Sunday, August 29, 2004

Well... I'm here. Up at Wheaton... and well, it's definitely going to take some getting used to. After my first day I was ready to call up my mom and tell her to bring me home... I kid you not. It just wasn't at all what I was hoping my first day would be like. I was going into it pretty confident, but those high spirits basically ended around the first hour after my family left and I tried interacting with people. Believe it or not, I was being the outgoing and friendly one who always said "Hi. I'm Trisha." ... (response)... "where are you from?"....(more response that slowly turns itself into a polite, but forced conversation). So, I guess technically I met a lot of people. However, almost everyone seemed very stand-offish or shy. Not that shy is bad, it's just hard when you're trying to meet people. I thought I was suppossed to be the shy one. I got very discouraged when by the end of the day there already seemed to be cliques. I mean, these people have known each other for what... 6 or 7 hours at this point, yet they're all hugging and laughing like they've been best friends for years. Everyone was walking around with a group of people. Not Trisha. I got upset and cried for a bit outside of my dorm. I mean... I know people are just trying to get to know one another, but at the moment I felt like... they've gotten to know who they want to know and they don't want to know anyone else and that includes me. Very wrong, I know... (well, I hope anyways).... but it was just cause of the events and emotionness of the day. I didn't get off to a great start. Especially because the first few people I talked to ended up being really mean and judgmental. Oh well, they can't all be that way here, right? I mean, I'm sure it wasn't something Wheaton was considering in the admissions process. Speaking of which, my first day was also very intimidating. Some important administration lady decided to list off some of my class's accomplishments during her opening speech thing. Oh my god. I can only imagine how intimidated I would have felt if I ever did get into like Brown or Amherst. In my freshman class there is everything from published writers in global magazines and newspapers, founders of important "community service" type programs in foreign countries, #1 winners in all sorts of national intelligence-required type of awards, multilingual people (and by multilingual I mean 11 languages), all sorts of singers and instrument player people with like multiple cds and resumes that include carnegie hall... and I don't know what else. I prolly could have given better examples because I remember thinking that I wouldn't be surprised if she said one of the Wheaton freshman discovered a cure for AIDS. It was beyond intimidating, and really cool at the same time. I got extra frustrated by the end of the night when we were forced to squeeze 800 sweaty people into a chapel to hear Wheaton's traditions and urban legend ghost story things. And that's not even the problem. We were stuck in there for one and a half hours and we couldn't hear a thing. The upperclassmen were screaming and chanting and banging pots and pans the entire time. So I had to sit in a lake of people's sweat for over an hour only to leave with pulsing ear drums and not having heard one single tradition or story. Then, we had to form a circle around the entire circumphrence of the lake with a lit candle. The candles went out like 800 times, and I got splashed (meaning more than just a little wet) by some guys who thought it would be fun to strip down and swim in the scummy lake. Almost, but not quite, the perfect ending to my first day. I decided, even though I was already upset at this point, to go to the Loft Night and make another attempt to meet some people. Well, as I make my way over there, I pass by a billion little groups of friends that were just formed. When I actually made it to the Loft, there was virtually no one there. Sooo... my last attempt of the day was also a failure and I decided I'd have to take the long walk of shame back across campus to my dorm.... all alone. Off to a rough start... and after day 2 it's no better for me. Sigh. It'll happen.

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Hi there! I just came back from my "week" aka 3/4 days in NYC. So much fun! I'm apologizing in advance, because this will be one of the longest blogs I've had in a while. They seem to keep getting longer and longer, but this one will be especially bad. Go ahead, I'll give you a minute to scroll down and see just how long this blog is...

Now that you've got that out of your system, I'll tell you about my trip. First though, I have to mention my night before we left. I stayed at Kimberly's house because our train was leaving relatively early the next morning. Now, normally a night at Kimberly's house is a blog in and of itself, but I don't have the patience to divide the last four days into four separate entries, so that's why you're getting this one ridiculously too long blog. Maybe I would save space if I stopped preparing you for how long this will be. Be more efficient, Trisha! So... we were looking up baby names online because I wanted to prove to her that the name Claudia means "stupid person" or something like that. It actually means "lame"... but that's an unnecessary piece of trivial information. Interestingly enough, like half of the names that exist in this crazy world either have something to do with being noble, beautiful, or a meadow. Well, not being a meadow, but the names would have some connotation with the word. Kinda strange. Never name your kid Cecilia (or Claudia). While at this baby names site we found some pretty funny names which we decided to adopt as our own. I am Pooky... which believe it or not was on this website, and it said it means "cute, little person" which just cracked me up beyond belief. Kim is Beauregard, because she found it amusing to say this name over and over again. And we decided Amy would be Thor. Don't ask why we included her in this and subjected her to this embarrassing nickname. I don't know. If your name is Pooky, Beauregard, or Thor I apologize for lowering your self-esteem. I guess that goes for all you Claudias and Cecilias as well. So, then we decided to make nicknames for the nicknames. They are now Pookster, Beauregizzle, and T. Ho (or my favorite, T. to the Hor). Kim decided that as a group we could be the Pancake Batter Trio, or PBT... and she woke me up in the middle of the night to share this idea with me. Speaking of the middle of the night, it was no ordinary night at Kim's house. All of a sudden, while I was sleeping, I felt a pillow being pulled out from under my head. I hear Kim murmur, "I'll give it back in a minute. Gidget just told me to check the style number." ... Yeah, Kim talked to me in her sleep. The funniest part though is that I was so tired that I thought she was being completely normal. I was like, 'Oh, okay. She's just checking the style number. I'll get it back in a minute'. Needless to say, after checking it over for a few seconds she gave it back and I fell asleep again.

The first day in NYC was fun. We went to the Met (art museum, not opera house) with my cousin Stephen. We stayed in his apartment in Kew Gardens for the time we were down there. There was some cool stuff there... I mean at the Met, not my cousin's apartment... although he did have a lot of cool scripts and jazz. Anyways, I decided that I am going to paint a single black line on a blank canvas and sell it for 5 million dollars. A lot of the modern art section was stuff like that. One thing was actually a bunch of ribbons covered in tar. Another was a huge chunk of cardboard with cotton sticking out of it. They had a lot of cool stuff there though. We went to the wax museum that day too, which was also fun. These things looked more real the closer you got to them and they looked identical to the celebrities they were made to look like. It creeped me out to the extreme. It is my new goal in life to be made out of wax. It would be so cool! Then I could finally "see" what I look like. I mean, I can look in a mirror, but I always wonder how other people see me, in 3D and all. If I had a wax me, it would be like having a twin. An inanimate twin, but a twin nonetheless. It took a few hours after we left the wax museum to stop thinking that all the unusually still people on the street were made of wax. After that we went shopping. We walked into a Coach store, and I felt incredibly ridiculous. I was trying to hide my $12 Bongo bag from view, because I could see the employees eyeing it with disdain. I contemplated telling my mom that I bought a $70 wallet from there but I never did. It killed me to see the people shopping there though. "Oh, no I don't need any help. Just checking out what's new this season. How long will the plum line be in stock? Oh, I think I'll just take these three $600 bags for today." ... and then there was me. Sooooooo, I went into Gap, where I'm a little more at home. I got a few things there. And oh my god, I have a new favorite store. Sephora. I love it to death! I must have said at least 817 times, much to Kim's annoyance, that if I lived in NYC I would never buy makeup and instead just go in there everyday. They have like 500 kinds of perfumes, thousands of eyeshadows, lipsticks, blushes and everything else, and it's all out for you to sample. I kid you not... I walked out of there with 5 different lipglosses on, 2 eyeshadows, mascara, cream blush, powder, and perfume. I was in heaven! I had a field day in that store. My lips burned for a good two hours afterwards, but it was worth it. Right after shopping, on our way back to the subway, a group of 4 guys were like "ooo, she's gorgeous! And she's not from NY. Oh, let me give you a free tour of the city baby". I told you, no matter where I go outside of Orange or how long I'm away, I get hit on at least once. They knew I wasn't from NY because I had my backpack on still. I wasn't going to waste time getting on the subway and going all the way to my cousin's apartment to drop it off, so I sported it for the day. Speaking of the subway, I am proud to say that I now know my way around the whole NYC subway system pretty well. I feel accomplished. It was funny, there was a Subway (as in the sub shop) in one of the subway stations and I said to Kim before we saw it, "I smell Subway", and she laughed at me until we walked by the Subway store/restaurant/whatever. She thought I meant that I smelled the NYC subway. Isn't that hilarious? Funny humor. Sigh. Her metro card like never worked for her. Each time she had to run it through the thing like twice before it would let her go through. Ha ha. I mean.... that was most unfortunate.

Day two. We went to wait in the lotto line for Wicked tickets twice this day. Wicked is only the coolest, most amazing show ever to be on Broadway, and I've never seen it. I've read the book and I have the soundtrack memorized... I only sing it every second of the day. Well, the show is so popular that they're like sold out until forever. But they save the front row seats for each performance and do a lottery for them. You write down your name and some dude picks 20ish names out of a hat, (well, not a hat, one of those spinny raffle things). If your name is called you get two front row tickets for that day's performance at only $25 each. Sweet deal. Well, we were highly angered because the first time that we did the lottery that day the people who were in front of us in line won and they didn't know anything about the show, and the people behind us when we were standing in the crowd waiting for the names to be called also won. But not us. We deserved it more than anyone! No one is more obsessed with Wicked than me! The Wicked lottery Part II was just as unsuccessful. I was angered by all of the little kids walking out of the show and the teenage boys who could care less. I was like "GIVE ME YOUR TICKET IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THE SHOW OR ARE TOO YOUNG TO APPRECIATE IT!!!" Anyways... calming down now... we went to take a dance class at Broadway Dance Center. We made a complete circle when we left Wicked's theater and accidentally ended up, wouldn't you know it... back at Wicked's theater. After that fifteen minutes of going in the wrong direction, we started to actually head towards BDC. We took an intermediate lyrical class. It was a little more than a little difficult. I could tell it would be this way though when the teacher was showing us a combination and said, "now do four turns. Or five". You see, I often hear that at Lee Lund too, but there it's a joke. Here it was real. I was clueless throughout the majority of the 90 minute class. Needless to say, we chickened out of our second class, an intermediate advanced theater class. If we couldn't handle intermediate we weren't gonna risk the next level up. We bought matching shirts and called it a day. A kind of depressing day... no Wicked tickets after two tries, and an intense reality check at BDC... so we went home early that night. On the one hand it was like, we're in NYC and should be out exploring and having fun. But on the other hand it was like, we're in NYC and we were shot down all day, our feet and legs are killing so badly that we're limping, and we have headaches from the heat. Our depression, feet, legs and heads won the battle, and slaughtered the fun-seeking explorers.

Third day, last full day in the city. This was basically our shopping day. We went into Chinatown. Well, sort of. We never really got to the main part of Chinatown but we ran into some stores run by Chinese people. It was really sketchy. At every store there would be some little employee outside whispering in a low voice, "Louis Vuitton. Louis Vuitton". And when I say whispering, I mean you could have mistaken it as the wind playing tricks on your ears. Kim wanted a bag. So we go into one of the stores, following the hushed sounds of Chinese people murming expensive designers' names. It's like a little strip mall inside, except it's little stands instead of whole stores. We walk all the way to the back. No Louis Vuitton. We're about to turn around as a guy sitting on an upside down garbage can whispers "Louis Vuitton" and motions for us to come. We follow. Turning his back to the crowd, he pulls out a piece of paper with pictures of different bags. Kim makes her selection by pointing. He says "They're coming now. On their way". We wait for a stressful ten minutes, pretending to look at other things inside. Then, a guy walks in through the back door carrying a black plastic bag. He drops it at the garbage can guy's feet and keeps walking. HOW SKETCHY IS THAT?!?!? It felt like a drug deal. Then our "dealer" guy pulls a tan zipper bag out of the black plastic one and hands it to Kim. She pays her $25 and he says before we leave, "If anyone ask, I sold you a picture". After tackling Chinatown, we went to Macy's. Macy's is 11 floors of $280 cotton tank tops and oldschool wooden escalators. Not my kind of place. I found an Old Navy, another place, like the Gap, where I'm more at home, and got a few things there. That night we went to see Little Shop of Horrors. It was a lot of fun! First of all, we were laughing when we went to get tickets earlier that morning. There was a mother and a daughter from Canada who were in front of us in the ticket line. They had to pay $100 each for their tickets. Kim and I got front row center seats for only $50 each, half price. We saw them at the show that night and they had front row seats way off on the side. Why did we get better seats, for a better price, if they bought their tickets before us? Because they're from Canada or because we're two teenage girls? Anyways, before the show started some usher lady walks by and screams, "There are no cameras or cellphones allowed in the thee-a-tah!" I started laughing hysterically. I am not exaggerating how she pronounced theater at all here. It was (very clearly), thee - a - tah. There was a little boy sitting next to me in the thee-a-tah and his father said to him, "If you get a date with this girl I'll be very impressed" while laughing and winking in my direction. Creepy or cute? A little of both? I agree. I told Kim that my dream, other than being made of wax, has always been to play one of the three black girls in Little Shop of Horrors, and it's so disappointing to me that I'll never be able to. Their parts are so much fun! If only I were black.... During the show, the orchestra played an extra beat at the end of one of the songs. At least I thought it was an extra beat. It sounded a little odd to me, like it didn't belong there at all. Well, I guess my ears didn't decieve me because Joey Fatone mouthed to the girl playing Audrey, "what was that?" and he had to restrain from laughing. For clarification, Joey Fatone was playing the lead in the show. He wasn't like randomly sitting in the audience or something. It was cool sitting in the front row, but there were certain disadvantages. It was hard to see certain things, and I saw too much of other things. I wish I could have seen Audrey being swallowed by the plant, but from where I was sitting she just kind of disappeared. I also wanted to see a picture of the nasty teeth they put up because of the big reaction it got from the audience, but it was blocked from my view. And I wish I didn't have to see all the actors spitting as they sang, or see up the girls skirts throughout half the show. But I'm glad I was in the front row at the end. The plant grew and it's vine things came out, over the edge of the stage and into the front row. I was groped by the plant! It was alot of fun. The plant was out into the entire orchestra section, singing away and swooping down near the audience scaring people. After the show, Kim and I decided to wait by the stage door and get autographs. I swear to you, I am not making this next part up. Some loud, obnoxious guy was talking away to his daughter behind me near the stage door. When one of the three black girls came out he said to her, "You ver fantastique in da show. Vonderful!". This guy had no accent whatsoever in real life, but he randomly chose to talk to this actress in a sort of french/german accent. Why? I have no idea. At least now I know that some people are weirder than me. We got the entire cast's autographs. When Joey Fatone came out someone screamed, "Joey! You're my favorite Backstreet Boy!". It was one of the actors in the show who screamed it... but it was still funny. As we were walking back to the subway we saw a guy on a street corner covered in a suit made of little swirly light-up things. A guy near him sort of whispered to Kim and I, "Check it out. It's a light man." I found this hilarious. Maybe it was just because it was like midnight and I was tired, but it was really funny. A light man... did he just say a light man?

Something really pleased me during my little four day period in the city, and here it is... I'm approachable. As a matter of fact, I'm very approachable. I was approached over six times by random people. I'm not including the light man guy or the one who wanted to give me a tour around NY or the psycho father who wanted to hook me up with his five year old son. I'm talking about times when I was approached, out of a large crowd of people to choose from, and asked a question. They chose me to ask! Me! I thought that I seem to be stuck up, and snobby, or at least clueless half the time, but no! I'm approachable! I was approached by... you ready?... two guys in suits, one of whom reminded me of my old guidance counselor, a lesbian obsessed with Gap, an old guy with a hearing aid who had trouble understanding me, a family of four, a black shirtless guy with a tatoo across his chiseled chest, and a random lady who I can't really categorize. You can't get much more diverse than that! I was asked either for directions, or why on earth there were so many people standing outside near the Wicked theater, or other quirky questions! I was proud. You see, this either means 1. That I am actually an approachable person, 2. I actually look like I know what's going on, or 3. That I appear to be a real New Yorker who knows where things are around the city. All of those are very admirable things in my book. And if you remember from one of my last blogs, yet another one of my dreams is to appear to be a "real New Yorker" when I'm in the city, so if #3 is true then one of my goals is complete! I've perfected the leaning against the subway rail thing while reading technique that I discussed before. Plus, I now have the New Yorker's sixth sense of knowing when to cross the street. They all start to cross seconds before the light changes to the walk signal. They seem to sense that it will change right before it actually does. And then there are the tourists, who wonder how they knew that the walk signal was going to come up. Yeah, I'm proud to say I'm not one of those curious tourists any more. I also know to stand on the right side of the elevator and go along for the ride, or run up the left side, but never the opposite. Oh yeah... I've got it down. My only problem is that I still can't walk in the city. I swear that NYC wanted me to break my ankle. I must have tripped on the sidewalk like 10 times and almost killed myself. I think I was luckier than Kim though. Kim got attacked by a low flying pigeon. That dirty thing actually touched her head! Meaning that the pigeon touched Kim's head, not that Kim touched the pigeon's head. Sorry, Kim. That was cruel, but I couldn't resist. P.S. Kim's not a dirty thing.

On the day we came back from NYC we went to Catie's dance party. It was fun. I thought I would be exhausted from the week, but I must say I had a decent amount of energy. I actually lost my voice because of Catie's party. Too much screaming. My throat is really sore right now and I can hardly talk. At first we just kinda hung around and we watched a movie. Then we ate cake. This was no ordinary cake. You see, this cake had a picture of teen company on it. I saved myself. A little piece of cake with my picture on it is sitting in my kitchen right now, uneaten. I also saved the word "butt" because I wanted to. Don't ask why that word was on the cake. It's a secret. We had fun with the cake though. You're also not allowed to ask how we had fun with it... I'm too nice to tell. =). However, it was after this that the real fun began. We brought out the games. First we played Blurt, as Catie described it, like Trivial Persuit, and as I added, but you don't have to be smart to play. Someone reads a description on a card and the first person to blurt out what they're describing gets to move forward on the board. An example would be "Something sharp used for cutting" and whoever shouted out "knife" first would win the round. Somehow, Kim is insane at the game and we all thought she memorized the cards. It ended up being everyone against Kim and she still won. Here are some of my favorites...the CAPITALS are what was blurted....

A huge animal... JAGUAR!... Did you just say Jenna?
The time from noon to midnight.... MORNING!
A body part that's the inside of the.... BRAIN!.... hand.
A dried plum... PRUNE... (silence, so Trisha blurts out...).... RAISIN!
A closed hand... PALM.... I MEAN FIST!
A member of people in the Arctic region... ALASKA... NEMO.... ESKIMO!!!
An instrument with a circular.... BANJO!... actually, that's right!
A green substance... CHLOROPHYL!... how'd she get that? wasn't it flubber?
CATERPILLAR!
A king's son.... (silence)..... the moon?
AHHHHH!!!! CARLY, MOVE!!!!!!!!!! (.... screaming ....)

okay, so that last one wasn't a blurt, but it was still funny. And when I like punched Kim while screaming that I said the answer before she did. After Blurt we played Truth or Dare Jenga. Warning: This game should have a PG-13 rating. Over 2/3 of these truth or dares were kinda dirty. Maybe it's just me and my not-so-innocent, corrupted mind... but I definitely think some were inappropriate for the thirteen and under category. For example... some dares... swap an article of clothing with someone else in the room, blow in someone's ear, pretend you're riding (what they don't say), blow a raspberry on someone's stomach, remove an article of clothing.... and some truths.... what's your favorite battery operated toy, what's the most fun thing you've done in a car, what's the craziest thing you've done at a party... I mean, granted these all could have innocent responses, but that's not the first thing someone thinks of when they read these questions. It would have been fun to play it with the older half of the people there, but we were a little restrained with everyone. It was still fun though. We got some funny answers and some good laughs. I got really sad saying goodbye to everyone. Very emotional. Oh my god, I'm going away to school in a week. That's scary. It's crept up out of nowhere. Well, I gotta go for now. I've been typing for so long that I'm surprised it's not a week later and I'm up at Wheaton already!

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Bonjour. I came back from NYC yesterday. I went down there for my Rockette audition, which I'll discuss later. First, however, I would like to share the details of the other highlights of my trip. I stayed in my cousin's apartment while I was down there, which is in Queens. I got a little freaked out when he showed me a newspaper article a few months back. No, it wasn't some random article that had nothing to do with anything and just had some strange effect on me, causing me to panic. It showed a picture outside of his apartment building and talked about a girl who was murdered there a few years back. Yeah, she lived in the apartment next to him. And yeah, I walked right on the spot where she was raped and killed. This actually caused me to have a nightmare the night I stayed over. I dreamt that some guy broke in and threw me out the window, bringing me crashing to my death... even though there was no window in my room, and my cousin's apartment is barely one story up. Anyways, after this horrific type of first impression I have of his apartment, you can see how surprised I was when I found his neighborhood to be really cute. All of the houses in the area are different, so it's fun to walk around and look at them. It's easy to get lost though, and not just because I'm less than decent with directions. There's an 82nd Street, 82nd Avenue, 82nd Road, and about every other 82nd with a street-like surname you can imagine. So you can't just remember that something is on 78th or whatever... you have to remember if it's a street, road, drive, boulevard, circle, place, avenue, lane, hill... just a little confusing. The neighborhood is really suburban, but it's like under a 5 minute walk to the subway to get into Manhattan. Not too bad....

Speaking of the subway, I have to tell you my funny little story. I enjoy people-watching, while the "true New Yorkers" avoid making eye contact and such. Anyways, some guy walks onto the subway and starts screaming something in a preacher-like voice. I can't hear what he's saying because he's on the other side of the train cart thing and the subway is rather loud. But I'm watching him. He's talking away in a loud voice, and no one is paying attention to him as he's up in their faces. He's going all out with hand gestures and extreme facial expressions. He's in all black and I'm thinking, "this guy is like preaching or something. What is he doing?" So here I am, the only one on the subway paying any sort of attention to this guy because I'm intrigued. I'm convinced by his mannerisms that he's preaching to us to turn to the Lord or something. Then he starts walking in my direction. It's at this point that I can hear him. He was begging for money. Not quite praising the Lord as I thought... After walking the length of our train, he walked into the next cart and kept right on preaching. I felt kinda dumb.

I was sitting on the subway for this particular ride, (I'll discuss the standing trips later). Some French lady was sitting next to me with her husband. At least, I think she was talking French. You would think that after 6+ years of taking French I could at least recognize the language when I hear it, nevermind understand some of it. Anyways, this lady had really bad B.O. ...I'm talking really bad. I tried to think of something else, but it was pretty unbearable. Then, I began to think that it was some exotic French perfume that just smelled bad to me. I knew it wasn't likely, but I tried to convince myself. That mental thing is supposed to work. Well, it didn't for me. She still smelled bad.

Some things I noticed during my cherished subway time... True New Yorkers. You can pick em out of a crowd. Being the perceptive person that I am, I noticed what they do on the subway. Their little quirky habits and such. Basically, the more you are dependent on the hand rail things, the less New Yorkerly you are likely to be. I managed to perfect the "wrap your arm around the pole instead of gripping it as if your life depended on it" technique. But in order to fully convince others, I still have to perfect the "reading a newspaper while wrapping your arm around the subway rail" method. If I get really good, I may be able to just lean up against the door, and not hold onto anything except my newspaper and coffee (because my bag will be between my feet... another "New York" habit I noticed). Once I get these down and I start to recognize beggars as such (instead of as preachers) from the moment they walk on the subway, then maybe I will at least appear as a "true New Yorker".

I bet you're thinking that my trip consisted only of subway rides... the real reason why I went down to NY. Well, for you're information, I actually saw a show while I was there. After standing in the lotto line for Wicked tickets, and not winning, I decided to see Beauty and the Beast. I enjoyed it. It was funny and cute. I especially liked the special effects, costumes, scenery and such. My one complaint is with Christy Carlson Romano as Belle. She was bad. I mean really awful. Acting wise she was fine, but she was singing out of key, her voice was cracking, she'd be singing all low and powerful and then all of a sudden switch into this annoying airy, really light, upper voice which sounded like a completely different voice altogether... neither of which were in any way good. A little disappointing. That's one of my biggest pet peeves. And it's probably just because I'm such a theater fanatic. But I hate when they put big name people into lead roles on Broadway who aren't known as theater performers. She's only one case. Then there's Joey from N Sync in Little Shop, Paige Davis in Chicago, Puff Daddy (P. Diddy.... whatever) in some play, and supposedly Mandy Moore will be in Wicked soon, to name only a few. It really bothers me. They don't deserve those parts. Errr... I'm getting angered so I'm going to switch topics.

How's about me talking about the audition. (This is the real reason for my going into the city... in case you couldn't figure that out). So, what made me want to audition in the first place you ask? Well... last summer I was supposed to go audition for the Rockettes with Shondra, the choreographer for the musicals that I normally do in the summer. She said I should go with her so I thought, why not? Well, it just so happens you have to be 18 to audition. I was a year too young. Lately, I've kind of been doubting whether or not I should have tried to go into some kind of performing career, just cause I love it so much. So, I decided to audition for the Rockettes and just take it as a kind of sign. On the off chance that I made it, I'd consider switching my major and transferring to some more performing type of college. And if not, I'd continue as planned. I'm big into these "I'll take this as a sign" kind of things. Anyways, the audition was for a touring group as a Rockette, and if I got the job, I'd have to take off my first semester at school. Enough background junky info, let's get to the actual tryouts.

I walk into Radio City, my hair all up and slicked back, my makeup all done up, my favorite leotard on with my shiny tan tights (and no shorts which felt soooooo awkward), ready to go. I wasn't nervous. I wasn't in any way expecting to get it, and I wasn't even sure if I really wanted to. Anyways, I go into the sign-in room. There are about 200 other dancers there. I kid you not, they all knew each other!!! They're all hugging each other and chatting away in their "we're too cool for you newcomer" way. I'm taking in everything I can while looking around the room. I sneak a peek at a few of their resumes... most had like 20 other professional shows listed from across the country and they all had the professional headshots and resumes that cost like $5OO to get done, making me feel like the most insignificant piece of dirt to walk into the audition. Sure, I had my "headshot", aka school photo that I blew up myself at kinkos, and my resume printed off of my own personal computer that has nothing more than my classes at Lee Lund and a few community theater shows. But how could that compare? I also looked at their luggage. That's right... they didn't have dance bags or whatever... they had luggage. These girls flew in from Arizona, Florida, Michigan... and everywhere else, just for this audition. I'm like, yeah... I came all the way from Connecticut, so there! The casting directors knew like half of the girls in the room by name. They're like "Oh, Lindsey- I'm so glad you came to audition!....Sarah, great to see you here!.... Erin, goooooood luckkkkk!!!". And then there's me. All alone. I didn't know any girls auditioning, or have any personal relationship with the casting dudes. What were my chances?

Believe it or not though, although a little intimidated, I was still not nervous. Once I actually went in to audition I was fine. Even a little confident. Maybe having a little fun too! They taught us a "jazz" combination that was 5 eights long. That's pretty short for peoples unaware of the dance jargon. I say "jazz" because a non-dancer could have walked into the audition and done it pretty decently. It wasn't really dancing, just more like precise, sharp hand and arm movements with a few right steps here and there and maybe some left ones too. Really basic. At this point I'm relieved that I at least know I won't make a fool of myself, because it's a combination I'm fully capable of. After they taught it to us, we did it in three large groups... like 6 times each group, just to get it in our bodies and make sure we knew it. Then they made us do it three people at a time. I was in one of the last groups. I didn't mess up! I kept my smile going! I did fine. There were people who were better than me, but certainly people who were worse and forgot the steps or refused to smile or just down right didn't look good. I felt confident. Then they call the names. "These people can stay, the rest of you can go home". I wait.... and wait..... no Trisha Carr. I didn't even make it past the first cut. Oh well, whatcha gonna do? I wasn't what they were lookin for. I was actually surprised that they didn't make their initial cut based on looks alone. I mean, you look at the Rockettes, and they're ALL tall, thin, pretty... you know. Not trying to be mean or anything, but in any performing type of thing, dance especially, these things DO count... it's a known fact. The majority of the girls at the audition fit this criteria, but there were a couple of women there who were slightly larger, on the less attractive side, or were like 40-something years old. I know I sound harsh... but I know that that is how the dance business can go. Oh man, I'm sounding mean. I need to shut up now.

On a different note, I felt like I was in A Chorus Line. All the girls auditioning with their different outfits that try to make them stand out, the range of different attitudes, the "posing" while waiting on the side for their turn to audition (in this case, the favorite seemed to be a hands-on-your-hips-with-one-foot-propped-up,-chest-out-and-the-cheesiest-smile-you-can-force pose), plus the not-so-subtle flashy smiles and extra cheery thank you's to the casting guys. Right... so, naturally I began to take upon my Chorus Line character from this past year at Lee Lund. I couldn't help it. I felt like I was acting. I became my character that I've been playing all year long. It was great fun. I enjoyed myself. I'm a little annoyed that I didn't even make it past the first cut when I danced well. Not to sound cocky or anything. I didn't even get to tap or do my kickline... and I've been doing beyond splits every day in preparation... go figure. I think I got cut right away due to a combination of things. One, a lot of these girls were "in" with the Rockette casting people and basically didn't even have to be at the audition in order to make it past the first cut. Two, I was like the only one there without a professional resume and I've had virtually no experience and I'm really young. And three, cause I lied about my weight. They have no way of knowing that... but I have to convince myself that I was cut for some reason other than my dancing. Not for the sake of my pride, for the sake of my sanity. If that makes sense. Which it probably doesn't considering it doesn't even make sense to me. Well, I'm going to go to every audition that the Rockettes have until I graduate college. My goal won't necessarily be to make it, but just to get past that first cut. Then I'll be happy. I'll be at those auditions so much that those casting people will know ME by name too! So there!

On a completely different, random note.... read this. Okay, so this link has been in my profile for a few days or a week or something, but it's taking up too much space, so I'm putting it here. Just click it! You know you're curious... http://connect.tickle.com/test.html?id=fg_jRUvlxXjEjol8&uid=FNrdipPi4yMhW7EK

And after I tell you to read the next blog too because I just posted it yesterday, and unless you're a freak like Kim who checks my blog every 20 minutes or so to see if I've posted anything new, you wouldn't know that I just posted yesterday, then I'll be outta here. And I guess I just covered that mission so... keep readin! (p.s. Kim's not really a freak)

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Okay. You deserve an explanation here. I wrote this on Friday night, but my computer is messed up and wouldn't post it. So... just pretend you're reading this as if it's Friday because I don't feel like switching all the "today"s to "Friday night"s and so forth. Make believe...

So, what's new and interesting in the life of Trisha? Very little is ever new, or for that matter, interesting in the life of Trisha, I just pretend it is and then write about it. A few days ago I went over Kim's house to help her paint her room. We thought it would be funny if I wore my stomp costume to paint. Kim didn't think I would go through with it. But, hey.... I'm Trisha, of course I would. So I wore my stomp costume to her house. For the non Lee Lunders and people who weren't at the concert, my stomp costume looks like a mix between an orange janitor's suit and a convict's outfit. It's just like the one Gwen Stefani wears in her most recent video, as Kim so aptly pointed out when it came on TV that day. Anyways... I wore the costume and Kim was supposed to provide the painter hats but she claims Home Depot didn't have any. I admitted to her stepmother that I was a complete painting novice, but after tackling Kim's room I'd consider myself a pro. Kim and I actually talked about starting our own business. You know you'd want to hire us! So what if I walked into the wall a couple of times. True story... but please don't ask. Of course, Kim and I both ended up with paint on ourselves- In a kind of "indian war paint/black gunk that keeps the sun out of football players' eyes" sorta way. Kim had yellow paint all over her hands and I called her Mr. Butter. The actual name of the paint color was Lazy Daisy, but I thought Mr. Butter or A Fan of a Banana would be a more fun name. Plus, we both "decorated" my stomp costume, which I was too lazy to even take the taps off the back of. It was fun. Kim's sister's friend must have thought I was kind of weird though... and the pizza guy, even though I was too afraid to open the door when he came. I mean, I looked like an escaped convict with some random yellow shapes painted on her. For once, Kim and I opted to order food instead of baking our own. I think it was better that way. Although, not quite as satisfying.

After the room was done and we had a nice little chat, we walked to Shop Rite to get really random stuff... tortilla chips, a chocolate bar, and a tabloid magazine. On the way, we ran into the $5 clearance rack outside of Bob's. We bought matching outfits, because we're just that cool. We wore them to dance the other day. Some people were skeptical and some just outright didn't believe us (but didn't admit to it), but others actually thought it was a total coincidence. Like... not only was it not planned, but we both just happened to buy the same outfit without knowing it and wear it on the same day. I was amused.

I just got back from the fireman's carnival. I haven't been to that thing since my parent's were together. I'm talking like 3rd grade or something. But, believe it or not, I actually felt like going out tonight. I called a group of people and Kim, Amy, and Allison ended up coming. It was actually really funny... I was trying to get more people to go with so I told Kim to call the 41st person whose number is saved in her phone and invite them. Okay, so I don't know if it was actually the 41st person, but I picked some random number in that general area. The person ended up being Erin Degnan. We never got around to calling her, but it was really funny because we ran into her there. Talk about coincidence. Or maybe it's just what is bound to happen in a suburban area with only so many people and only so many events going on. Before we left for the carnival, we downloaded a million old school theme songs... most from Nickolodeon. We listened to Hey Dude, Clarissa Explains it All, Blossom, and about 40 others. I was determined to find the song Stick Stickly sang... but it was find-less. You know... "write to me! Stick Stickly! P.O Box 163! New York City, New York state! 101...08!" I loved that popsicle stick.

Right... well anyways... we rode like 6 rides or something. It was fun scaring Allison that the ferris wheel was going to fall apart, watching Kim on the pirate ship thing, and convincing Amy to go on the Twister whatchamacallit. Kim like fell or something when she got off of the sizzler. For a minute I thought she got really dizzy when she was getting off and lost her balance. Then I thought her glasses flew off during the ride and she was searching for them on the ground. But she just fell... and was lying entirely on the ground when I saw her there. I lost my tickets for the rides. Well, not really. I just thought I did. I got off of the Twister and I say to Allison, "oh no! my tickets are gone!" So we go back up and look all in the seats of the ride for them, and then the guy tells us that we can go look on the grass and he'll wait for us to finish before he starts the ride up again so we don't get smacked by it. Then, I pull Allison aside and whispered that I was wrong. They were in my other pocket. We ran away before the guy in charge of the ride knew what happened.

Speaking of getting smacked by rides... we looked on the back of the tickets they gave us. It said something like, "with the purchase of this ticket, you are agreeing that we are not responsible for any accidents or injuries that may occur while on or observing a ride." The part that got us was the observing thing. Are the rides that dangerous that someone watching could get hurt? After reading that, I was a little paranoid that one of the carts from the ferris wheel would come crashing down on my head when I was walking or something. Basically, this little printed death notice on the back of the tickets told us that they don't care what happens to you. The guys working there were a little nuts. One guy was staring straight up at the sky the entire time like there was actually something to see besides blackness. I mean, there weren't even stars and the moon wasn't out. Although, there was a rather high flying balloon that at times looked like the moon, but that's besides the point. Then, another guy was really mean to me and Allison... on the pirate ship ride there were like 2 spots left (right in the middle) and we asked if we could wait for the next ride so we could sit in the back. He could have just politely said no... or even better, I'm sorry...but no. Instead he told us, in a rude, aggravated tone, "listen girls, either you get on now or you go to the back of the line. I have a lot of people here who want to ride... they all aren't complaining." ... I didn't like that man. I didn't like that man at all.

I got fried oreos. Woohoo! I was excited. I was waiting in line for fried dough, after circling the carnival twice looking for a fried oreo stand, when I finally saw it out of the corner of my eye. Ask Amy, Kim, or Allison... I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw it. It was the sole purpose of me going the carnival. Almost anyways. And then, after all the rides and jazz, I got a hot, hand dipped caramel apple. It was soooo good and I don't even like caramel. Honest. But something in me said "Trisha... you want a caramel apple". And when something inside me tells me something, well.... I have to listen. Amy parked a mile away so it took awhile to walk back to the car which was all the way down in my old kindergarten's parking lot. Oh well, walking's good for ya... especially after fried oreos and a caramel apple. Speaking of walking, which is exercise, which is like dance because it's also exercise... I'm going to NYC Sunday night to audition for the CAA Rockettes!!!! Wish me much luck! Not that I'm expecting to get in or even really want to, considering I'd have to take my first semester off of school... but regardless of all that, wish me luck. I have my cheesy headshot, done by the fine professionals at kinko's, my pitiful resume, sort of tan tap shoes... with black spots and stuff stuck on them, and my beyond splits ready to go! Speaking of going, I have to. Go that is. I have caramel bits stuck in my hair.