Red Eye

This was a very busy yet exciting past weekend. First off, Rosie came for a visit! Rosie is a very good friend of Megan and I so it was amazing to have her here in Burlington with us. We gave her epic tours of our campuses and the city of Burlington, and hopefully we transmitted our love of Burlington to her.

Chillin' in Space!

Then Saturday night was the kick off meeting for the UPlayers Red Eye Festival! We had about twenty participants this year which made five groups, one group doing a monologue. It was so much fun, and it was really weird being on the officer side of things this year compared to last year when I was just a member of the group. I wrote one of the plays. Mine was called The Adventures of Sassy Gay Friend. It was based off of the hilarious Sassy Gay Friend videos on Youtube only I based all the shows Sassy Gay Friend visits on the shows we did at UVM this past season, and Rebecca Black, and Frankenstein just for funsies. The whole show was awesome. Congratulations UPlayers! You can watch all of the plays at the UPlayers Tumblr page.

Here was our awesome group! Alice, Gina, Zak, and me!

Peace out!

Hair. Hair. Crazy Hair.

Here are some spectacular updates or what's going on in my life:

1. I'M PRETTY STRESSED OUT but so isn't everybody around this time of the semester so I'll just skip over that one.

2. It's off! This happened awhile ago during Spring Break but I haven't gotten a chance to blog about it but all the hair I grew for Twelfth Night got cut off! Finally! I feel (and personally I think I look) much better.

Before

After

3. I got a new job! Yes folks, I got a new job for this upcoming summer. I am one of eight new Conference Assistants working at Conference and Event Services here at UVM. I get free housing during the summer and get to stay and work right here in Burlington! It's kind of like a dream come true. I'm so excited and the job is something that I'm really going to love doing, which is important. Megan is also going to be staying in Burlington during the summer working full time at Career Services at Champlain so you know there are going to be awesome adventures happening this summer. Stay tuned.

4. St. Patrick's Day and the UVM campus is normal. Everyone is going about their day, although everyone is looking a tad greener than usual. Then, on the steps of Royall Tyler Theatre, a figure emerges holding bagpipes with a group around him. It is Orion Lay-Sleeper, star of Twelfth Night, and yes...he stands on the front steps of the theatre and busts out some pipes.

It was awesome. (just sayin')

Okay, that is all for now.

Peace out!

There's A Squirrel In The Car!

This story begins with my last post and the gigantic snow storm that terrorized Vermont last week. That morning when my dad woke me up at five in the morning to dig his car out but just ended up taking my mom's car was the beginning of another horror. My dad brought a little friend with him to work, a squirrel to be exact. I can't really disclose why the squirrel came with him to work (I'm sworn to secrecy), but it did.

And somehow the squirrel got loose in the car.

My dad said the squirrel was going to jump out of the car, saw the epic blizzard of nasty poop outside, and ran back into the car. My dad searched the car, but couldn't find the pesky critter. He opened all the doors, and hopefully let the squirrel out, right?

Fast-forward a day. I'm up at Lyndon State College where my mom works to use my computer because we're in the sticks of Lyndonville, and at my house there is no internet. You know my woes. Anyway, my mom gets off work, and I decide to stay and use the computer for another hour. One second later, my mom is standing in the doorway:

"RYAN, YOU NEED TO SKIP STAYING..."


"What?"


"YOU NEED TO SKIP STAYING AND HELP ME. GUESS WHO'S IN THE CAR?"


"Who?"


"THE SQUIRREL!!!!!!!"


"WHAT!?!?!?!"

"I GO OUT TO THE CAR AND IT'S SITTING ON THE DAMN CONSOLE SUNNING ITSELF!!!!!!!!!!!"


We rush out to the parking lot where my mom had opened all the doors and the trunk hatch in an attempt to let the squirrel out. We try to look around the car and inside to find the beast, but all we find is squirrel poop. My mom is SCREAMING this entire time as I start laughing my ASS off. I laugh so hard that tears start pouring from my eyes and I almost puke on the pavement. My favorite moment of the search was when we thought the squirrel had gotten inside the glove box, so I quickly threw it open, and my mom shrieked a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream.

There was nothing there.

In a last resort, we drive the car home (panicky mind you, that the squirrel is going to jump out at us at any minute, my mom is still screaming), leave it in the driveway, open everything up again, and let our cats outside to roam around and hopefully chase the varmint out of the car. About fifteen minutes later, I look outside and see both cats inside the car and a squirrel running away. It was gone.

All I could think to myself was, oh my God, we rode in the car with the squirrel...

Peace out!

Megan's Birthday Blizzard

It rolled in like a drunken rager on a Saturday night in Burlington. It was The Great Blizzard of March 2011. Right at the beginning of spring break last week, a giant snowstorm engulfed Vermont, sending four feet of snow our way. It was also Megan's 21st birthday on Monday, the day the sky pooped a million pounds of snow. As Megan put it, Mother Nature totally stole her thunder.

The house was almost buried in snow.

I had to trudge through all of this to get to the deck to shovel it. I sunk  into it up to my hip. Awesome.

My Monday began at five in the morning when my dad woke me up to help him dig his car out of the driveway so he could get to work. Apparently when my mom tried to go to work at four in the morning, her car got stuck at the end of the driveway so my dad went out and snow blowed the driveway out while my mom walked in the crap to work. After over half an hour, we still couldn't get his car out of the driveway so he dug out my mom's car and took that to work.

Yeah, this storm was that intense.

There were some silver linings to this giant storm, however. One of which was that Megan got a new (used) car for her birthday!

Look at that, she's totally a proud owner. Megan named her Space because it totally looks like a space car. Two doors with a secret third door in the back. And a sunroof. Score.

Also, Megan's mom and gram took us on a road trip to go shopping and to Foxwoods resort and casino. We had some fun on the car ride down:

I think what stunned me the most about Foxwoods was how it was in the middle of nowhere. It was especially interesting when the GPS told us to drive the car off the freeway in order to get there. We went to the casino and ate at Fudrucker's (a name which is very easy to turn into an induendo) and ate fantastic gelato (WAY better than normal ice cream). Then Megan and I had a fun swim in the pool. Then Megan's mom found a knife under the sofa bed in our room and we went to bed. Totally normal.

There was a shower cap in the room. Sexy!

In the morning we traveled to Mohegan Sun for an amazing, and the MOST EPIC BREAKFAST BUFFET ever. I had a cute little Asian lady make me an omlette.

"What you want on your omlette hun?!?!"

"I'll have bacon, tomato, and onion."

"Hokay! How much cheese you want!? Little or a lot?!?!"

It was a fun trip, and no one lost too much money, so I would say it was successful. Now we're back in Burlington, and Space was able to make the trip back. Time for some more excellent adventures in Btown and with the new member of the family, Space the space car! Happy Birthday Megan!

Peace out!

Eden, Kate, and Jill Went Up A Hill

The tumultuous snowstorm that we had yesterday here in Burlington was a symbol---no, it was a metaphor---of the crazy, most intense day from Hell I had yesterday. It started with English class which went well despite almost falling asleep because it's at 8:30 in the morning and totally boring. Then at breakfast, my mom called me from Florida where my parents have been living the life going to Disney World, seeing my aunt and uncle, going to shows, and now going to see my grandparents. Completely jealous. Although I shouldn't really talk seeing how Megan and I already had our epic Florida adventure. Then I went to turn in this application for a job opportunity I'm pursuing here in Burlington for the summer. I'm not talking about it too much because I don't want to build too much hype just in case it doesn't work out. But if I do a fantastic interview, then there might be a beautiful chance. So anyway, this snowstorm was crazy. It was like a hurricane with snow, so much snow that you almost couldn't even open your eyes when you walked outside. I'm braving the crazy elements getting blown around and looking like a crazed snow beast when I finally find the building where I have to turn in the application. I'm trying to shake the snow off, but it's not really amounting to much so I just take the application out and walk into the office. A guy comes out of the office that totally looks like a college student. I thought maybe he was work study but then he introduced himself as the guy who I've been talking to this whole time about the job. It threw me way off. Not what I was expecting.

Then I went to work for more crazy times because these patrons can be CRAZY. Plus, I was trying to coordinate Chase, Lissy, and Avery to come to the show tonight and Lissy had to exchange her tickets, adding to the mass. And the snow made a ton of people come in late, but overall it worked out fine. After work I was rushing to fix my time card and put my hours in because I had to go to Redstone Campus for Catamount Singers, about twenty minutes away. I book it over there and walk into the classroom which was dark and noone was there, which was odd. I took my coat off, turned the lights on, and stood there. Then I remembered: Cat Singers was rehearsing in Ira Allen Chapel on Central Campus today because we're singing at an event. RUN! I sprinted through crazy snow, slush, and people to make it to Ira Allen Chapel on time. I actually made it seconds before we started rehearsing.......Thank you God.....

This was the event we sang for that same afternoon. Megan came to hear us sing, and the place was PACKED. The man, Cornel West, was really cool. He's my new homeboy. I liked what he had to say, but the whole time I was freaking out because he went WAY over time and my call for Twelfth Night was at 6. Another RUN moment happened after this show. It was amazing that I made it on time to everything yesterday.

This whole week has been sort of crazy, but totally fun. Eden came and stayed at The Q with Megan and I this past weekend. I missed her so much! She came to the show and we watched horror movies until late into the night and had an epic slumber party. Just like high school times. Very fun. That girl just brings sunshine wherever she goes. After she left, Megan and I just felt so sad because she wasn't with us anymore. But I am so proud of her because she is doing so well and creating a beautiful life for herself. Love you darling!

Jill and Kate, my beautiful friends from Lyndon, came to Btown Tuesday afternoon to stay with me until Friday. Kate is probably going to be coming to UVM next year (a fact I am very excited about) so they came to check out Burlington and UVM. Unfortunately, UVM parking hated Jill's car and the size of my closet room made sleeping arrangements a little difficult but somehow we figured it out. They came to show along with Joe and Kat, which made for an excellent night. I was so happy they were there staying with me. We all cried when they had to leave, and I miss them.

Now it's closing weekend for Twelfth Night, and things on that front are winding down. It has been an awesome run, and I'm sad for it to be over but I'm also ready to experience this semester without Twelfth Night as well. The added time to my schedule is going to be amazing. Maybe I can actually take my time with homework.

Closing weekend.

Peace out!

My Birthday

In case any of you didn't know, and I honestly can't find anyway you wouldn't know I mean, jeez...it was my 19th birthday this past weekend, and it was a pretty amazing birthday weekend at that. My birthday this year really revealed the love that exists in my life and really just how beautiful life can be. It all started last week when Megan came and spent a couple nights with me at Converse which hasn't happened in a long time. Of course, this happened while Twelfth Night was finishing its last rehearsals before tech so it got a little crazy so by Friday night, I was pooped and I got even more pooped after a long rehearsal that night. But it was a good kind of pooped, obviously.

Cast, crew, and orchestra photo!

Saturday made up for all the poopedness. After sleeping in which was wonderful, and much needed, Megan and I took the bus to Williston to go watch No Strings Attached which was actually a really good movie.

It's really weird because Natalie Portman is in like a million movies recently. It's like her agent was on crack when they scheduled her for all of these movies...

Anyway, back on topic: so we had a really good time watching the movie when we decided we were so hungry we could eat like a baby dinosaur so we went to Chili's for lunch! It was soooooooooooo good! Perfect birthday meal seriously. So then after going to Toy's R Us (see post It's the Little Things) and after going to PetSmart to look at puppies, kittens, birds, and fish, we walked through a snow tornado, took the bus, and went back to the Q to do homework.

As if that wasn't enough, the next day was tech day for Twelfth Night so that means a 9-9 day. I got to the theater a little earlier than everyone else so I was just chilling in the green room when all of a sudden everyone comes in and starts singing Happy Birthday to me. It was kind of amazing. Then at our lunch break, I'm just sitting there eating pizza when all of a sudden my friend Kendra brings over this cake and announces my birthday. I freak out 1) because I love being surprised with cakes and 2) the cake was in the shape of Doctor Who's TARDIS. If you don't know what that is, that's okay. A lot of people don't, but it made my day.

Then everyone said happy birthday to me and we finished the tech. It was such a fantastic day. How I described it at the time was that I was overwhelmed with love. I think that's the perfect way to describe this birthday. Thank you to everyone for making it so special and thanks to Megan for my amazing birthday presents and a beautiful day. I love you!

And now, tonight is the night! Opening night! Hope you all come out to see the show! Here's my hair:

Opening Night

Peace out!

It's The Little Things

and then we went on a little trip to Toys 'R Us...

It's Barbie's black friends!

Slutty Barbie waits for Ken to come home...

Megan is a Stormtrooper.

Beyblades! Jake I used to love to play with these!

These stuffed animals sang different pitches when you pressed them. and their mouths moved. Weird.

I wanna drive this around!

The Biebs loves to be played with by small children...

It's the small things that entertain us. Happy Birthday to me! (Tomorrow)

Peace out!