Frowns

sad and boredLook around you and you’ll see them. Frowns. Watching TV, in a meeting, waiting on line for a coffee… Frowns. They’re everywhere. Uh-oh, what’s that on your face? A frown? Do you feel the lower corners of you mouth pulling downward? It’s okay. You’re not alone.

Why do we, adults, do this? I think the easy answer is laziness or a lack of interest in the present topic. Heck, if you’re frowning now you probably don’t care about what is in front of you. No worries. This isn’t about you, it’s about my thoughts. Wee-la. Wee-la.

I’ve noticed this lately and have found myself giving in to the lazy mood of blah. I feel it in the morning when I’m reading through various new snippets or when I’m falling asleep. Why? Again and again I ask myself… Why?

While I don’t have a silver bullet I know it has something to do with goals and/or dreams. Presently work is taking up most of my brain energy and theatre has the remaining percentage while my physical energy is in flutter land. I haven’t been able to focus it anywhere yet. Well, that was until spring break.

putin blahFor the past week I’ve been cleaning out the closets, ripping up junk mail, sorting through random paperwork scattered, literally, all over the place at 11o1, hosting a visitor, Marty, playing Ticket to Ride, getting ready to paint (taping, buying stuff, etc) and, wild as this thought may be, spending quality time with emma. My February schedule took nearly all my time and kept us apart from each other.

We did get our taxes done, spent a quiet night together on Valentine’s Day, and did a small handful of things together but much of it felt forced and/or rushed. Bah! The past few days we’ve spent a good deal of time together watching 5 movies, playing board games, and talking.

We’ve been talking about things but I think we’ll soon get to the heart of some topics because that’s the way things work out. Time and patience. Smiles.

With one week under my belt I’m excited to enter my second week off. I haven’t had two (2) weeks off in a long, long, long time. Heck, I don’t know if I’ve ever had two (2) weeks off at home doing… whatever I want. It’s phenomenal! It took me until Wednesday, I think, to decompress from my normal day to day routine. It got me to think, “Wow, I wonder what it would be like to be off for a month. Woooow.”

sad junichiro koizumiWhen I change jobs, in what will be 2010 I believe, I think one (1) month off will be juuust enough time to embrace my new home and ease back from the normal day to day routine. Yea. That’ll be just about right.

Let’s see, what else do I need to get out… Lessen and a Voice Over Workshop. Those will be long; well, Lessen will be long.

A week or two before spring break John Dillon, the Director of the Theatre Program at SLC, arranged to have a very talented voice over actor come in during the grad seminar workshop time slot. About 10 people came, grad and undergrad, and we all had a chance to read copy into a mic and then review it with him moments later.

OMG OMG OMG OH MY GOD! It rocked more than turning the dial to 11. It was commercial copy only, radio and tv ads, but it was so much the wow workshop. I now have copies of all the copy and found a website looking for people to record books that are out of copyright. Can you say excellent practice!?

blah politicianWhen asked if anyone would like another opportunity to have the workshop again I almost fell out of my chair in excitement. I managed to muster enough strength in my legs to keep my hands on the keyboard and then to the mouse to click… SEND!

With fingers crossed I can only hope that something additional can happen this or next year at SLC. Voice over work is fun, difficult, and exciting but it typically requires an established learned ear to tell you if you’re finding the key parts of the text properly. Also, recording and editing a one minute reel can take a considerable amount of effort. Blah, blah, blah. Difficult, difficult, difficult. Hell, whatever opportunity I can find within the V/O world at SLC I’m diving in.