branches.  I like this library, you can nearly always scam an extra half hour without anyone noticing.
 
So today is my first day off in I have no idea how long, certainly since 1 July, I've been rehearsing every day since then, at least until my show opened, and then I've been doing the show.  It's been a lovely treat. 
 
Last night the show went well, though it was a smallish house, seeing as it was an unusual Monday night show.  Not as small a house as opening night, but nothing could have been, and they were very responsive, which was a lovely treat.
 
Mark and I didn't go out last night, but he walked me to the van.  This Mark thing is getting interesting, as I told my notify yesterday, what he would want with me I don't know, what with him being 25 years old and could do a lot better than a fat chick who's nearly 40, but he does appear to be flirting up a storm, and I am enjoying it immensely.  We'll see if anything comes of it, but until then, I'll just have fun. 
 
I know that he isn't looking for Twoo Luv, since I lived though his last relationship with him narrating it to me as it fell apart, and one of the problems was that he and his girlfriend were in different relationships--she wanting commitment and love, and he wanting something a good deal more casual than that.  So if he didn't want it with her, he certainly wouldn't want that with me, but that works out fine, what with my already having had the love of my life and all, and it wasn't Mark.
 
It's funny, I didn't plan it this way or even think about it until recently, but Omar and Mark couldn't be more different.  Mark is tall not short, 25 not 40, white not Latin, skinny not muscular, straight not bisexual.  On the other hand, they are both complicated and high-maintenance--people complain that Mark is difficult as an actor because he is so high-strung, and all I can say is, after three years with Omar, Mark is a skip through the park.
 
Anyway, hope to be back on my computer soon, but until then, I'll be here.  Except for on the weekends.

So yesterday morning at 8a, Gateway called and said that they couldn't get my files off of the hard drive of Mom's computer, that they would have to send it to Glendale and have them do it there, but still that left me with the fear that they would charge to replace the hard drive if they noticed that the repair warranty really has no business covering said replacement, so I said okay, just give us a new hard drive.

So something that I half-wrote is gone forever. Gone, I say! On the other hand, we'll get this computer back early next week.

Then I went to Glendale to check on my computer, and the guy (not my guy, but neither was he a moron like the other guy I had talked to that one time) said that my computer had been shipped! That very day! And I'll get it by Monday! But maybe it'll be there by Friday!! So I will be going from no computers to all the computers in one fell swoop.

So no more going to the library every day for me. Though I'll probably still go plenty, I just won't have to go.

Last night we went to a thing at the TV Academy about Without a Trace, one of my favourite shows. The entire cast was there, and they were all talking about the show and it was...honestly so boring that I was glad to have downloaded Yahtzee the other day on my phone. The cast was very sweet and very nice and everything, but they really didn't have any interesting stories to tell. And none of them see to be very good raconteurs, like Victor Garber and Ron Rifkin apparently were for the one they had on Alias last year.

And the moderator was okay, but honestly, how interesting can the answer be for a question like, "How did you get this job?" "Um, well, I auditioned for it several times, then I was cast," is about the best anyone could do.

I kept myself entertained for awhile by listening for Anthony LaPaglia's and Poppy Montgomery's accents to slip, which Anthony's mostly did on words with "ay" sounds in them, like "gate" and "make". Poppy didn't have a giveaway sound, but there was sort of a different shape about how she talked. Marianne Jean-Baptiste spoke with a big fat London accent, thank goodness. Anyway, other than the accents, it was Yahtzee all the way.

***

Because I have my 10 Year Journal, I have been keeping a list of every book I read, and this month I read more books than probably I read all of last year. Probably more than the last two or three years put together, because what with all of the reading that I do on the internet and magazines, I barely read books at all anymore. But this month I read 92 books. Phew!

Alcott, Louisa May - Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys
Beatty, John and Patricia - Master Rosalind
Boylston, Helen Dore - Sue Barton, Student Nurse, Sue Barton, Senior Nurse, Sue Barton, Visiting Nurse, Sue Barton, Staff Nurse
Cooper, Susan - Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, Silver on the Tree, King of Shadows
Duane, Diane - So You Want to Be a Wizard?, Deep Wizardry, High Wizardry, A Wizard Abroad
Durrell, Gerald - The Talking Parcel
Enright, Elizabeth - Gone Away Lake, Return to Gone Away
Ephron, Nora - Wallflower at the Orgy
Greene, Constance C. - A Girl Called Al, I Know You, Al, Your Old Pal Al, Al(exandra) the Great
Jansson, Tove - Comet in Moominland, The Finn Family Moomintroll, Moominland Midwinter, Moominsummer Madness, The Exploits of Moominpappa, Moominpappa at Sea, Moominvalley in November
Jones, Diana Wynne - Howl's Moving Castle, Cart and Cwidder, The Spellcoats, Drowned Ammet, Hexwood, The Homeward Bounders, Charmed Life, Dogsbody, Witch Week, Eight Days of Luke, Aunt Maria, The Lives of Christopher Chant, A Tale of Time City, Fire and Hemlock, Archer's Goon
Key, Alexander - Escape to Witch Mountain
Levine, Gail Carson - The Fairy's Return, For Biddle's Sake, Cinderellis and the Glass Hill, The Fairy's Mistake, The Princess Test, Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep, The Wish, Ella Enchanted, Dave at Night
Little, Jean - Mine For Keeps
Lovelace, Maud Hart - Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Betsy-Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, Betsy-Tacy Go Downtown, Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy Was a Junior, Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World,Emily of Deep Valley, Betsy's Wedding
MacDonald, Betty - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm
Montgomery, L.M. - Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island
Pierce, Phillippa - Tom's Midnight Garden
Raskin, Ellen - The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), The Westing Game, The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues, Figgs and Phantoms
Sacher, Louis - Holes
Sleator, William - Among the Dolls, Interstellar Pig, Into the Dream, The Green Futures of Tycho, Fingers
Travers, P.L. - Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, Mary Poppins In the Park, Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane

Guess where I am? Not at the library, not at Kinkos, but at an Internet Cafe near the library in Glendale that charges $2 an hour! I went to the library at 2.45p and couldn't get a slot until 4p, so I signed up and was going off to weep at the gates of Gateway until they at least gave me a date as to when I would be getting my computer back, when I walked by this NetCafe that I never noticed before. Hey, $2 an hour versus waiting over an hour for a free computer is worth it to me! And much better than Kinko's usurious prices.

Yesterday I was going to come out to Glendale, but Mom asked me as a special favour if she could use my car and I can't drive her car, so I was stuck in the house until she came back. Which was actually fine, I don't mind hanging around the house. She had an audition, you see, as a patrician lady and she thought that she would look more patrician if she drove over in the car that has air conditioning rather than the old Bug, which I don't know how to drive.

I watched Arrested Development, a show that I was interested in seeing but never got a chance to before, until they played six episodes last Sunday on FX that I was able to tape. What a terrific show! It's almost unwatchable, the way everyone is so creepy and all of these embarrassing things keep happening, but also, somehow, it's impossible to turn away, and is literally laugh out loud funny. Now here's my question--what insane lunatics over at Fox decided to put it on at 9p Sunday opposite two shows that I cannot ever miss, Alias, and Criminal Intent? What kind of hideous Hobson's Choice is that? Anyway, I never thought I'd love a Jason Bateman show, but my God, it's brilliant.

While I was watching, three things happened, two phone calls and an event. Slightly out of chronological order, the event was that I finally figured out why there is always water all over the kitchen floor. You see, we have two sinks in the kitchen, and the right hand sink leaks into the cupboard under the sink and then onto the floor, it had done that for ages and we don't run water into that sink. Sometimes water splashes in there accidentally, and that is why we have a towel on the floor, but lately there has been a flood almost every day. And it took me until yesterday to realize that the left hand sink leaks, too. So that means washing dishes in a bucket and pouring the water in the backyard. Pretty soon we'll be beating them on rocks like the settlers.

The second phone call was from Gateway, regarding not my computer that they have had for days and weeks and a month, but Mom's computer, that they have had for a minute. They asked permission to replace the hard drive. Now, I still want to get one or two half-written entries off of there, but I'm afraid that if they send it back to Glendale and I get the entries off then give it back to replace the hard drive, they'll notice that the repair warranty that it's under has no business covering a free hard drive and they'll charge us a bunch of money. But neither do I want to pay $50 to get a couple of half-written entries off that computer. So I said that I'd call them back, then talked to Mom, who agreed that since they were replacing the hard drive, we probably wouldn't have to spend $100 to have them reload Windows onto it, so it's worth spending $50 to get the entries. So I called them back and left a message. My Gateway guy was right when he said that I'd probably get the second machine back before the first!

Then the other phone call, which actually happened before the sink revelation or the Gateway call, which was at last I got a call from the agency for me to audition for the voice over agent. After a month, finally. My audition is Monday, which is actually the day that I was going to go home, even though I knew that I wasn't, it's when my flight was. Hooray! So I'll finally get to stop hanging around, either she'll reject me and I can go home or she'll sign me and I will hang around for awhile longer and audition and hopefully book some work. Anything is better than this limbo I've been in.

So yesterday I went to the dentist for the first time in two years. Me and my horrible teeth shouldn't wait so long, but I'm living on the edge. Apparently.

Anyway, my dentist here in LA, Dr. Valdez, used to have an office at the bottom of my street. I could walk to the dentist. Let me re-iterate that this is Los Angeles, where nobody walks to anything, and I could walk to the dentist. Of course, he moved years ago, and now it's a long long drive to the Valley. But it's better than finding a new dentist. A dentist you love is like a hairdresser you love--you'll drive to another time zone, if necessary, rather than try to find someone new.

So anyway, Mom and I took both cars so that I could high-tail it to the library afterwards. She came because Dr. Valdez is her dentist as well (or one of her dentists) and she had to give him something from her other dentist and wanted to scam a quick exam with him. Now, in order to do that, she had to insist on being in the room with me while I was getting my exam. I understood that this was the case and why she was doing it, but there is something extremely humiliating about being nearly 40 years old and having your mother in the waiting room saying, "I need to be in there with Kimberly!"

He was much older and fatter than I remembered him--I think I haven't seen him for quite a while, and he spent a massive amount of time scraping tartar off of my teeth with a giant metal hook, and I practically needed a transfusion afterwards, but strangely enough I had no cavities.

Then I ran off to the library, though since I couldn't remember whether Durant closes at 5.30p on Monday or not, I went to Glendale since it was actually closer. I couldn't get a computer slot for an hour and a half, so I wandered around in the sunshine instead.

And then the best thing was that because my slot was so late, there was nobody after me and I got to stay for another half hour, reading a couple of journals for the first time in ages. Colleen's back, for example, and she's writing some really heartwrenching stuff.

Man it was a gorgeous day. Apparently we hit 92°, but it didn't feel overly hot or uncomfortable, only just right. I need to enjoy this weather while I can, because hopefully I'll be going home soon. I cannot stay here forever, my real life is starting to feel like a dream. I'm afraid that I'll never find it again if I don't go back to it soon.

Some stupid idiot sent me a blank text message this morning at 4.47a. I know it was 4.47a, because when my phone woke me up by making its "you have a message and you'd better check it right away because it might be really really important!" whoop, I looked at the clock. Fuck you, bmckillica, whomever the heck you are. Next time, if you're gonna wake me up in the middle of the might for no reason, at least send a message rather than just your email address.

Yesterday Mom and I went to church, then she tried to chivvy me into going to the SAG meeting, because I would be able to network there. I knew perfectly well that I would not be networking there, but would instead be bored out of my mind, and I prevailed for once. So I went to the Glendale library and quite happily curled in a chair and read for an hour and a half before I could get onto a computer.

Then I went home and watched the skating that I had taped from the day before, though I had missed the last half hour since I apparently cannot realize without a calculator that 3 1/2 plus 3 won't fit on a 6 hour tape.

All of the important stuff happened before the last half hour, fortunately. I was extremely annoyed at the whole thing about Michelle getting penalized for going 2 seconds over her time in the short, especially since all that she was doing in that two seconds was finishing an arm movement after the music stopped. But I was pleased that the extremely tiresome Sasha Cohen choked as usual and ended up with the silver. She's not as annoying as Tara Lupinski, but I dislike her nearly as much.

I think I'm starting to get homesick. I have been here a month now, and nothing much has happened, though I have been having a nice time, I think I would like to get back to my real life.

I'm also starting to miss Omar like I haven't been. I have just let him go and haven't called or emailed him, I want him to talk to me because he wants to, not because I want to, but that's been a month too, and I'm starting to think that he might have left for good.