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| On Monday, February 1, I received the second message via Twitter that I'd been nominated for special recognition. The first time was nearly a year ago when one of my Twitter posts had been selected for the funny-tweets-compilation Twitter Wit, but this was completely different. COMPLETELY different. Apparently I'd been selected to be a Memphis Hottie. Yes, you read that right. Stop laughing. Some (as yet anonymous) person had graded me like a piece of meat and determined that I was USDA Prime, although not because of the rich marbling, for once. Tuesday was the phone interview, a whole bunch of softball questions that you can read in the article. Wednesday was the photoshoot at Ernestine and Hazel's a former brothel that's really a great (and appropriate, considering) location for portrait photography. Photographers normally contort me into awkward positions that make me feel self-conscious, and it shows in photographs, but I was pretty comfortable, and I think the portrait turned out well (folks have said as much). Then I got to wait a week and not tell every single person I know what was going to happen--although I couldn't resist telling a few odd folks. The article came out, a handful of folks offered congratulations and notes of surprise (including an administrator at the school, just a second ago), we had a nice party at the Hi-Tone, and I have a lanyard badge certifying my hotness. After the article and the party, I got an email from Mom, who apparently had gotten the news from my sister, which read: Congratulations on being a Memphis Hottie. I've always thought you were a hottie. Just be careful; don't believe "hot" women when they say they are disease free and on birth control. Often, they lie. Smile. And with the awkward squickiness of that, the universe was restored to its proper balance. | |
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| Okay, nobody reading this lives in Memphis, or knows Memphians (to my knowledge), but some of you might be amused or intrigued by this, so I think I'm safe in giving away this seekrit bit of information: Every year the local alternative weekly picks a handful of folks that they label "Memphis Hotties." If you check the bottom of the linked article from last year, you'll notice a certain familiar blue crab avatar and a jokey comment lamenting being passed over. This year, I will not be able to make that comment. Official announcement once I can link to this year's article, which should be a week from now. | |
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| Today I was called a narcissist, which seems like the most unlikely label that could conceivably be applied to someone with a generally negative self-image, but maybe it fits. Anyone want to weigh in with an opinion on what I think of myself? Am I too self-absorbed? | |
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| I've been teaching English for the past month without any idea what sort of curriculum I should be covering outside of "American Literature, and how to write a 5-paragraph essay, that they inexplicably call a 3.5 Essay." I had no idea what they covered already in the textbook, so I jumped in and started covering the transcendentalists: Emerson, Thoreau, etc. The kids were bored out of their mind, but the unit wraps up with Martin Luther King, so I thought it might eventually hit home. Today I'll be teaching "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" and persuasive techniques. Or trying to, since I can't get the students to behave at all.
Oh, and I'll be being observed in class by the principal. It will never be more apparent that I have no idea what I'm doing than it will be today. I know my material (in English. Not so much in creative writing or journalism, where I've never taken a class in my life.) If not for the school's desperation for teachers, I would expect to find myself out of a job this afternoon. I might still.
At least when I was teaching math I felt like I wasn't completely faking my way through it. Here, I feel like a fraud. Not that I'm not busting my ass to try to do a good job, but an engineer gets completely different training than a teacher does.
Anyway, any positive thoughts you can send my way between 12:45 and 2:15 this afternoon couldn't hurt, right? | |
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| So I've been rehearsing for a few weeks to perform the role of Daddy Warbucks in Annie, and got an email today telling me my performance schedule (there are two casts) for the two December weekends that the show runs.
I have Saturday and Sunday matinees and one Thursday night performance.
I am apparently the Understudy Warbucks. For this I have to shave my fucking head. | |
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| Is He Dead? opens tonight. Like every show, there are some directorial decisions I would have made differently (I really dislike when someone tries to insert their own jokes into an otherwise-perfectly-serviceable script. It's like telling Mark Twain and David Ives that they could have made the script funnier, if only they'd tried hard enough), but when I don't necessarily like something, it's my job to suck it up and "trust the director's vision." Or whatever.
The last show I recall seeing that had a director who thought she was funnier than the author was Theatre Memphis' abysmal production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile, and that show won award after award. Even the local theatre critic thought that was a very good production, and I would have left at intermission if it hadn't been a one-act, so what do I know? Maybe the same critic will also really like Is He Dead?
The test audiences have been laughing, anyway. And it's not a bad show by any means, it's just very heavy-handed where I think the material might have been better served with a light touch. Anyway, the director thinks its great, audiences are enjoying it, so y'all oughta come out and see it! We run through September 27, so there's plenty of time to schedule your road trip! | |
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| Those of you who follow me on Twitter knew it the instant it happened, and facebook shortly thereafter, but for the rest of yous, I got laid off on Friday. Zero notice, zero severance, just a prayer for God to take care of us since the company sure as hell wouldn't be.
First time I've been jobless since just after graduation from college, sixteen years ago, but I didn't have actual bills to pay back then.
I've got a handful of places to send resumes to. One of the bright sides of being on Twitter and involved in theater is that I know A LOT of people--I had a "send your resume to XXX" a scant four hours after I sent out the notice that I'd gotten laid off, and probably a half dozen leads on job vacancies around town via friends and acquaintances. Just glad that engineering is a marketable skill.
Anyway, it's the weekend, nobody's up in HR anywhere, but tomorrow morning I start my new job looking for jobs. If anyone has leads, ideas, or wants to buy me a drink when they're passing through town I'm all for it. | |
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| I think most of y'all have my cell phone number anyway, but for posterity's sake, my Google Voice number is 901-257-9125. Feel free to call, although please to be refraining from doing so at 3am, even though it looks like I'm online and awake. | |
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| - Rehearsals for Is He Dead? have begun, and while some of it is very funny, other parts of it are being directed in the most heavy-handed, over-the-top way possible. Also, we still don't have a full cast. It's early, though, and the theatre audiences (excluding myself) LOVE LOVE LOVE over-the-top performances, so there's that.
- I went to a dress rehearsal for the local premiere of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee last night, and it was pretty good, although they completely blow the best joke in the show by trying to tell it no fewer than four times. Also, they added an intermission (to a 90-minute show) for some reason.
- Opera Memphis chorus assignments will be coming out within a week. I'm vibrating in anticipation, although there's a strong chance that I won't be needed. 40 total chorus roles over the season = 20 males = 10 baritones, BUT the most chorus roles in any one production is 14 / 7 / 3.5, and I'm sure they've got more than 3.5 baritones to choose from (although I can easily sing tenor). Anyway, we'll see what happens!
- I'm gonna be singing the national anthem before the Tennessee Roller Derby bout on Saturday. I asked if I should dress up fancy, but they seemed indifferent to the idea.
- The Memphis Theatre Awards are in four weeks and change. Once again, I'm not nominated, but it still promises to be a good time (and a better time than last year, as my ex- is reportedly once again going to Burning Man, but this time I'm not paying for it, nor answer any awkward questions about her whereabouts).
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