Week 5

Touring across the country is a roller coaster of experiences as you drive the fine line between heaven and hell:

Heaven is a capable local crew who calls out line weights in some kind of glorious yet familiar herald, hell is a 90 pound girl and a tech director with some kind of growth that is preventing him from lifting anything.

Heaven is hot tub, cocktails, and pizza under the stars, hell is the frozen outdoor pool in a motel named after mythological English heros.

Heaven is 2$ Microbrews in Billings, Montana, hell is being stuck for 4 hours because the woman who moved the trailer so it wouldn't be towed also knocked a hole in it by driving under an overhang.

Heaven is local hangouts, BBQ's in Portland, and free lunches, hell is the Dude Rancher Lodge....which is exactly what it sounds like.

Heaven is sleep number matresses and pillows with varying firmness, hell is messy bathrooms, scratchy sheets, a fire alarm that beeps for 6 hours and a group of people and their prostitutes hanging out outside your door at 4 am so that instead of sleeping you end up watching Donnie Darko on MTV during the wee hours*

And at the end of the day, your worst day doing what you love is still better than your worst day doing what you don't. So make your peace with it!

"All Deaf people must wear mittens."~ML on sensitivity in the workplace.

*Disclaimer: Donnie Darko is still an awesome movie, though.

Week 4: From Blizzards to Bread Basket

Farmers know how to party, although frankly, one can only hear so much about cow hooves without getting queasy.

When the owner of the theatre tells you they are "taking you to lunch", that apparently can mean that they will walk you to a local deli and immediately leave you and your cast to fend for yourself. We didn't cover this in business charm school.

The prairies are fascinating, which is, I believe, the first time that word has been used to describe prairies. The sheer nothingness is what grabs you. Free from the confines of buildings, plant life or even in the occasional hill, it's as if someone has taken an eraser to the horizon....and then used Word Paint to fill it in with blue.

And out of no where comes the windmills. Space-aged versions of what Don Quixote once challenged so foolishly, they appear giant and gleaming white stark against the silent sky like an alien race, but unobtrusively so...reminding you that you are, in fact, the intruder on their land.

Being limited to a VHS and a tape deck gives you excellent justification to play Fried Green Tomatoes, League of their Own, and the cassettes for NSYNC and the BackStreet Boys.

Week 3: Listen, we tried as hard as we wanted to...

I think I can add Ohio to places that I have visited that I never really need to see again...but will have to anyway. Sure, there are new best friends I will miss; the Kardashians, Super Nanny, Snookie, the cast of SVU, the cast of the Real World, Beardy Mcgrocery guy, Creepy Art Docentstein, and Cutey BrokenArm Bouncerberg. Hm, a lot of my fake nicknames sound Jewish. What does that mean?

And the rules as I have been taught this past week:

You cannot buy a Shakeweight at Walmart, but you can buy a gun.

Actors don't need to eat, and deaf people don't feel head trauma.

Snow is God's water.

ACME food is disappointing, "But that's what I get for buying my groceries where they make anvils"~CF.

"It's a trust fall. The floor will catch you"~Keith

Me: White chocolate isn't really chocolate.
Mark: That's OUTRAGEOUS~ A normally stoic Mark gets mad about one thing.