Christmas plans?

Today I had dinner with my parents for the first time in something like two weeks. Up to this point, I'd been seeing them about once a week and after we surpassed the one week point I started getting near-daily texts at really inconvenient times that I just couldn't respond to. This obviously really freaked them out. What freaked them out even more was the fact that when they told me the dates of a cousin's wedding a year from next month, I really needed to write them down for apprenticeship applications. Even more than that, they were upset when I told them I didn't know how long I could be with them over Christmas at the lake house because, well, I might have rehearsal. I have had a lot of time to slowly get used to how much time I have to dedicate to being a theatre professional, but I just don't know how easy it's going to be for them to process it. To be fair, they are a lot more relaxed about the fact that I need to come home the day after Thanksgiving to run a Board meeting than they were two years ago and the fallout I was expecting about this winter was limited to "Don't they have to give you off Christmas?!," but I just don't know how to break it to them that I'm going to have to start missing family things a lot earlier in my life than they perhaps had planned... unless they can schedule them a year and a month in advance.

You might think this would have taught me something about being up at 4am...

Friday night, I did not go out. I came home after rehearsal, completed my report and sat around my apartment with a couple of friends. I made a point of not going out because I had rehearsal at 10am, which meant a 9:00 call and an 8:05 wake up. I was ready for bed just before 2. I didn't even read or facebook stalk or turn on the tv. I did exactly what I was supposed to: turned everything off and got in bed in the dark.

Then I started hearing noises. It sounded like something tapping near the baseboard of the wall my room shares with the next appointment. I sat up. I heard a sort of squeaky noise near my closet. I listened for five minutes, then laid back down. I heard it again. I was up. I was standing in the middle of my bed. It took me, fearing in bed mice, 3 minutes to psych myself up to take one step forward on my comforter to the lamp. I got it on. I saw nothing. I thought I heard a sound again. I made some sort of guttural noises hoping to scare whatever was in my room away.

I'm still seeing nothing at this point, so I shake out all of my bedding and sit back down, tucking all loose fabric edges under me so as to be sure nothing could get in them with me. I turn the TV on, trying to make enough noise to scare any rodents out of the room. I finally convince myself to turn off the light and the tv after about 40 minutes of no sound. I start to get comfortable. Another squeak. At this point I text every boy I know. It's about 3:15 in the morning, so I obviously get no response. I leave the tv on through the informercial hour. I start texting all awake parties. I read webcomics I find through google. Anything to distract me enough to help me weather the storm. It's a no go. I ready 4:59 and I literally say to myself, outloud, "Bridget if you do not fall asleep right this second you will get less than 3 hours of sleep."

Then I wake up at 8:05 am lying tucked into my mouse fortress with a light on and the computer in my lap. The TV is off because I had the foresight to set the sleep function and in the light of day, the mouse, if there was one, is less threatening. I hopscotch to the shower, then rush to collect my belongings and leave for rehearsal. I spend the first hour or so of setup realizing slowly how absolutely ridiculous I was the night before. My apartment building comes pre-furnished with beds whose legs only reach the wall at the bottom. What I was listening was probably the guy next door passing out hard on his bed, jarring the wall at several points across the baseboard. The squeaks? Probably just my bed springs as I flailingly freak out.

Throughout rehearsal I'm getting texts from the various backup I tried to call throughout the night, ranging from:

"...I was very much asleep at 3:15am"

to

"I hope you survived the animal?"

to

"I'm not sure if you were referring to a real animal or Scott."

And the jig was up. I'm crazy and all my friends know it. ...Thanks, being exhausted to the point of humiliation.

I get to do some really cool stuff.

So I have been looking for a reason to start blogging again and it came upon me in kind of a surprising way.

A friend was in my apartment reading American Theatre Magazine, which is the Theatre Communcations Group publication and one of my favorite trade papers. It has some of the most useful information I can find about new works and big upcoming projects without the specificity of some of the design magazines. Beside the point. My friend happened upon an ad for UMD's theatre program.

This is it, a full page ad, and the large image is from the last show I stage managed. I looked at the picture, said to my friends, "that was a really hard sequence to call," then promptly had a small revelation. My job was to make what happened in that picture happen. I made sure we had the costumes, props, crew and actors to set the stage for that moment. I made sure the lighting and sound were right for that moment. Then I started the chain of events that led to that moment.

And that. Is. Awesome. I have the coolest job in the world.

I really cherish the moments when I get to realize that, because it makes the really hard ones so worth it. I've been thinking about the job a lot, because two of my closest friends are taking the stage management course at school. All the discussion has lead me to the following conclusion:

The bulk of my job is to ask myself, "How am I going to make sure this happens and how am I going to help make it easier for everyone to accomplish?" It really changes my outlook for the better when I can think about things in terms of how I can help instead of what I have to do and that's way easier when a picture of one of my plays is in a national theatre publication. Hey. I gotta take the recognition where I can... even if I'm taking it by force.