Category Archives: The Basics

So opening night Friday went off without a hitch–except both my costars were sick.  Sick-sick.  Hacking coughing Typhoid Mary sick.  The gal who played Molly hacked her way through the whole performance.   There were a few blunders but for the most part, everything went well.  Until Saturday.

I knew we were in trouble when I walked into the dressing area and saw the director getting dressed in Molly’s costume.   Molly had become so sick, she couln’t talk so the director was going to be the understudy.  I was panic stricken at first but then I went into an overwhelming sense of calm.  This was so out of my hands that I was just…not going to think about. 

We made it through the play with only a few of those awkward blank spots when no one knows what to say and a few of those, “so off cue that no one knows where to pick up” moments. 

Yeah, those are always fun.

Also, about a nano second before I was supposed to go up and start the show with my welcome-welcome speech (I play the Emcee–in a white tux–as well as two other characters), I was slammed with a sudden stomach churning, gut wrenching, immediate urge to shit.  

I was really tired so I drank a lot of coffee before I got there and it hit me all at once.  As my dearly departed friend Tony used to say, “Ahhh, yes, the coffeeshit.”  If you’re a coffee drinker, it’s self explanatory. 

There I was in the teeny tiny bathroom within earshot of the entire audience (who’s patiently waiting for the curtain) giving birth to God knows what and hoping that running the faucet would somehow mask the methane explosions coming out of my…well, you know what I mean.

And for my next trick. . .

So we have a matinee performance this afternoon.  I’m ambivalent about Typhoid Molly coming back.  Do I want to hold my breath, bathe in a vat of Purell, take massive doses of vitamin C and Echinacea or go onstage and execute a random what-the-fuck-are-they-doing-up-there display of bad high school play community theater?

Can’t I just stay home?

Hello.  Cobban is not in right now.  Please leave a message and he’ll get right back to you.  Beeeeeep…

I’m on autopilot.  Thank God for that whole fight or flight thing.  Without that built in defense/survival system, I don’t know how I’d be getting through these past few weeks.  The only problem is that I can’t tell if I’m fighting or flying.  Am I throwing punches or just flapping my wings?  All I know is I’m not home right now and you’ll just have to leave a message. 

The county website launches April 1st and the play I’m in debuts tonight.  Aside from some other miscellaneous mental clutter, I’m about one shock treatment away from a frontal lobotomy. 

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I did something unheard of in a time of stress; I left work at 3:00 and turned my brain off to the world.   When Ray and I got home, we both showered, put on shorts and broke out the flip flops.  It was the Vernal Equinox–the first day of my favorite half of the year.  This is the time of long sunny days and warm–if not hot–weather.  It was so nice to sit on the back porch and chat with my Ray.  You know what made it even better?  Jimbo was there!  He was visiting Homer in Tucson from DC and drove down for an afternoon.  Jimbo is smart, adorable and he makes me laugh which is just what I needed.  We just lounged in the sun and chatted, went in a little mini hike (more like a walk through the desert grass) and then after the sunset, Ray made a yummy pasta dish. 

Thanks for stopping by Jimbo!

So now it’s Friday.  Opening night is tonight.  There is only one more week left until the launch of the new county website.  My shoulders are scrunching up as I write this.  All I can do is take a deep breath and hold my head up and walk right into it.  Wish me luck.

After a long day of work and rehearsals, I came home and flopped down on the couch.  Ray looked at me square in the eye and said, “There is a mistake on your blog.  It’s Karmann Ghia not Carmengia.”

Apparently, enough people have posted enough Carmengias on the Internet to make Google ask, “Did you mean Carmengia?” when I searched for Carman Gia.

Now that we have that cleared up, let’s take another look at this classic car and remember; Designers are important.

Even the logo is bitchen’

Homer had a little Easter Eggy decoration get-together tonight.  Ray and I made the trip down to Tucson to join in the fun.  As usual, Homer had several creative fun loving people there. 

Ray and I chatted, ate yummy food (there’s this rage-inducing lemon meringue thing going on) and enjoyed the good company. 

Homer went to the trouble of hiding a ton of those little plastic eggs in his yard.  We had an Easter egg hunt!  In the rain.  OK, so it wasn’t really rainy but it was drizzly.  I’m such a whimp with the cooler weather.

One of my little plastic eggs had a number in it.  It was kind of like a lottery.  I won a kiddie fishing pole!  It was made in China.  Better not suck on the little plastic peices.  I could get lead poisoning.

Homer always has such fun parties and he’s a great host.  It was well worth the trip there–with the exception that it was totally snowing most of the way home.   Traffic on I-10 slowed down to a crawl.  That sucked–especially ’cause I was driving.

I had forgotten that Easter was around the corner.  I guess it’s because my mind is focused on the play and my project at work.  Ray has been a very good sport reading lines with me.  I hope I don’t fuck up my lines.  I hope I don’t fuck up the website.  I hope I don’t…I need to calm down or I’ll never sleep until next July.

The ultimate highlight of the party was getting to see Jimbo in person again.  He’s here visiting Homer.  I met Jimbo online and he e-troduced (I couldn’t resist) me to Homer.  Jimbo got me interested in blogging and then after reading Homer’s blog, I decided to try it myself.  They’re my blogspiration.  Really.

I heart Jimbo and Homer.  Ray and I are glad to know them.  Jimbo makes me laugh because he’s a total 80’s music geek like me.  I feel like the bee girl when I read how much he loves Duran Duran and Xanadu. 

It’s great to be home after driving 90 miles in the snow.  I’m going to bed!

OK, I’ve had a long day,  work from 6:30 to 4:30, an hour of running lines for the play, three hours of rehearsal and a couple of hours to relax with my guitar…and a teeny tiny bit of Vodka.  I got bored so I got all Google happy.  I Googled lopakalounge and after clicking on a few recognizable sites of which I am affiliated with, I came across this tidbit on  www.queerfilter.com.  “Lopaka Lounge Description: A partnered fortyish urban-bred gay man with a high sex drive tries to figure out the secret to rural living in the high Arizona desert”

I honestly can’t remember if I wrote that or not.  It’s far too accurate and clever a description to have thought it up on my own.  Perhaps I was having a fleeting moment of brilliance. . .

. . . or perhaps some automated web bot thingie complied the information based on whatever I have posted out to the Internet. 

Google responsibly.

Countdown…less than one month until the launch of the new Cochise County website.  I don’t sleep much anymore.  I’m moody and totally *freaked out by minor details and sudden unexpected obstacles.  My former coworker at Zefer, Holly Blankstein, referred to those types of things as an “added layer of complexity”.

I am a designer before I am a web developer–which drives IT people up the wall–it drives most people up the wall.  Brian, you totally know what I’m talking about, “That dropdown menu is 2 pixels lower on the nav bar in Firefox than it is in IE–dammit!  We can’t go live yet! I want beta testing on all platforms!”

I am quite capable in the technical aspect of web development but wont sit still for substandard design.  I am a visual engineer and deserve respect. 

DIV TAGS–NOT TABLES!!  YOU’RE USING COMIC SANS?  NOT ON MY SITE!!!

Am I showing signs of cracking?  No!  I just refuse to settle.  Could you imagine Michelangelo’s David if he was all, “Whatever man, that looks cool.”

Here’s the most fucked up thing about being a good designer, the better you are at what you do, the more people think it was easy.  If you do something really well, it’s seamless.  Transparent.  If you do something mediocre, you’re screwed.  Do plastic surgeons deal with this?  No.  If a plastic surgeon does a great job, he or she gets rich and sometimes famous.  If a designer does a good job he or she gets, “We need a logo!”  Expected for free no less because we just have this string coming out of our ass that you simply pull and logos fall out.  It’s most embarrasing going through airport security. 

My former IT boss at the county called me the “Earth Tone Guy” because he thought what I did was easy, like staying within the lines in a coloring book.  I hated that (although I really was rather fond of him).   I hate that people think designers, “Make it pretty”.

Fuck you and yer pretty!  We make it awesome and appealing.  You know why they brought back the VW Bug and the MINI Cooper?  Classic design!  You can’t go wrong with the classics. 

 Why doesn’t Volkswagen bring back the Carmengia?

Talk about a classic!  Someday when car companies run out of ideas again the Carmengia will get another chance and I’ll buy one.  Or maybe I’ll win the lotto and be able to buy a restored one.  I’ll drive it around Southern Arizona with a big white scarf…

I’m wishin’ and hopin’ that I’ll someday we’ll get the respect and acknowledgement that we, as visual engineers, make a difference.  Let me tell you folks, if it looks really  cool, simple, elegant and evokes an emotional response…there was a talented designer behind it. 

I’m rambling.   I better go to bed now–so I can lay awake all night and ponder the best way to format my navigation scheme so that it’s optimized for all users.  Who am I kidding?  I’m not going to sleep until May.

*freaked out means that I’m consumed by my project–it doesn’t mean that I’m in need of intervention or that I can’t handle it.