either an ice cream headache or baby time...

...a stand up comedian's explanation for a certain face he makes. i laughed.

so does anyone besides the people i talk to every day, and know all this stuff anyway read this? really. i want to know.

my annoyed lisa list
-my employer owes me money. a lot of money. payroll sucks.
-the stack of receipts from my new york trip that need to be organized so i don't have to do it next year on april 14th
-this ridiculously hot weather makes me tired
-the stack of framed gel from out of orbit that i trip over at least once a day
-there's only one more episode of the riches this season
-i can't find my jump drive. and i need it.
-flying pig/high end tech support. i'm not going to elaborate cause it will just make me angry
-i've been having some very disturbing dreams about people i care very much about

my happy lisa list
-when i get my back paychecks, i won't be insanely poor anymore
-i have a roommate for nyc
-i get to leave this not so great living situation in a few months
-tonight is zambonies night
-the simpsons are on in 15 minutes
-there are people in nyc that want to hire me, and they pay a hell of a lot more than here
-i'm happy being single. very happy.

nap time.

now what?

Been home a whole week now, and I've actually been quite productive. No, I haven't gone back to work yet, but I have been doing things. I spent the better part of 3 days photoshopping Out of Orbit photos, so now they look really hot. I also caught up on the 2 weeks of missed tv....when I got back my DVR was 99% full. Whew. It was nice to be back at Zambonies to do the regular having a few too many and making an ass out of myself by singing and eventually losing my voice. Last night saw the Ultra Sonic Edukators in Lakeview. Pretty good show.

I spent most of the week figuring out what the hell I'm going to do with this whole life thing. I've been so wrapped up in Out of Orbit, that I never thought of life after it. I had a really good time in NYC and have always wanted to live there at some point. I figure now is better than any time to do that. Not surprisingly, I found that there are dozens of companies that I'm qualified to work for out there, and surprisingly, a lot of them responded to my emails very quickly. Around here it seems like you have to know someone to get good work, then again, this is Chicago...everything works that way. The pay all seems very reasonable and there are a lot more small design opportunities than there are here. I think I'm also getting more focused on what my goals actually are. I didn't get the huge job that I was hoping for, and I was actually pretty relieved. Yeah, it would have been good experience and paid really well, but aside from the travel not really something I want or need. Just as I was thinking about all these things, a potential roommate kind of appeared. I believe in fate, and the timing could not be any more perfect so if this works out, I'm going. I'm going to spend the summer working as much as possible, and spending as little as possible to try to make this easier. Of course baseball season always interferes with me trying to not spend money...but hey, I love my Cubbies. So if you go to a game with me, help me out and buy me a beer :-)

NYC vacation part B

Thursday May 17
So somewhere between waking up and eating pancakes I decided to not go home. I got some laundry done. I headed back to Hoboken and got another parking permit. The lady remembered Mick's name and address as soon as I walked up...kinda creepy. I got up to the apartment and spent some time organizing photos from the show, and bought a ticket to see the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The show was great, except for the obnoxious people sitting behind me. After the show I walked around the city for a while and headed back to Mick's.

Friday May 18
I headed into the city fairly early and went to the Museum of Modern Art. I wanted to see the Comic Abstractions exhibit, which was pretty awesome, and ended up spending a few hours in the museum. After I met Mick and a couple of his friends at a bar for happy hour. Dan made it right before the food we ordered came, and we chowed on wings. Dan and I headed down to Union Square to see BE. It was AWESOME. Kicked my ass. In a very good way. After we stopped by Dan's uncle and chatted about the show for a while before going back to Jersey.

Saturday May 19

I drove home. It took way too long. But I'm home.

NYC vacation part 1

Tuesday May 15
I slept in quite a bit and had a pretty relaxed morning. Got some laundry done and cleaned up most of my crap that was all over the house. Around lunchtime I headed down to Hoboken. Got some lunch and a parking permit then headed into Manhattan. Met some friends for an early drink then walked over to where Mick works. I picked the right Cubs/Mets game to go to. We got there near the end of batting practice and had a really good time at the game. Ramirez had a grand slam and the Cubbies won 10-1. After the score was 7-1 I got into it with a few bitter Mets fans while on a beer run. Most of them were just having fun, but a couple were actually assholes. After a long ride back in a packed train we got back to Mick's place and crashed.

Wednesday May 16
I got up around 9 and took my time getting moving. I headed into the city around 11 and met Dan at the Port Authority. Then we went back to the York to meet Chris for lunch. We hung out with him for a couple hours and headed back to Jersey. I got mostly packed up, as I would be leaving the next day. Dan and I went and saw Hot Fuzz. The movie was pretty good. After we had dinner in the mall that the movie theater was at and went bowling. Dan totally kicked my ass, but I fully blame the floor that caused me to fall on my face in the first frame. Oh well, still was a good time. We got back to the house pretty late and hung out for a while. I had thought about staying, but decided to not go through the trouble and head home the next day......

nerd and superhero in space part...eh...i lost count

Day 10, Sunday May 13th

Load OUUUUUUUUT! The show was packed. Which was awesome, except for the dumb woman that decided to sit with her obnoxious child on the step that the tripod with a video camera were on. After making Dan a bit mad the night before by making him laugh by mocking the timpani part in the 2001 theme, I decided to go a little further with my right as a technician to annoy the performers. Luckily Mike had a pair of bass drum mallets in his car, so I had some fun playing with those throughout the show. John didn't see it, because he purposely was not looking back. After the show we took some group photos and got to work. The out went fairly smooth. We recruited a couple of Dan's friends to help, and having 3 cars to get parked close to the theatre turned out to not be much of a problem. We made it out in time for whatever time our dinner reservation in Jersey was. Sunday evening was chill back at the house. We looked at show photos and laughed pretty hard at some certain things, watched Borat videos on youtube in the backyard, and stayed up way too late playing really bad Super Nintendo games.

Day 11, Monday May 14th
Dan got up stupid early to drive John to the airport. When he got back Josh and I got up and we headed back into the city. We went to IWeiss to return the star drop, then dropped Josh off in Chinatown to take the bus back home and Dan and I settled on lunch at Chipotle after driving/walking around forever. Then Dan dropped me off at Manhattan mall to pick up Mets/Cubs tix while he went to meet with Tara. I got my tickets and walked to where he was supposed to meet Tara, and he hadn't found her yet. We wandered around and finally called 411 to find the place. We found her, then headed back to Jersey. The rest of the day we just enjoyed relaxing. I caught up on the Sopranos wile Dan napped, then we had dinner and watched the Mets game. This gave Dan loads of enjoyment listening to his mother and myself cheering for different teams

all photoshop and no play makes lisa cranky

I haven't gone back to work yet, so that I can catch up on work. Sigh. Though I do really enjoy photo editing. If I ever get far enough down on my list of things to do and make a website, you can see some of it.....

OK, more recapping....

Day 8, Friday May 11
WE GOT TO SLEEP IN! Awesome. We had a chillish morning, and headed into the city mid afternoon to have a photo call. We didn't get started early enough so things were kind of rushed, but I got a ton of good shots. The show went well. The audience wasn't as responsive as the night before, but still a good show. Mick came to the show. I also met Christina's (friend of Tara's that helped with the choreography) boyfriend who is a fellow Chicagoan and Illini. We went to an OK bar after the show with the cast and crew and multiple friends.

Day 9, Saturday May 12
There was a children's show in the space in the morning, so we went in a bit early to changeover all of our stuff. We all got to talking about a crazy guy outside the building hiding behind a street sign in a really bad wig and mustache. Mike talked me into taking his picture, so we all went outside and laughed at the guy for a while. It turns out he was the director of the children's show, but was banned from the theatre for some reason, so bought a disguise and walkie talkie to check up on the show. (cough JT anyone?) Gautham who I met the night before was at the first show, and used my computer to mess with Ringling folk online before the show. We invited a day care of some sort to come in and watch the show...the kids loved it. The artistic director of the York also loved it, and talked with Dan and Josh about some things that can be worked on. We had a couple hours before the next show, so Dan and I went to a pretty good Japanese restaurant down the street. It was nice to have a relaxed meal for the first time all week. After the second show we went to a bar with some of Dan's friends from high school, then ended up back at the same bar with some of his friends from college.

my brain in space, part 3

I realized that my previous dates have been off. I'm finally caught up on sleep and am starting to realize such things that haven't really been that important lately....

Day 6, Wednesday May 9th
This was the day that I reverted to my normal tech week self. When things need to get done and they're not happening, I can be a bitch. But it gets things done. The cast finished their work, we did a Q2Q and a dress run. I finished cueing for the most part and touched up all the main parts of the show.

Day 7, Thursday May 10th OPENING
We planned on getting in the space around noon, but there ended up being a meeting in the theatre so we had to wait until our scheduled time of 1. This gave us all some time to go run errands and actually eat something before getting to work. We did a dress run and cleaned up the theatre. I wasn't feeling too good about things, because for the first time ever I wasn't scrambling to get things done before an opening. The free time scared me, but being able to relax before the show helped me enjoy it more. I felt it was a great opening. Not many kids in the audience, but the adults seemed to love it. Everything that was questionable at least to me throughout the week came together nicely. After the show the whole team (myself, Dan, John, Tara, Josh, Mike, Brandon, and Chris) headed to a local bar that Chris frequents to celebrate. We ran up quite a large tab but this was an occasion I didn't mind having to put up a bit more cash to cover. I even got a call from Tony asking why I wasn't at Zambonies. At this point I was far too buzzed to remember the whole conversation, just that it happened.

Clowns in Space Part 2

Day 4, Monday May 8th LOAD IN

It wasn't that bad. Exhausting and stressful as all load ins are, but overall it went pretty well. We got to the theatre a bit early to get all the props and things inside. We then met with Chris, the house electrician who ended up being a kick ass help to us all week. Getting the lights up took a little longer than I wanted, but we got everything done. Turns out clowns aren't bad focus monkeys. I was proud of myself that I only snapped and got a little mean once, but we have a really good group that ended up working very well together, and getting through all the problems. John almost killed Dan, a blacklight almost killed me and Dan, and Chris kept yelling "Christmas!" when he needed to curse. It was a fun day. Everyone left around 6, but Dan and I stayed a bit late to finish up a few things. We then went back to Jersey for, you guessed it, more working on props.

Day 5, Tuesday May 9th

Rehearsals rehearsals rehearsals. Didn't get NEARLY as much accomplished as we wanted to, but that's how it goes. There was a lot of figuring out music issues as well as blocking and other things that aren't addressed when it's been 3 months since the last rehearsal. It ended up being a not very technical rehearsal day, as there was too much other work to get done, but I managed to finish cueing most of the show and getting Josh all set at the sound board. Tuesday night was more of the same. I stayed up till I think 2 watching the Cubs game online, which they blew in the 15th inning. I wandered downstairs to find Dan STILL working on the UFO, and we were up for a while longer finishing that up.

It was these couple of days that it started to really set in how difficult it is to put a show together from nothing in such a short amount of time. I now spent 2 days in the theatre without meal break, or break of any kind. It's been a long time since I've had a gig like that, but I do kinda like it. Something about insane stress and pressure drives me. And this time since I had no one to keep me on my toes and make sure I was getting things done, it was especially fulfilling. I like being in charge. I also discovered the wonder of Jamba Juice. Awesome. No, really.

Clowns in Space, Part 1

OK, so I really wanted to keep up with this while working on Out of Orbit in NYC, but in reality, it was one of the busiest weeks I've ever experienced, and sleep and food took precedence over everything. Really, my parents thought I was dead at one point. So now I'll do my best to recap. There are a bunch of pictures of all the things I will talk about at my shutterfly site (lisasoverino.shutterfly.com). You'll have to ask me for the password.

Day 2, Saturday May 5th
After a hectic travel day, we all needed to sleep in a bit, though not much. We did a little work on props in the morning, then got ready to head into the city. Since my car had so much crap in it, we took two cars in. We got in, parked the other car, and Dan and John got cozy in the back with the gear for the rest of the ride to the theatre. Loading in should have been cake, but the elevator was broken, making it kind of a pain. We got everything in, double checked a few things, then headed down to Tribeca. There was a family street fest going on, so we took that opportunity to hand out as many flyers as possible to families. John and Dan performed 3 sizable sets that drew pretty big crowds while Josh and I handed out flyers. Then it was back to Jersey, a quick lunch at a diner, then back to the disaster area that was Dan's house to work on props.

Day 3, Sunday May 6th
More props more props more props. Dan and John went into Central Park to make another attempt to hand out flyers, but it wasn't as successful as Tribeca. Josh and I stayed in Jersey to get some shopping done and work on props. I also picked up a phone charger, which ended up not working, and some PVC tubing, that was completely useless. :-) Again we were all up pretty late finishing up all we could. I got most of the lighting things prepped, like framing gel and gobos and updating paperwork.

I'm tired of typing, so I'll write about the next couple of days tomorrow. I can smell fresh gravy on the stove...mmm....garlic.....

16 hours in a car with a clown, a smell, and no gas

Well today was Day 1 of the Out of Orbit experience. I feel like I've been hit by a truck, when in reality I was just almost hit by a truck.......

I drove out with John, one of the cast members who lives in Chicago. I told him I would pick him up at 3:30 this morning.....and I woke up at 3:25. Great start. He called about 10 minutes later asking where I was, while I was running through the house throwing crap out the front door to go in my car. Luckily I gassed up and packed most of the stuff the night before. We were on the highway by 4:15. Aw yeah.

The drive started GREAT. I drove till we ran out of gas, which was somewhere between Toledo and Cleveland, then John took over. We saw a bunch of people pulled over waving around a blow-up doll. The sun was shining, we had good tunes going, and we were flying east.

Then around Du Bois, PA, we start to get low on gas, and it's lunch time. We stopped at a Subway in the middle of a mecca of shopping and eats. There has to be gas too right. No. We didn't see any. My car was reading "10 miles to empty." John remembered that there was another exit very close to where we were, so we got back on 80. Turns out the next exit is 12 miles away. Luckily my car is idiot proof, and we had more than 10 miles.....

We get off, and there is NOTHING. Then I remember that we were using Streets and Trips with GPS on my laptop to keep track of where we were, and it has wonderful features such as finding food and gas stations for you. This proves that there is NO gas where we are, but if we had gone down the road in Du Bois another mile, we would have found some. So back on 80 in the wrong direction. I have to admit I was quite nervous. We killed the AC and the radio, and I took advantage of the downhill stretches in all attempts to conserve gas. We made it. I put 19.68 gallons in my 20 gallon tank. Aw yeah.

We took a Red Bull break about 80 miles later, and I topped off on gas. So now we're set right? 225 miles to destination, full tank of gas, clear interstate in front of us........

It took 35 minutes to cross the Delaware River. Not to get there, we spent 35 minutes on the bridge, averaging 4 mph for about 20 miles. We were hoping to see a really cool reason for the backup, like black bears fighting, a recently discovered dinosaur skeleton, or Jesus' return to earth. I mean, for this much ridiculous traffic it had to be HUGE.

We FINALLY make it into NJ, and both smell the worst smell we have ever smelled. It was like something died, something big died......imagine 5000 pounds of rotting sea food sitting in the sun.

Traffic cleared up after the smell.

Due to our delays, Dan went into Manhattan without us to take care of a few things. Then he got delayed. We got to his town (4 hours behind schedule), ate dinner, went grocery shopping, and he was still about an hour from being ready to leave. Oh, and his parents weren't home. Luckily we picked up some wireless internet in front of the house, so I caught up on a weeks worth of emails. His parents got back about an hour later, and I have never been so happy to get out of my car. So now we're in the house YAY. Still no Dan though.

Tomorrow we go unload the insane amount of gear that's in my car at the theater.