Beth's Contradictory Brain

Tricky

The tricky part about listening to my iPod in public places, like airports and such, is that when songs like Miss You Much by Janet Jackson and Can't Get You Out of My Head by Kylie Minogue come on, I'm tempted to think life has suddenly become a musical and I should sing and dance. Thank God I have decent impulse control!

Welcome Home Nick

If you didn't read The Questing Cat while he was in Iraq, you missed out on one of the best soldier writers out there. He's made it home safe and sound and once again writes a moving post about it all. I have no doubt this young man will do much with his 70+ remaining years!

Humor

I think the hardest thing to convey thru my blog is my sense of humor. And that's also true of Nerdstar. I've long thought that it would be hysterical if we could tape some of our bedtime conversations and link them on here. Maybe once we get settled in I'll look into podcasting and see if it's easy enough for us to manage.

I also think it's a shame neither of us is brave enough to try an open mic night or something similar. I've been composing a short joke set in my head.

In the meantime, you can catch the jist of a couple of things we found funny on her site today. The first one came up on evening she went to play poker with me and we were talking with another lesbian couple I've gotten to know. What was funny to me was that the first couple of times Nerdstar went to hang out with my while I play poker she was pretty quiet and not very social. Boy, when she opens up, she really opens up! That's one of the things I love about her, I literally never know what she's going to say next!

Saying Goodbye

It's a little hard saying a long goodbye to Austin. Knowing I've got two more months there makes it bittersweet to drive around or eat at our favorite restaurants.

I moved to Austin ten years ago. I totally believe my life would be very different if I hadn't. If I'd stayed in the Dallas area I'd most likely have been teaching for ten years now. But there was something so enticing about Austin when I'd come down for weekends that I couldn't resist moving here when I had the chance. A friend from college had ended up in Austin and was attending the church that we'd come down and visited on weekends. Her dad had finally made a lot of money, and she had this huge two bedroom loft downtown - she offered to let me stay with her until I could get on my feet. The living situation didn't end up being so great, but it got me there. The church situation didn't last very long either. Within a year that church fell apart and ceased to exist. For maybe another year some of us met at this family's house. I tried one other church before giving up altogether.

I'm often tempted to view the last ten years as a total waste. I haven't acheived a damn thing in my view. My career, no house, no kids. That would all be fine if I were turning 27 next month instead of 37. So I can't say Austin has been good to me. But it's always sad to say goodbye to anything that's been a part of your life for ten years.

Nerdstar has asked if I think we'll go back and visit Austin. I've told her I don't really think so. Neither of us have family there. And it's time to move on.

She's started collecting t-shirts from some of our favorite places. In the next six to eight weeks, we'll go to the park, eat at all our favorite places, and call it done.

Long Drive

Yesterday was a long day. Our sleep schedule has been totally out of whack. We usually fall asleep long after midnight and get up between 10 and noon. My class ran late Tuesday night, I got home close to 11 pm, then we were both hungry, and then we couldn't sleep. That didn't stop the alarm from going off about 6 am. We dropped Ramen off at the kennel at 7:30 and hit the road to Fort Leavenworth. It took us the entire 12 hours yesterday.

We were both tired during the drive and didn't talk much, we mostly surfed all of the channels on XM. I think I still prefer my ipod. I wish there was a lot of music out there I hadn't heard yet and was pleasantly surprised by, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I keep telling Nerdstar I wish there would be a new kind of music, it'd have the lyric writing quality of country and have the energy of fun dance music, but not make you feel like you're on speed.

After we finally got settled into bed last night we got to talking. We both have worries about moving up here, and we still haven't cemented any decisions on plans for the next nine to twelve months. I'm feeling pretty calm about it all though.

Nervous Wreck

It's so weird being nervous about something. I don't usually care enough about things to get nervous. Or sometimes my inflated ego takes over and I don't get nervous. But for the past week I have been obsessed and nervous. And I volunteered for the stupid thing making me this way.

I've always been told I've got a nice phone voice. And at night when Nerdstar and I are talking and joking around in bed I do a few silly voices of different characters. So when the woman heading up the oral history project for Habitat that I worked on mentioned a voice over class, I thought, way cool! (Voice over work is the announcer and character voices in radio and tv and the narrator in documentaries and such.)

The class has met from 6 to 10 pm for the four Tuesday nights of this month. Tonight's the last class. The last class is set up as an audition. We show up early, get a copy of whatever script we're going to do, mark it up, and then do a couple of takes on it. When we've all finished she's going to critique us and tell us if she'd call us back or hire us or if we should never darken the doors of a recording studio again.

What's been hard for me is that I can nail all of the pre-recording work, flesh out the character, mark up the copy with the right emphasis and such. But I just can't get what I hear in my head out of my voice. When I hear the playbacks I cringe.

What's made this week even more nerve wracking is that last week when the instructor picked a script for each of us and really nit-picked it, she gave me one that was really against my natural tendencies, but she gave the other people in the class scripts that played to their natural tendancies. So I've mostly blown off the homework and fretted over why she's messing with me! The homework was to do that script 3 times a day all week and then pick the best one to playback tonight. I did a couple of takes of it the other night. In my favorite I do it in a complete hick accent just to have some fun with it. I haven't recorded a better one, but I'm not sure my instructor would be amused.

Nerdstar thinks I'm totally overthinking the whole thing. I'm sure she's right. I worry a lot about what the instructor is thinking. She's very well connected in this industry, and I'd just hate to make a bad impression - mostly by coming across as if I'm not taking it seriously - on the off chance I have even a little more aptitude for this than I think I do right now.

Part of my nervousness is that I just don't want to feel like I've failed at something else.

In about seven hours it'll be over.

UPDATE:

Class went well. There was another snaffu at the very beginning. The instructor handed out the scripts, and told the other two women they were a team, and the other two men they were a team, and didn't say anything when she handed me mine. It was a three person script, but I just assumed I'd just be doing my lines from it alone. After the two men go into the studio she calls my name and says they're waiting on me... huh? So while I had prepared my part, I didn't get to do it with my partner. So when part of the critique was that there was no connection between us, I thought, well, duh.

After we were all finished she said she wouldn't have hired any of us, but might have called back a couple of the others. No big surprise. The rest of the class was all about the next steps of pursuring this as a career.

The next step for me? A couple of acting classes. Then if they went well, a demo tape. Will I pursue acting classes up in Kansas? Hard to say. But I'm not ruling it out. They might be good for me. Get me out of my head. Might or might not help my self confidence. Never know what the future holds.

Lewis Black

Nerdstar was really cool and surprised me with tickets to Lewis Black last night. It was a great show! It's always fun to hear a really good comedian live. Especially these days when everything in this country is so damn censored! It was crazy, security at the venue was a lot like security at the airports - tight. I'm thinking, what, are there death threats against him? He did a fantastic segment on God and the different looks at Him in the old and new testaments that was a lot like conversations I've had about the same topic - so that was fun! He also talked a lot about gay marriage and such. Sometimes it's weird to me when straight people are so enthusiastic about gay issues. Can't explain that really.

Funny

I love the new SBC Yahoo dsl commercial where the lovely lady is in the closet picking an outfit and the guy is playing part of Eric Clapton's song that says "she's wondering what clothes to wear" over and over. It's the simplicity of it that makes it work for me. It's not overdone.

Rainy Weekend

It's been a long week. Wednesday we took Zach back home, so it was a drive to Dallas and back. Thursday we spent getting XM for Nerdstar's new car and we put new speakers in mine. Yesterday we got a really plush matress cover for the new bed. I think we've spent enough money for a while.

Just run of the mill life for a few more days.

I posted some pics from when we took Zach to Zilker park. He's so cute!! It was funny, we were in the car and I told him I loved him a whole lot. There was this pause, and then totally deadpan he said, "and I love you a little bit." HA! We cracked up.

Life in the fast lane

Nerdstar finally made it home Saturday night. The new car is very cool! Then we drove to Dallas Sunday to see my family and pick up Zach. He had his Valentine's Day party at his little school and then soccer practice, so we didn't get back to Austin with him until 10 pm last night. He slept in the car most of the drive back, so that was nice.

Today we spent all afternoon at Zilker Park, his favorite place. I actually got sunburned in February! He scrapped up his knees and elbow, so he's a four band-aid kid today!

Not sure how cool the weather will be tomorrow or what our plans our. We drive him back up to Dallas on Thursday.

He's just so darn cute!!

That New Car Smell

After much family drama and trails and tribulations, Nerdstar is finally coming back home today - with a new car! She got a brand new Toyota Matrix.

As long as we've been together, she's had bad luck with cars. She had a really nice Corolla that got wrecked by a truck. Then she got an S 10 that she really liked that turned out to be a lemon. After that was another little Toyota. It's not a bad little car, it's just older and has more miles than she'd like.

She's been looking at Chevy Trail Blaizers. When she left for Houston I told her she'd probably come home with a new car, but she wasn't sure. We were hoping her grandpa would help with the downpayment or something like he's done in the past. That's where the drama comes in - which I'll leave for her to write about if she so chooses.

I'm proud of her, her and her sister negotiated a decent deal on a nice car that she's happy with. She's got 30 days to change her mind. The only thing it didn't have that she wanted was satillite radio. They said it'd be $500 to include it. We're pretty darn certain we can get it installed a lot cheaper than that at a really nice custom sound place here in town.

Tomorrow we're driving up to Dallas to see my family and bring little Zach back to Austin with us Monday.

I can't wait to see it!! She's on her way back home now.

Still Down

Sorry for the lack of posting. I seem to have lost just about all of my optimism. Which really sucks considering all the choices and changes looming. The last two years, and recent problems between Nerdstar and I, have left me pretty broken. Mostly I'm just getting thru each day.

Nerdstar's in Houston celebrating the Chinese New Year with her family. Then I think on Sunday we're going up to my family's and bringing Zach down to Austin for a few days. Feb. 23rd Nerdstar's driving back up to Kansas and I'm probably going to go up there with her for a few days to hopefully try to find somewhere to live, then fly back to Austin.

Anyway. Maybe things will improve in the near future.

Hmmm

Covert Caller ID. Could be good, could be bad.

I'm Not Dead Yet

Nerdstar came home Wednesday for about three weeks. We're still trying to figure out the future. She heads back up to Leavenworth for another 30 days Feb. 24th. For now we've decided to try to find somewhere to rent, if we can find somewhere we like that allows our pets and will do a six to nine month lease. That might be too much to ask. If so we'll look into buying a house. She's going to drive her car up there so she'll be able to do some living space searching. I'm planning on driving up with her and staying for a few days and then flying back. We have plenty of time to figure things out and get them done. I'm just one of those people who really, really prefers life to be more settled, especially after the last two years of being unsettled.

Other than that we're eating well and hanging out. We saw Sideways the other afternoon. We weren't in great moods, we're not into wine or golf, so it was a decent movie, but we didn't think it was great. Mostly we keep thinking it was just a well made infomercial for the wine industry.

The highlight of the past few days is that we finally bought a new bed!! We had looked at the Serta store, and, yes, they are great beds. But, it was going to be hard to pay that much money for one. Yesterday we checked out Denver Mattress Company. Their bed is pretty nice and literally half the price. They're delivering it this afternoon. Can you say new bed sex? We certainly gave the old one a fun send off last night.

Tonight is another free poker night and Nerdstar is finally going to join me in this new addiction - hehehehe. What sucks is I know that if we end up playing at the same table she'll kick my ass. She won 9 out of every 10 hands we played practicing last night.

Let's see, rounding out the last few days was getting our taxes done.

Very exciting life here.