The Year in Review Part 1

To start off, I want to wish everyone a great and wonderful and glorious and joyful...

2007!!!!
Happy New Year!!!

So, here's a review of 2006 for all of you. This should be especially interesting because I hadn't started writing this blog yet.

The story really begins in 2005, so I'll give a brief overview of that...got a boyfriend, came out to my parents, things were going but beginning to get rocky. In theater news, I'd done Twelfth Night, and my first one act festival (impressing all of my professors as the Inner Man in "Double Take") at my college and had begun touring in my college's production of Pinocchio -- a script which we, the cast, had helped to write.

-I performed Pinocchio near Philadelphia...the cast is still one of the most closely bonded groups of people I ever encountered and I love them all to death no matter what. :) We celebrated New Year's Eve together (minus the couple of people that went to New York City but we love you gals anyways) and watched Blue Lagoon, my first (and last, I hope) exposure to turtle porn. :-P
(The picture is of myself and a castmate in our dressing room. I don't remember what we were doing but it sure looks bad. :-P)

-I met the boy who would soon become my second boyfriend, a nd my introduction to drag culture as he was adrag queen...(dun dun DUN!)

-I broke up with my very first boyfriend Rick shortly after New Year's Eve. I handled doing so poorly, and karma would kick my ass for breaking that wonderful guy's heart in the not-too-distant future. As much as I regret the way it happened, I don't regret doing it. It simply would never have worked.

-I invited the future boyfriend to come to a party the cast had just before we went home for the end of our winter break. He got shitfaced and I had to feed him pretzel sticks.

-On January 10th, I became official with my second ever boyfriend. This is a day that will live in infamy for my poor judgement.

-In the next month, I performed in my second one act festival as Jack Wilkins in "The Lottery". I also lost my virginity, drank for the first times, made tons of new friends (which was good because I was alienating the old ones), got into clubs for free for the first times, and attended more drag shows than I care to remember. Pinocchio was also still touring. Oh, yeah, there were some classes in there. My friends were constantly telling me how much they didn't like my new boyfriend, and I ignored them although everything they said (complaints about how he treated me, and everyone else, for instance) were completely legitimate. I managed to convince myself I was in love. The emotional abuse I was taking though, in retrospect, was incredibly unhealthy and it's no wonder I've become such a jaded bitch.
(The picture is of myself as Jack Wilkins (except with badly done make up) sitting in a chair in the green room during the Spring 2006 one act festival!)

-During the weekend before Valentines Day, the boyfriend and I broke up over a massive argument partially instigated by his friends but mostly instigated by his refusal to use condoms and my agreement to go along with it. Oh, and the fact that his ex-boyfriend was found out to be HIV+. Anyways, long story short, I got shitfaced drunk at a friend's 21st birthday party, and spent the next week holed up in my room. My three best female friends in Pennsylvania (who, combined with myself, make up the Quad) and my roommate kept me company. Meanwhile, the entire rest of the school, including people I'd never met, were outraged that someone had hurt me so badly. I would later hear from an uncountable number of people that if the ex ever set foot on our campus they would beat him dead. I can't say I objected.
(The Quad is pictured here, although the picture is from much later in the year.)

-On Valentine's Day, I emerged from my room for the only time other than meals and classes that week to go to an anti-V-Day get together with some very close friends. While I was there, the ex drunk dialed me. Next, my mom called say hi and to let me know that my dad was in the hospital after mysteriously passing out at one of his rehearsals. It was not a good night.

-I entered what we called "the Ricochet" phase. Although I didn't have any actual sex until my first HIV test came back negative, I definitely earned a reputation as a slut during this time.

-As a scheme for revenge against the ex, I entered the Mr. Shimmer 2006 pageant. I lip synced the song "Bad Touch" by the Bloodhound Gang for my talent, and I came in second out of three. That was all I needed to be triumphant though, the contestant my ex was helping out came in third. Both other contestants became part of the Ricochet as well, and believe me that was going to complicate things further down the line. After the pageant, some of my formerly alienated friends and I ate at the diner near our campus and the event will live on in infamy for the rest of our lives.
(Left: Me performing "Bad Touch". This picture is probably the most popular of the pictures from the pageant, but there's plenty on Facebook. Right: Me at the diner showing off my lovely lady lumps...I guess.)

-April Fool's Day came around. My roommate Shawn set forth a challenge betting various people on the floor that they couldn't prank him, so when he went out for the night we moved his bed, closet, dresser, desk, computer, and all the rest of his furniture and belongings out into the dorm's lounge and set up a bedroom for him there. That same night I met Cody, and asked him to dance. Later, I not-so-gracefully slipped my phone number in his jacket pocket. When I came back from the club, Shawn had gotten his revenge. My bed had been dismantled and placed in two neat piles with the matress leaning up against the wall. All of my drawers were in a pile on the floor. Too tired to do anything about it, I put the matress on the floor and went to bed -- but not before getting a text message from Cody. He and I hung out the next day.
(There's really no explanation for the picture on the left. It's from March, I like it. :-P On the right is a very bad picture of me at the club, and Cody's arm behind me. :-P)

-And so began the Cody saga, a tale of the two of us toeing the line of dating for months. Finally, after I'd gone home for the summer, we gave up, had a massive fight, and then settled on being best friends.

-The school's theater club went on a trip to New York City, which I almost missed thanks to clubbing the night before! I spent the time with some of my Pinocchio cast mates (the show was still touring, by the way), and my other theater friends, and a very sore throat I thought nothing of. We had tickets to see two shows, I was with the half of the group that went to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and I feel absolutely in love with the show.
(Two of my friends and I at the restaurant we had lunch at that day! The guy really isn't creepy, I promise! :-P)

-During the Cody saga, I made an excursion into the realm of group sex with my two friends Chris and Matt. I also entertained the possibility of a relationship with my friend Adam, but quashed that idea fairly quickly.

-Also, there was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I decided to co-stage manage. It was a nightmare on it's own, but tech week was the worst. I woke up to a phone call, our lead actress (who was also one of my best friends) had had her appenix burst. Tech week was littered with other (less severe) injuries, but the show went off without a hitch except for a couple nosebleeds.
(One of our actors posing while his character talks about erotic pottery...)

I'm going to pass out for a bit. As soon as I wake up, I'll finish up with part 2!