Hi-diddly-dee, a blogger's life for me.

Alright, sorry sorry sorry sorry. Life's been crazy. So whenever I've been in the mood to write an update, I haven't had the time. And whenever I've had the time, I haven't been in the right mood. So yeah. Here, at last, it is: THE NEXT POST!!!!

Anyway . . . I guess I'd better get y'all caught up on my life, huh? Well, I'm not gonna do official events like I did last time, but I don't remember a whole lot of dates. So it'll be main events, only not separated as they were last time.

Okay, so I've seen King Kong twice (almost three times . . . but we'll get into that later) since my last post. On the whole, I thought it was awesome. Andy Serkis deserves an Oscar for best actor for Kong . . . Jack Black was good, Adrian Brody was okay, and Naomi Watts . . . well . . . she was pretty good, but . . . she had like 20 lines in the movie, and she closed her mouth 3 times. THREE!! Like, it was always open for no reason. It drove me nuts. And then recently I saw a preview for another movie with her in it, and it showed her in one shot of it . . . AND HER MOUTH WAS OPEN!!!! AARRRRGHHH!!!!!

Apparently this bothers no one else. But it bugged the cran out of me. I don't know why . . . I seem to notice mouths more than other people . . . although curiously, it took a few times watching Batman Begins to get annoyed by Christian Bale's mouth . . . but now I am.

And then there were leeches. The size of people. And bugs. The size of people. That kinda freaked me out a bit, being arachnophobic and all . . . But other than that, it was really good.

Oh, and I just realized that, although I talked a lot about Lion Witch in my last post, I didn't explain what the heck was going on and why I was seeing it. Sheesh. When am I ever gonna learn??

So anyway. It was a group of Lifehouse people that were going to see it, Lifehouse having Lion Witch as a play and all. So we got there and were hanging out in line and such . . . for me, primarily with Bonnie and Rachel and *shudder* Shiloh. But we won't talk about him. Then eventually we were allowed in.

I sat between Rachel and one of the countless Joshes I know. The owl one, if that means anything to anyone. And in order to fit more people into the theater than were allowed by seats, we put up all the cupholders and were able to fit about three more people on our row. Made it a bit uncomfortable, but it was cool. Especially when someone had to leave for whatever reason . . . fun adventure there.

Anyway, you heard all about the movie. On to the events afterwards. After the movie, a bunch of us (but not all of us) went to Uncle Howie's to eat, and then go to Miracle at Lifehouse (they had a special Sunday evening show for some reason). So we had fun times there . . . Melody and I got a pitcher of Cherry Coke, of which I had one glass and she had the rest. Poor Melody.

Anyway, we had some fun times there . . . then Bonnie took me and Josh to Starbucks, and Adam and Jamey also went, but in a separate car. That was fun . . . we all put in weird names (except Adam . . . dork). I put in “Tumnus,” and the lady asked me how to spell it. I told her. She STILL managed to spell it wrong. And the lady didn't even try to pronounce it, being daunted by it . . . after correctly pronouncing “Elphaba” a moment before. Starbucks people, man . . . they're sad.

Also, at Uncle Howie's, it was discovered that Taylor's birthday was the next day. Being the simply WONDERFUL friend that I am, I decided that we had to do something after the show to humiliate her.

So we went to the show, which was fun . . . we made fun of them . . . sang along to a few of the songs, and to all the carols at intermission . . . and while everyone else was smiling and looking all pretty in their costumes, it looked an awful lot like Taylor was glaring at Melody and I . . . I feared she'd gotten wind of my plans.

Turned out she hadn't. After the show, we all went up to mingle with the cast, and such, and I made sure I got to the stage before most of the audience was gone. I got there right after Amanda, who Taylor hugged and said, “I could hear you cheering” to. I asked if she could hear me. As planned, she said, “yes, Mark, I could hear you,” and hugged me as well. I grabbed her arm and dragged her up onto the stage, with surprisingly little difficulty . . . probably because she was too stunned to wonder what kind of evil scheme I was enacting. So I got her onto the stage and yelled at the top of my lungs, “Hey, everyone! Just so you all know, it's her” - I pointed at Taylor - “birthday tomorrow, so let's all sing happy birthday to Taylor!”

It worked beautifully, although I got a number of bruises. The entire audience that was left sang, as did the entire cast. Maybe even Wayne, I'm not sure, I couldn't see him. So after stomping on my foot as hard as she could (in character shoes) after the song, Taylor stormed offstage. I saw her a few minutes later talking to Chris, and she saw me and ran backstage. It occurred to me at that point that perhaps, just perhaps, Taylor hadn't taken it as a friendly gesture of humiliation, but as an UN-friendly gesture of humiliation.

Long story short, I apologized and she forgave me at rehearsal the next day (but not without telling me that the stomp hadn't hurt enough first). But other than the feelings of remorse after she took it worse than I'd expected, it was a lot of fun.

Okay, so there's that day. And I already mentioned King Kong. What else happened . . . ah yes. Christmas happened. And as a result, I am now the proud owner of a cell phone! Hurrah! I also own a number of other things I didn't before . . . for example, a “Sith Happens” shirt that I'd wanted for a very long time. And a shirt that says “Everyone is born right-handed. Only the gifted overcome it,” both of which I got many compliments for in rehearsals afterwards. And I believe I already mentioned Rachel's scarf. If not, it's a scarf she got me that's just like the one Tumnus had in the movie, or at least almost like it.

After Christmas, there was a week in which there was no school or rehearsals. I don't recall much of that week, but I don't THINK a whole lot of stuff happened . . . I saw King Kong with David (that was the second time), but other than that it was just a fun week of pointlessness.

Then, night fell on the fateful night of December 31st, 2005. It was a Saturday, of course, as hopefully you all remember. But, as Douglas Adams would say, that was just a meaningless coincidence and has nothing to do with the story at hand.

So anyway. Generally, my church will have a New Year's Eve party, where we'll go over and play lots and lots of foozeball and football and eat a lot and worship and pray in the new year, which is always awesome. However, since Christmas was on a Sunday, we'd just had a party less than a week ago on Christmas evening, with lots and lots of foozeball and football and eating and worship and praying. So we decided not to have a party on New Year's Eve and just have a service as normal on New Year's Day.

So I was kinda bummed, having nothing to do. Mom apologized to me, saying that perhaps next year (if for some reason we don't have a church party again) I could invite some friends over or something and while away the hours. But for the time being, it was just a “bum holiday,” as Mom so eloquently put it. So I was just messing around online, talking to Sarah. Eventually I got bored of the internet and decided to watch Batman Begins 'cause I felt like it. I watched it on the computer so that I could continue talking to Sarah.

When the fated hour came (midnight, if you couldn't guess), I wished Sarah a happy Sunday. She said, “Same to you . . . and all it entails.” To which my response was: “That being . . .?” Yeah. Should've gone to bed instead. I've heard sleep helps the brain to function.

Church the next day was pretty cool, we had like an actual sermon, which was rather rare at that church. Speaking of which, I just realized that I haven't even written about our new church . . . sheesh. This is ridiculous. AJ, next time, instead of just bugging me about it, whack me over the head with a copy of Ender's Shadow, which you had better be reading at the time.

So yeah . . . church. Dad preached, and he gave kind of a quote of the year type thingy-ma-jigger. So Mom now has it hanging by the door, the first thing one sees when they walk into our house: “If you always do what you have always done, and you always go where you have always gone, you will always be who you have always been.” - Tristan Gylberd (who is a poet, I think).

And that was that. It didn't feel like New Year's Day, 'cause we didn't have our usual tradition: eat all kinds of ridiculously unhealthy snacks and sit around watching college football all day. Since we had church, and it was pro football. So instead we just kind of did our own thing, and the NEXT day we had the tradition (although I REALLY needed some sleep . . . 'cause I forgot it was the New Year's holiday and was about to start school . . .).

Then on the 3rd, school started (for real this time), as did Cinderella rehearsals again. And it was brought to our attention that we had only 10 rehearsals left until opening. Which scared the living sithspawn (if there is such a thing) out of us. Jen (madame director), however, was very pleased with our rehearsal, because we apparently had worked hard over the break and knew our stuff. Smooth sailing, right?

Naturally, I wouldn't say that if it was. Turned out that we had worked hard on our Act 1 stuff, but Act 2 was miserable. Which depressed me because that most likely meant a Saturday rehearsal, and David had been trying to put together an end-of-break . . . um . . . thing . . . get-together . . . whatever for that day. Which meant that I probably wouldn't get to go. Which made me sad.

Eventually Jen told us that if (as was most likely) we had rehearsal on Saturday, it would be from 1-4. So I called David, he told me that wasn't a problem, we could just do it at 4. Then came Thursday, the day that Jen officially made her decision. She sat us in the seats and delivered the terrible news: “Saturday's rehearsal,” she said, which was accompanied by a collective groan, “will be from 12:45 to 5.” Which made me even more sad.

Anyway, Saturday came, and rehearsal began. David called me to tell me that he had changed things around so that we'd meet for dinner at 5 and then go to King Kong, so Rachel, Katrina, and I could still make it (although Katrina made up some lame excuse about homework and didn't go). Rehearsal was loooong and boring . . . dancing at the ball is fun at first, but when you go over and over and over it for two and a half hours, it gets kinda tedious. I mean, taking three hours to learn it was one thing, but running it over and over was a totally different story. Especially when they spend an hour on the first song of the ball, which you're not in because you're in Magical Things and have to change, but everyone else IS in it, so you sit around doing nothing for an hour and then run over YOUR boring dancing for another hour and a half.

All in all, rehearsal was not overly pleasant. Afterwards, Dad drove Rachel and I to Denny's, where we found David, Sarah, and Carly waiting. Megan showed up a few minutes later. It was fun, although my friends turned out to be thieves. But in the end, faced with the crushing grip of reason and a long jail term (and the check, which they would've had to pay my part as well as their own), they gave back my money.

King Kong was at 7:30, so we left Denny's at about 7-ish and walked over to Krikorian. The line was longer than I've ever seen a line there. Across the box office place, down the stairs, and halfway around the block. It was ridiculous. By the time we got there, it was 7:15, and we didn't think we'd make it in time for the movie, so we started discussing contingency plans. We go onto the porch-ish area where the box office is at about 7:25, so we figured we could probably make it, but I went up to check the movie times just in case, hoping for a 7:45 of something.

It turned out that the website had allegedly lied to David, and King Kong was actually at 7, and already well underway. The only other movie showing at any soon time (the others were all 9 or after, I think . . . possibly 8:30) was Fun with Dick and Jane, and since we had nothing else to do, we decided to see that instead.

The previews were just starting when we got in, and the only place with 5 seats together was the very front row (Sarah had gone home from Denny's, so we didn't need 6). I'd never sat there before. It was an interesting experience. It's really not nearly as bad as people make it out to be, because there's actually leg room. The only real difficulty is having to actually turn your head to follow someone walking across the screen, but you got used to it after a while.

The movie itself was pretty good. It had some bad parts, but on the whole it was pretty funny. Not quite Bruce Almighty or anything like that, but it was funny. I don't feel like doing a whole review, so that's all you get for the moment . . . get over it.

After the movie, Rachel left, and the remaining four of us hung out in the lobby for a while. Megan ran into a friend, and David and I ran into Mrs. Perry. Which had actually happened when we went to see King Kong, too. Weird.

Eventually we made our way out of the building, and found Rachel still standing there waiting for her dad, freezing to death. We chastised her for not coming in and waiting there until her dad came. Megan's step-dad then came, so our group was reduced to three: David, myself, and Carly. After much mind-boggling argument and a long discourse on the pros and cons of various things we could do, we decided to go to the Golden Spoon. (“Hey, you want to go to the Golden Spoon?” “Hey, sure.”)

We got back to the Denny's parking lot, and Carly drove off, while David and I called our parents to tell them we were going to the Golden Spoon. After calling, David tried to start his car and follow Carly. He failed.

It was both funny and kind of scary at the same time, because David was not only my ride to the Golden Spoon, but my ride home. After a few tries and failures at starting the car, David called Carly.

“Hey . . . my car's not starting. Do you happen to have any jumper cables?” “Uh . . . jumper cables? What are those?” *laughter* “Never mind, I think I have some in my trunk. But I'll need your car.” “Okay, actually I just called my mom and she said I can't go anyway.”

After a bit more small talk, Carly returned to the Denny's parking lot and was preparing to figure out how to give someone a jump start. David was remarking that it was odd and scary that he could turn on everything in his car except the motor.

Carly's response; “Well, is it in park?” David: “Huh?”

So he put the car in park, put the key in the ignition, and turned it. There was the familiar rumble of an engine starting. All three of us burst out laughing.

We then said our farewells, and Carly departed. David suggested that he and I still go to the Golden Spoon, which we did, only to find them closed. After driving around for quite a while, we found a Starbucks that was open and got drinks, then sat on the porch only to be told that they were closing and we had to leave.

We drove to the State Street area and found a bench, where we sat and discussed many things, such as death by hypothermia. Then we walked around for a bit, then went home. All in all, it had served nicely to counteract the unpleasant rehearsal from earlier in the day.

After that came Sunday, which was our last Sunday with the house church, because we were starting our own the next week. They had given us our official send-off the week before, because Mom was working this day. But they did have a little “Good-bye and good luck” for us.

Then Heck Week began. On the whole it wasn't THAT bad, but Josh (owl Josh) missed a few rehearsals, and since he's the other coachman (who was unfairly made Jamey), I had difficulties with the carriage, and Tim had to bail me out and add an extra scene for me himself, playing the extra coachman and helping me with the coach.

Speaking of the coach, it needs to die. Like, I've hated props before, but . . . this is right up there with the monkey pants from Wizard on my list of “Things I really hated having to touch with a ten-foot pole in Lifehouse shows.” It's not even really that heavy, but . . . argh. It's evil. It's irresistibly attracted to the stairs, and won't stand for us to take it up into the wing without crashing noisily into them. So we have to inconvenience everyone and take it up at intermission instead of right before the song. Just to complain. Now, back on track.

Saturday arrived, with excitement levels to the point of . . . um . . . being excited. I was going to say that you could actually feel it, but usually you can feel excitement (hence its classification as a “feeling”), and it really wasn't any more exciting than your average opening day.

Wayne always used to say that a bad Saturday run-through generally leads to a good opening show, but I never believed him. The only bad Saturday run-through I could remember was Lion Witch, and . . . yeah. We came within a hair of not opening that show, and the audience could tell (at least, for the first couple of weekends). I had never hoped that it was true as much as opening day of Cinderella 2006.

The run-through was horrendous. We actually stopped about fifteen or twenty minutes in and started over, it was so bad. And still everything that could go wrong did.

The show itself, however, was a smashing success. Which naturally leads into Denny's. At Denny's (well, actually at Lifehouse after the show, but I didn't really talk to him until we got to Denny's) I finally got to meet Rachel's boyfriend, yet another Josh. At the table I was sitting at, it was me, Rachel, Josh boyfriend, Sean, Burrel, Dia, Josh Riley, Zach, and Jamey, and Andrew and Preston (who had come to the show) came and went throughout the night. It was a lot of fun, although the only really notable moment that came out of it was Sean playing crickets chirping on his cell phone after a number of bad jokes.

Since then, I only remember a few notable events and the times at which they happened, although there are several that I have no idea when they happened or in what order.

First (or possibly not), there were the racist jokes in the dressing room. Naturally, it was understood before we told them that no offense was meant, and so people whose races were being made fun of were laughing just as hard as everyone else. Most of them were really funny, but I don't remember hardly any of them. I do, however, remember three:

The first, told by Nick (a joke from the fifties): What do you call a bus full of white people? The way it should be.

The second, told by Vince: What do you call a white guy with four black guys? The center. What do you call a white guy with ten black guys? The quarterback. What do you call a white guy with a hundred black guys? The warden.

And finally, the third, told by Vince: What's white and goes up? A retarded snowflake.

Okay, so the last one isn't racist. So sue me. But it's funnier in the context of racist jokes, because you start thinking about how it's about to make fun of Caucasians.

The second really memorable thing happened in the back stairway, waiting to go on for Celebration Proclamation. Josh Riley had a tendency to be rather late, and to always make a show of his entrance . . . stuff like sticking out a Jazz hand around the corner or falling to “make sure the stairs are sturdy.” One day he was later than usual, and Tina was right behind him. I didn't see what happened, but apparently she accidentally tripped him, 'cause he fell flat on his face.

Which was odd, since he grabbed the rail on his way down. The rail had actually come out of the wall and fallen with Josh. We put it back, but knew it wouldn't support much weight. Josh told Debbie about it, and the next day, it was gone. They didn't bother to fix it, they just took it down.

The two things that I DO remember are dodgeball games. Lifehouse recently (as in, during rehearsals) had made up a dodgeball team. They have games on Sunday nights, and one Sunday I decided to go. At that point we were 2-0 and the second-best team in the league (out of 12, I think . . . possibly 6, but I'm not sure). I got there and sat with Bonnie (who is on the team, but didn't have shoes with her and couldn't play). It was soooo much fun. We beat the other team 10-2. Much much fun.

There's really not a whole lot to describe . . . although this one time, a guy on the other team cheated, and after a conference we decided to just let it go and keep playing. Taylor (Joseph, not little mouse Taylor) was outraged, and decided that if they could make up their own rules, so could he. So he determined that from that point on, he could only be knocked out of the game by a green ball thrown by a white chick in Mexico with her tongue out. Ironically, for the rest of the night, every time he got out it was by a green ball.

The second time I went we got beaten 8-4, but it was still a lot of fun. It's hard to describe, but there's something appealing about nerf balls flying everywhere and organized chaotic violence ensuing for 45 minutes.

And that's just about it. So here, on page 8, we have at last reached the end of another post. Hopefully I'll be able to start updating on a more regular basis, but you never know. And if you want more entries . . . take a hint from a very wise man, who just happens to read this blog (Stephen): “An active audience makes an active poster.” Or something like that.

(Final count: Pages: 8 Words: 4226)