Nearing the end

the end of the year is almost here. i LITERALLY can't believe how fast this year has flown by. of course things haven't happened the way I thought they would, but does it really ever?

The play was awesome! I was in two shows for school kids on the 11th, and then we had public shows on friday, saturday, and sunday. my mom and brother came to the saturday night show. but first things first, friday night after the show, me and some cast memebers went to the pizza joint for a slice, and as i'm walking out to my car, a woman approaches and knocks on my window. IT'S KRISTEN!! she flew in to surprise me and see the show and hang out for the weekend. so she also came to the saturday night show, with mAndrew and elsie. and dave and virginia came to see the sunday show. i had a super-fantasic time doing the play. kristen and i kicked it all weekend, and we OF COURSE had a blast. (special thanks to dianna for tirelessly making me look like a pretty pretty girl all week)(the picture is me and amanda (the very talented girl who played the ghost of christmas future - and yes i DO look good in that picture)

four days after the show, i auditioned for another play, Into the Woods, and...sigh...i didn't get a part. for the first time in my entire life, i was turned down for a part. that was a hard pill to swallow. but thanks to dianna's gentle encouragement, i got through it.

so now i'm done with work for the year, and tonight i made my first attempt to buy a christmas present (yes, you read that correctly). at least i get seven whole days off for christmas this year! yay grownup!

Open to the public!

Tomorrow night, we open A Christmas Carol to the public. I performed in two shows this morning, all to elementary and middle school kids, and those went pretty well. I just got home from a five hour dress rehearsal, which went well. I think we are going to kill in the public shows.

So, the Imperial Theater is sleeping quietly. The ghost light is lit, and the rain is falling softly.

And tomorrow night? Magic.

know what I'm listening to right now?

(aside from the Les Mis soundtrack, of course)

this.

oh bliss.

who has time for anything?

not me, that's who.

i'm doing a play locally right now. about a month ago, dianna called me up and said they needed tenors for A Christmas Carol, and i said, "hey i'm a tenor!" a month later, i have traces of eyeliner on my eyes from tech rehearsal last night, and i'm getting less and less sleep. i play "banker" or "banker 1." i actually have a couple of lines and i wear a little mic that hangs over my ear. gather and sing of this glorious thing known as Christ-mas, to-gether!

in other news, yet another high school girl has caused damage to my car. this rhodes scholar cut me off and then slammed on brakes. have fun buying a new front end for my car.

i've been listening to a lot of good new music lately. i bought kanye's new album, 808's and heartbreak, and while it's not great, it is unique and i appreciate it. also, i've been listening to feist, the national, the killers, goldfrapp, ray lamontagne, snow patrol, colin meloy, and synthar, to name a few. seriously, stop what you are doing and download 'colin meloy sings live!' from iTunes right now. it will change your life. oh, i also just got about 30 miles davis and john coltrane cd's, which is amazing.

oh, and SPEAKING of music, a parcel arrived at my doorstep yesterday, the contents of which is a new live Dave Matthews album, from your friend and mine, bree. you're the best, blawyger.

well, that's it for now. more soon. including pictures of me in makeup.

this still makes me laugh...

45 minutes later.

Actual conversation that just happened:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kristen: Kobayashi Maru. i've seen this in like 11 different places in the past couple weeks. weird.

Patrick: Kyriad Mariah? :)

Kristen: haha!

Patrick: do you know what the kobayashi maru is?

Kristen: isn't it the unsolvable problem or something?

Patrick: yes, from star trek.

Kristen: right. i only know that from friends

Patrick: the reason you are seeing it everywhere is because that movie is coming out next summer.

Kristen: but i'm seeing it in non-star-trek-movie related locations

Patrick: doesn't matter. the movie is making people think about it again.

Patrick: the kobayashi maru was an unsolvable problem that they gave to all cadets in Starfleet Academy. Captain Kirk actually solved it, but he cheated.

Kristen: oh snap! how'd he cheat?

Kristen: and what was the problem?

Kristen: and what was the answer?

Patrick: i don't know! i'm not a Trekkie. find some huge nerd and ask HIM.

Kristen: i think you must be a little. how'd you know all that stuff?

Patrick: well first of all, i'm not DEAD from the neck up.

Patrick: i'm a geek of sorts. see, geeks know the basic tenets of the different kinds of nerdery, but we don't actually have the knowledge to convert.

she. was. RUN-NING!

HOLY CRAP! Kristen just finished a MARATHON!

Unbelievable.

Make sure you swing over to her blog and congratulate her (whenever she posts about it). Her sister Haley ran too, and I'd tell you to post on her blog, but she doesn't use it anymore. So maybe you can just throw her well-wishes up in the air or something.

okpeace.

one whole year?

yesterday was my one year anniversary at "Organization Automobile," the company I work at. I was a temp for two-and-a-half years before they hired me on, and now it's been a year and a day as a full-on employee.

i remembered today.

i am SOOOO ready to move to Chicago.

wow...

this morning i was driving to work in the Chili Pepper, and i was on washington road, and as i looked to my right, several things hit me at once. (no, a car was not one of them) there was a woman, fairly attractive, late 40's, in a red convertible BMW, tweezing her nose hairs.

let that sink in...

here's a lady, at least upper-middle class, if not completely upper, driving in a nice car, cleanly dressed, TWEEZING HER NOSE HAIRS. while doing about 45 down a very busy four-lane street at 7:45 in the morning.

as it turns out, she was actually using one of those eyelash clamps. i couldn't tell because it was on the other side of her nose, but still...

the cuteness

spider-man takes a break to talk to mary-jane.
starring my nephew mitchell.

dangit

how do you get over something that's been bothering you for four years?

just a random question.

don't play scuba with a barracuda

If you aren't listening to People in Planes, you should be. they rock my face.

other bands i'm currently rocking:
The Weepies
Feist
DeVotchKa
Goldfrapp
Synthar

I've thrown things into a bit of an uproar lately. I've decided to go ahead and get this acting thing on the road, so I'm moving to Chicago. Most likely in January. It's the biggest decision I've ever made and I'm telling myself not to do it about 20 times a day. But here goes! Things have been up and down lately. Work has been not nearly as psychotic, but it IS starting to get a crazy look in its eye again, so that probably won't last. My new car is awesome! I bought a Firepepper Red 2001 Honda Accord back in april, and it pretty much is 'Teh Awesome.' Football season is upon us, so I'm now indulging in that ridiculous tradition of letting my blood pressure get up every weekend. I'm starting to realize though that a lot of my friends are going to actually be sad when I go to Chicago. I have some pretty awesome friends here, and I won't know anybody when I get there. Luckily, I am a people magnet.

Just kidding.

Oh. Why Chicago? I want to get into The Second City. It is fantastic, and the list of alumni is a veritable who's who of comedy. I'll will also try to do some theater (theatre?) there, and of course I will have to work, so things will be pretty busy for a while. Also, my brother Robert lives there, so I might have a place to live for a while, and I also have some friends-of-friends and whatnot. But mostly, because Chicago is awesome, and I want to start there before I go to LA or New York.

so...

Top 5 Things You Would Drop Everything For
1. Become an actor
2. Travel the world (free of charge, of course)
3. Travel the world (with a band)
4. My friends and family
5. A good steak

that one is fake. this one is real...

Top 5 American Cities You Want to Visit (that you haven't already)
1. Seattle
2. San Francisco
3. Portland
4. Honolulu
5. Philadelphia

ok GO

omg lol! wtf?

so, one of the many interesting things i learned about my new family last week, was this: my 14-year-old neice, nicole, who lives outside seattle (awesome), had TWELVE. THOUSAND. TEXT. MESSAGES. LAST. MONTH. fortunately for my brother, she has unlimited texts in her plan.

so, i've always known that my dad had three kids from his first marriage, but i only ever met my two brothers, jeff and robert, once, when i was in third grade. until this past february, i had never met my sister Christine. i grew up with my mom and my brother John, who is 7.5 years older than me (we have the same mom, different dads, but we are super close). well, i just spent a week in virginia beach with my extended family. here is how my it plays out now:
~my mom, Linda, lives outside Athens, GA.
~my brother John lives near Athens. his wife is Karen, and they have my niece, Lilly Grace, who is 5, and my nephew, Mitchell, who is 2.
~my brother Jeff lives in Puyallup, WA, outside seattle. his wife is Denise, and they have my nephew, Mitch, who is 16, and my niece, Nicole, who is 14.
~my brother Robert lives in Chicago. he has my nephew, Zachary, who is 7, my niece Margot, who is 5, and my niece Meredith, who is 2ish.
~my sister Chris lives in Forrest Grove, OR. her husband is Brian, and she has my niece, Jamie who is, i think, in her early 20's, my nephew, Nick, who is 21, and my nephew Anthony, who is 19. and JAMIE has amara, who is 2. that's right, i'm a great-uncle. i'm a gruncle.
~my aunt and uncle, donna and paul, live in virginia beach. donna is my dad's sister.
~tanna is their daughter, and she lives in va beach with her husband, matt, and they have taylor (girl) and derek.
~ryan is their son, and he lives in honolulu. his wife is kelly, and they have jordan (girl) and wyatt.

so there's my huge family. they are a mess. i love them.

Vacation-land

I am currently in Virginia Beach, VA, with my brothers and sister and cousins and aunt and uncle from my dad's side of the family. We are having what will end up being the first annual reunion of this family, and hopefully it will be in other locations in the coming years (oregon, idaho, chicago, and seattle are where all of these people live). Most people know that death brings about newness in a lot of ways, and in my case it has brought a whole new family. I'm still getting to know them, and I probably haven't let my guard down yet, but I'm getting there.

In the meantime, a handful of us are going to see The Dark Knight on IMAX tonight. This will be my third overall viewing and my second on IMAX, so I'm pretty excited. And if you are looking for some fun, check this out. It's dumb and hilarious, because people are stupid.

Later!

should you or should you not buy a chinese baby*

so, today at lunch, me and about eight other guys went to eat at mot's barbeque. a fine dining establishment. anyway, the tv in the corner was on, and i just so happened to look up and there was a commercial for a 4-disc praise and worship collection.

flashback: two years ago, my buddy eric comes up to me and says, "PETE! what the hell is up with christian music?" and i'm like, "yeahbuhwha?" come to find out he had been channel surfing that morning on the way to work, and went by WAFJ 88.3, the local christian station. "why do they repeat the chorus to the song 8000 times?" after i laughed for about five minutes, i explained to him that praise music is an expression, and you repeat it a bunch because you feel strongly about it, and you get in to it. and he says, "i see."

flash forward: i point the commercial out to eric at lunch, and we have a chuckle, and then he says, "i've been to one of those." upon my curious look, he lifts two hands up in the air and starts swaying back and forth. after that, the following conversation takes place.

me: you? when?
big e: about six months ago.
me: six flags?
big e: no, dumbass. here. in augusta. something called Winterjam.
me: ah.
big e: yeah. nikki (his fiance) wanted to go. she said she had been wanting to get into some christian music, so she got tickets and we went. she wants to go again next year. i'm on the fence.
me: did you like it?
big e: it was wierd. they would have some hard core rock band, like Skillet. and that was pretty rocking. way heavier than i imagined christian music. but then the next band would be a praise band. and they would go back and forth. it didn't make sense.
me: they were probably trying to get something for everybody.
big e: well, i found out why we were there. i thought it was just because they wanted to have a music festival. but it wasn't.
me: what was it?
big e: they wanted us to buy a chinese baby.

at this point, i spewed a mixture of barbecue pork and mac & cheese out and started laughing. "they wanted us to buy a chinese baby" was eric's description of the festival's pitch for compassion international. after that, we had a hilarious discussion about leasing babies, renting to own, paying alimony for a baby you never met, and going straight to hell for skipping out on payments for a chinese baby. all very tongue-in-cheek, but i haven't laughed that hard in a while.

and now it's after lunch, i'm full, i got four hours of sleep last night, and it feels like i may have to take a nap on my desk.

cheers.




*disclaimer: i love compassion international.
also, "pete" is my nickname at work. long story.

Don't open that file folder!

Reading letters from dear friends is an amazing thing. It's like seeing a side of that person that you never get to see. Your writing/typing dialogue is not the same as your conversational dialogue (except mine. mine totally is. very schizo and kinda dumb.), and in writing, you get to say things exactly the way you want. Add to that the letter being from a friend from your past, and what you get is a flood of emotions. Add to THAT that the letter itself is old, and you have good, old-fashioned nostalgia.

I have a file cabinet in my bedroom, the contents being every important document I've ever wanted to keep. One file contains every phone list I've ever had (from camps, churches, school, what-have-you), and another has every card and letter and note that has been given to me by friends and family that have been important enough to keep. Now, I'm not a packrat. I toss things after a while, and a lot of times cards get thrown out. Not that I don't love them, but in 20 years, I'm not going to remember half of the random people that gave me valentines in 1999.

But the good ones, I keep, and last night, they came out. Understand, I am a very nostalgic person, and have often struggled with feeling guilty about not keeping up with people, even though I know they didn't keep up with me either. Even my very closest friends don't hear from me that much. Ask Jo. (I love you, though.) So opening this folder last night was...wierd. There were quite a few birthday cards and Christmas cards, tossable except for the fact that they were funny or from a dear friend. There were definitely some that I tossed immediately (need to check this thing more often). And there were a couple of long letters from various people. An amazing letter from my brother to me while I was in Colorado in 2000, telling me how proud he was of me. A letter from my friend Tysen apologizing for being an ass to me for an entire year and asking for forgiveness (I did). A letter from Jo wrote in college to our entire circle of friends telling us each how special we were to her (I think she may have been drunk). (Just kidding. It was an amazing letter, and I re-read it three times.)

And then I ran across some cards from a couple of friends that I made in Colorado named Kate and Chris. These two were the most amazing people, and despite my meager efforts, I lost touch not long after I got back to Georgia. I think more than any other people, I regret losing these guys the most. So what do I do? I dig through my phone lists and (finally) find an old number of hers. I grab my crappy cell phone and dial, totally expecting that in eight years, she's probably left her parents house. So when the lady answers and I tell her I'm looking for Kate, she of course says that Kate doesn't live here anymore because she's married, etc. So I tell her, "well, we were friends in Colorado, so if she feels like calling me back, tell her it's Video Pat." "VIDEO PAT!! I REMEMBER YOU!!" Very good feeling. (oh, right. video pat because i was the camp video tech for the summer. i basically made a 30-minute movie every week.) We talked for a few minutes, and she tells me how to find them on the interweb (facebook of course), and says that she'd give her the message tomorrow (today). So, I'm waiting for the phone to ring.

The moral of the story is, well, a) don't start reading a bunch of letters when you are trying to clean your room because it takes too long and then you don't finish. And 2)...well, i guess, keep up with people that are important. It's easier to call after one month than it is to call after eight years.

FINALLY!

GOSH. you guys are lazy comment-ers. i've been waiting for five comments forever. thanks dottie.

lots and lots to catch up on, but, as my last post stated, i've been working my ass off. that hasn't changed. plus i don't have the interweb at home, so posting has been a low priority. but there is a silver lining at work, a ripple starting to take place on the horizon. soon, i will be the quick-witted prodigal poster you all know and love, back from the city with no money and begging for forgiveness for not indulging you with my wierdness.

haha. i make myself laugh. oh, but ok. now it's over.

soon.

work work work

work work work work work work work work work work.

work work work. work work work work work, work work work.

work work.

sigh...

w#@k.

AWeSOMe!

so today at work...i mean, at home, when i was lounging around, i was just doing nothing and all of the sudden it crossed my mind that there was something cool i could accomplish with microsoft excel. i put today's date in the first cell, and put 'wednesday' in the cell to the right. then i went down a row and put yesterday's date in b-1, and tuesday in the cell next to it. then i highlighted it and dragged it down. those of you not savvy with excel might not know that you can auto fill data if the program already has some numbers to go by.

anyway, nerdery aside, i dragged it all the way down to april 3, 1978, that most wonderful day when i graced the world with my presence. now, remember, this is just a random occurence, and i no idea that this would happen, but...

TODAY IS MY 11,000th DAY!!!!!! HOLY CRAP!! I'M 11,000 DAYS OLD!!!

(shut up, mike)

HOLY FRICKIN' FRICK!!!

yes yes y'all, he's back again! (i was just listening to rap)

(ok really i wasn't. i'm just a dork.)

so, the rollercoaster has been going up and down and all around for the past two months. i've run an entire gambit of emotions, and i'm quite certain i've made up a few new ones. there's been so much happening that i don't think i can sum it all up in one post. but i'm gonna do it anyway because i don't want to spend three days dredging up a whole bunch of crap. (dredging is a means of excavating stuff from underwater. think of the muck and mire of the bottom of the local pond. yum.)

so yeah i'm gonna do it. well, after my dad passed...

(llloooooonnnnnngg inhale....)i started averaging 60-hour work weeks (boooo). i made a lot of money (yay). my car crapped out (boooo). i gained a little weight back (frick). i turned 30 (BOOOO). but k-flix came for my birthday party that i threw for myself (yay!). my family also came for my party (yay). babies are dropping all over the place (indifferent). will and sarah's baby is healthy (thank God). dianna is on bed rest for five weeks, waiting on owen to be born (praying). lisa moved to minnesota (BOOOO). hillary was in town for a month (yay), but for heart-breaking reasons (we are soul-friends for life, now). i've worked and worked and worked (byoaoy!)(that boo and yay intwined). i've turned to friends to help me lose weight (embarrassed). i've bought lots of cd's (hells yeah!). dvd's too (also yay). evangeline was born (awwww look at the little baaaa-by!). dexter harrison was born (mohawk!). i bought a car (super awesome(but more about that in another post)).

i can't think of anything else. i'm sure as soon as i post it, i will think of more. but that's good enough for now.

funny post script - i was talking to my aunt yesterday (my dad's sister), and she said that she googled my dad's name and my previous post was the first thing that came up and she read it and thought i should be a writer. i was kinda embarrassed, since none of my family know about this blog, but it was also nice to hear her gush about it. also kinda weird, since, you know, you talk differently in different parts of your life. anyways, that was funny.

Regarding Henry

I've recently found that a movie you loved in middle school or high school takes on new life in your later years. Top Gun is one of my favorite movies of all time, and recently I saw part of it and understood something that I didn't understand when I was 10. This morning, as I was sitting on the couch, trying to wake up for my hair appointment (cut, not styling), I was channel surfing and ran across Regarding Henry. I have loved this movie since I first saw it about 17 years ago, and it has not lost its potency. I realized two things about this movie that I either didn't know or didn't remember.

1. They were splitting up. The marriage was going nowhere and both had been unfaithful. Yet when Henry got shot, Sarah stayed. She stayed by him. And I could see it in her face that she had wanted to leave and now couldn't. I'm not even sure if Annette Bening was attempting to show that, but I saw it. She couldn't leave. And it was pretty freaking beautiful. It would have been somewhat easier to leave, except for the kid, but she stayed. But it was weird noticing for the first time, the look on her face, first of desperation, then determination.

2. Bill Nunn called Henry "Hank." I never realized it. Ever. I should have, obviously, being that Henry is my dad's name, and he's been called Hank since he was a junior in high school (it was Butch before that, for some damn reason).

My dad died last Monday. I keep staring at that sentence, trying to figure out how I got here. I haven't cried, I haven't moped, I haven't so much as stared at the wall. Last week I drove 1500 miles, and I kept my mind off of it by listening to books on tape. I methodically drove all over the southeast collecting my dad's things and setting his affairs in order, and now it's Tuesday and I'm back in my mundane life and he's just gone. They keep saying he's in a better place, but honestly I don't know that. I know he believed in God, and I asked him if he had been praying, which he said he was. I guess, since I didn't have the guts to flat out ask him, I'm just going to have to hope and pray that he repented and sought God.

Death has never really bothered me. I am shocked and saddened when I lose family and friends, but I don't think I have ever grieved someone. I think that I live my life so completely self-centered that losing someone only frees up more time for myself. Am I exaggerating? Maybe. I don't think so. Who knows?

I do know that, regarding my father, I could have been a better son, and he could have been a better dad. And he fucked up his life. But in the end, he made peace with me and his other kids. And I'm going to believe he made peace with God.

Henry Callier Steed, III
Jan 20, 1945 - Feb 18, 2008

The "C" Word

This made me laugh so hard tonight, and I needed that. It's an excerpt from 30 Rock.

-----------------------------------------------------
Pete and Frank are sitting in the studio talking as Liz walks up.

Frank: ...in season five, when Delta was really packing it on? Glorious.
Liz enters.
Liz: We need to fire Lutz.
Pete: What? Why? what happened?
Liz: He called me the worst name ever.
Frank: What did he call you?
Liz: I'm not gonna repeat it. That's how much I hate it.
Pete: Fat can?
Liz: No.
Frank: Mouth Hooker.
Liz: No.
Frank: Monster bitch.
Pete: Hatchet face.
Liz: NO. (Sigh) The one that rhymes with the name of your favorite Todd Rundgren album.
Frank: (Thinking) ...It rhymes with Hermit of Mink Hollow?
-------------------------------------------------

the radness

I stole this from Kristen, who stole it from Bree, who stole it from the interweb.

1. First.
The first article title on the page is the name of your band. (Let me 'splain...no, es too much. Lemme sum up. Click on that link, and a random wiki page will come up, and you are supposed to take THAT title as the name of your band.)

2. Next.
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album. (Again, look at the last quote on the page and take the last four words)

3. Then.
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. (This one is self 'splanatory.)

4. Last.
Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result as a comment in this post. Also, pass it along in your own journal because it's more amusing that way.

Mine is the awesomeness. I present "Habits of Human Beings," by Ojili.















also, i'm hurting inside because rodger commented on kristen's blog and not mine. he NEVER comments on my blog. i AM a comment whore.

ANYwho. my album cover is the pineapply goodness.

ps - major mad props go to kristen, who PAINstakingly crafted my album cover, because i suck at the computer. her prowess and professionalism are a testament to her innate ability to create masterpieces of art. (good, kflix?)