NIGHT OF MYSTERY

I've been spending the past few months in New York. You can imagine all the great people and events you cross paths with in a city like this. I've been working on an album here, which i just completely finished this past tuesday. One of my new friends, Luke Stettner, invited rollin and I to a performance he was holding for 20 people only. We had no idea what to expect and showed up promptly at 8 as we were instructed. I had just come from the mastering house with the ONLY existing copies/audio files of the new album. We were waiting in a stairwell with the other 18 people waiting to be instructed about what to do.

"EVERYONE PLEASE HAND US YOUR BAGS and PUT THESE BLINDFOLDS ON"
said 2 women who looked like psychic twin sisters

most people cooperated and passed each bag one by one until it reached the two women.

"DON'T EAT THAT PASTRY IN MY BAG. I WENT ALL THE WAY TO THE UPPER WEST SIDE TO GET THAT FOR MY WIFE"
said some guy in a puffy jacket.

I rolled my eyes at him and kept my mouth shut, even though I had 3 months of work in my bag, I knew it would be ok.
Like your friend is gonna invite you to his performance just so he can steal your shit and rummage through your bags.

So the two women guided groups of 4 people into a completely dark room. We all had to hold hands and form a single line. Once everyone was in the room, we took the blindfolds off. The only thing we could see was a circle of glow in the dark X's. We all wrapped around in a circle and were instructed to sit on an X. We had no idea who we were sitting next to.

"PASS THIS AROUND"
said someone who emerged from the center of the circle, speaking to someone a few spots down from where i was sitting.

I was trying to anticipate which direction the object was coming from. The person to my left whispered
"I'M GONNA PASS YOU THIS THING NOW. IT"S REALLY HEAVY"

I did pretty much the same thing for the person to my right. An operatic vocalist started to sing from out of no where. It sounded like he was improvising and focusing on small embelishments over and over. Occasionally a drum would be heard. The vocalist and the drummer were also slowly exchanging positions in the room. It's crazy how much your other senses kick in when one is disabled. Not only was I sensing what the musicians were doing, but I was taking in a lot of INTENSE SMELLS. I smelled CHINESE FOOD, GREASY HAIR SMELL, SOMEBODY'S BURP, BUBBLE GUM and GARLIC to list off a few.

After I accepted it was going to be a smelly time, I started to imagine how everyone was working together to keep this 20 lb object moving around the circle. The person to my left and myself had a good thing going. i could practically guess right when she was going to pass it to me based on the prior experience of her handing it to me each time. We had a rhythm, it was magic. NOW, the person to my RIGHT was a completely different story. They took no interest in finding a groove, i practically had to smack he/she on the shoulder every time it came around. In fact, I almost sprained my wrist passing it along to them because they weren't paying attention.

so i finally whispered in their ear
"CAN YOU GET WITH IT HERE. I ALMOST SPRAINED MY WRIST"

The situation with my right side friend did not improve. It was weird. Anyways, after about 25 minutes of trying to anticipate what was going to happen, the music stopped and the ladies took everyone out of the room one by one. I didn't mind that there wasn't an explosive ending to the suspense. In fact, i appreciated being tricked into waiting that long for something to happen only to realize my focus had completely shifted to the mystery of everyone's cooperation in the dark. I did get a peak at who was sitting next to me when i got back out into the hallway.

After most everyone had left, those of us remaining went out for chinese food. I explained my experience regarding the person to my left and the person to my right to my friend in charge of the night. I gave him a description of the person who wasn't pulling their weight (sitting to the right of me). He smiled sheepishly, laughed and said :

"OH. THATS DANELLE. SHE"S DEAF"

Plane Talk

I flew from Chicago to Omaha last week to start my tour with The Headlights and the Pomegranates. The plane was teeny tiny.
I accidentally smacked my viola case in this guys head who had a duffle bag with a bunch of hockey equipment in it. He didn't seem to mind, but he wasn't thrilled. I took my seat and felt relieved to not have to deal with the panicking effects of such close quarters. It was also very hot even though it was one of the coldest days in chicago this season. This man sat down next to me with a shiny PHILLIES jacket. The flight attendant was walking thru the aisle to make sure everyone had their seatbelt on. As she passed our row she whispered

"GO YANKEES"
all jiffy and stuff. just being playful about the world series i suppose

and we were both like
"WHAT? WE DIDN'T HEAR YOU"

"GO YANKEES"
with a creepy staring smile

I looked the other way cuz she clearly wasn't addressing me and the guy next to me turns to me without really acknowledging the flight attendant and says:

"I DON'T WANNA HEAR THAT RIGHT NOW"
super flat faced and uninterested in replying to her comment.

The best part was that we would both discuss every 20 minutes or so about how hot the plane was and then each time he would peel off another layer of PHILLIES clothing exposing a new one with inverse colors at each turn. It was awesome.

I've been having some tooth sensitivity in my upper left quadrant. It's getting to the point where I definitely need to go to an overpriced dentist in Seattle at the moment. Anyways, towards the end of the flight I was so precoccupied with the curiosity of the pain and how much it was going to cost me and if it was a cavity, an abcess or best case scenario, nothing at all. So I blurt out and ask this guy:

"WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE WHEN YOU HAVE A CAVITY?"

He had an array of suggestions and was really interested in helping me get to the bottom of what the symptoms could be. I guess he's a super nice guy, but just didn't feel like dealing with the flight attendant lady.
Also, I would like to add that I was watching the office on my new portable dvd player during the flight. He tapped me on the elbow out of no where. I paused the dvd and he goes:

"I WISH I WAS WATCHING TV RIGHT NOW. INSTEAD I GOTTA DEAL WITH ALL THIS PAPER WORK."
as he flipped the pages in his 3 ring binder.

i was like:
"YA"
and pressed play.

Ready to Die

I guess this album passed me by when i was in elementary school. I have been listening to it for the past month. I've had a moment with each track where it became the most moving or my new favorite. The other day I listened to it in it's entirety and I was sitting, parked in the driver's seat of my camry. I don't know if it was because i was stressed or something, but during the last track i felt like crying, the whole cd made me feel pretty crazy. I know I'm very late in discovering how great this record and hip hop from this time period is in general, but I can't stop thinking about it even when I'm not listening to it. I just realized puff daddy produced the album and appears in a few low key spots, which was pretty unexpected and awesome. I know it's all obvious, but I had to tell you.

Tennis in the Park

I've played tennis since Jr. High. I'm not great, but I can hit the ball around and volley pretty well. There are some public courts near a High School in my neighborhood of Humboldt Park. Rollin and I have tried to take advantage of the free courts this summer. When school was out of session there was always a group of young little gang bangers that would yell at us and make rude comments while we were trying to play.
Once they chased us to our car and tried to steal our racquets and made fun of Rollin's pants.

Well, it's been a relief now that school is back in session. The courts are surrounded by plenty of playing field for the young high school teams to practice for soccer and football games. None of the kids really paid us any attention and it finally started to feel like we were blending in.

Yesterday I was going through my drawer of "work out" clothes and found this pair of shiny blue leggings. I decided to wear them to the courts yesterday because they were kind of cute and comfy. We started warming up and hitting the ball around. As I was playing at a casual pace I realized the leggings were kind of slipping off of me and so I asked rollin if I could use his belt. That didn't really work and they slipped even more due to the weight of the metal on the belt.

I just ignored this nuisance and thought it was pretty minor and not worth going home. We proceded to play an actual game. I served first and i was like

"Zero-Zero. Love-Love"
and smacked the ball over to the other side.

We slowly got into the game and I would have to pull up my pants like every other hit or so. It wasn't so bad early on, but as we were getting into the heat of the game it really started to piss me off.

Because of this distraction, rollin won the first 2 games. It was ON in the 3rd game.
We were at the end of the match and it was my point at Ad-In (that means whoever is serving has won the challenge where both players are tied at 40/40 and they just have to sinch the deal and kick out one last point before they've won the game.)
It was a great volley. I got some awesome shots and killed it by sprinting up to the net and smacking the ball on the opposite side of the court. No way rollin could have hit it. You can imagine I was pretty pleased with myself, but after the initial rush had set in I heard this kid say really loudly

"LOOK AT THAT GIRLS BUTT"

The soccer team, the football team, the bus drivers waiting to take the kids home were all laughing hysterically.

The leggings had slipped off of me and I didn't even realize cuz they're kind of like a second skin, ya know.

I was SO embarrassed and pulled up not only the leggings, but my pink cotton polka dotted undies i bought at Primark in england. For those of you who aren't familiar with Primark, it carries the equivelant of the selection of undergarments you would find at a huge grocery store in the health and beauty aisle.

I thought to myself:

"the show must go on"

and continued to finish the game. i thought it would seem more lame if I just left right after. I didn't even win the set either.

I came back today to play some more, take this photo and hopefully recover from yesterday's mishap. I accidentally hit a ball out into the football field.

The coach came up to me with the stray ball and said:
"you were out here yesterday, wernch you girl?"

and i was like:
"om...ya"

he goes:
"keep it up. keep it up real good"

North Coast Video

My friend Beth works at a video store here in Chicago called North Coast. I was hanging out with her during her shift a couple of days ago. The weather was stormy and the store was packed. People were waiting in line forever as my friend rushed around the store trying to help everybody. I was sitting on a stool behind the retail counter playing tetris on the internet as the store became more and more slammed with customers . People kept addressing me as an employee.

a lady says to me:
"I am returning this video today. It was due last night. Is it late? Do i have to pay a late fee?"

i say:
"yes, it's late. i don't work here, so i don't know if you have to pay a late fee."

A handful of people came to me with similar queries and after hearing them out I would simply say:
"sorry i don't work here"


I went back to my tetris game for another 20 minutes, and then my mom called me on my cell phone. I was chatting for a good 10 minutes while simultaneously trying to continue my game of tetris. I looked up and the line had become huge. Some lady was contesting her late fees for a really long time and was pissed that her reserved copy of the newly released dvd "obsessed" (starring beyonce) had been accidentally rented out. I realized that people were staring and snickering at me in the line. I made eye contact briefly and 6 people fled up to the counter where I was sitting.

everyone was freaking out on me:

customer 1."why aren't you helping your co-worker out, huh?"

customer 2."you've had your head stuck in that damn laptop for the last 15 minutes!"

customer 3. "can i speak to your manager?"

customer 4 "what's this girls deal?" (my personal favorite)

I stood up and stated loud and clearly:

"I DON'T WORK HERE"

People sheepishly got back in line as i flashed them a huge, slightly insincere smile.

Some woman waiting in line said to another:
" Now THAT'S a good friend. hangin' out on a friday night at the video store while her buddy is workin'"

Some drunk dude with a plastic cup joked with me:
"You better ring us up as long as you're back there taking up space"
(who later told my friend "your top is 3d in all the right places")

and lastly a nice young man came up to me in a shy manner and asked:
"do you play.........violin, or viola? i mean Viola? I think I saw you play last year, well I know I saw you play, It was awesome. "

funforeveryone

freetetris.org

Questions & Answers

Last year I played a therapist in Aimee Goguen's upcoming film "Happy Once Happy". As part of the cast I was asked to fill out this questionaire which will be public later on anyways, so I thought I would share. Above is a still from the film. I'm hoping she will let me post a clip from the movie when it's released.

What is your happiest memory?

My happiest memory is laughing to the point of vomitting with my bff Danelle back in middle school when we placed the vacuum tube on my dad's nose and turned it on while he was sleeping, and then doing it a couple more times as he went in and out of sleep. (hands down on this one)

What is your saddest memory?
helping the funeral home move my grandma's body out of her house an hour after she died.

What is your favorite color?
Olive Green

I'm interested in everyone's happiest/saddest memories and favorite colors too. Just leave a comment and let me know when you can.

you can check out the rest of the casts answers along with drawings of all of us here
www.happyoncehappymovie.blogspot.com
-arx