Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast

My mother tried to kill me when I was a baby. She denied it. She said she thought the plastic bag would keep me fresh. - Bob Monkhouse OK, so I MAY have said that my next post would be about the holidays. Sure, every post so far has proved contrary, but that does not make me a liar. I'm up in the AM on a Saturday because 1. I have to go to work at 12, and 2. because my mother is coming to visit me sometime this morning. A friend of ours in Columbus had a baby, and while she was in Ohio, Mom decided to come say hi and to see Mice and Men. She's supposed to be here any time between now and 12, so I'm frantically trying to clean/warm up my apartment so that she doesn't think I've been living like some kind of crazy messy cold person. Wish me luck.

Finally, the German Puppet Zombie Western We've All Been Waiting For

21 degrees farenheight, but "RealFeel" is -1

There comes a time in a man's life when he realizes that he has to turn on the gas in order to survive. So, in honor of surviving I write to you, friends and stalkers. The topic for today is, What has Trey been doing? More specifically, What has Trey been doing for food? The obvious answer would be using the skills he learned as a Boyscout and foraging in the back yard for squirrels and pine nuts. But contrary to logic, I have been working instead. Since the AT&T Atmosphere fiasco, I have returned to The PlayHouse to continue my illustrious career as a "member of the production staff" (as I put on my resume). My first show there was Christmas Story, which you already knew... But I'm going to actually tell you about it. Christmas Story was much fun. It made me really regret my time away from the PlayHouse (not to mention the increasing financial burden "Atmosphere" turned out to be, but more on that later). As you may or may not know, I really don't like kids. Much less child actors. I had the worst assumptions going into this show that you could possibly have. I thought by the end of it I would hate Christmas on the whole and that I would have at least scheduled a vasectomy. On the contrary, I really enjoyed my time with them. They were smart little buggers and most of them were cool. My favorites were between the "smart girl" (I'm talking about characters here) who spent most of her time knitting and being adorable, the "lead kid" who the other kids didn't really like that much so bonded with me, the "bully" who was as mean as his character and therefore delightfully wicked, and the understudy, who was a tiny scrawny white kid who said the phrase "Playa Hata'" way too many times. This was a cast that was particularly bond-worthy. Sometimes you get the uppity, angry-at-the-world, the-only-gig-they-can-get-is-in-effing-Cleveland. That was not so with these people. The Dad is a local Clevelander, a great storyteller, and a fan of Guinness. Pretty much everyone was friendly on top of being professional and were very nice to work with / drink with after the show. The show itself went really well. i think I like it better than the movie. It has more heart and well-rounded characters. It was not easy. There are many shows that you just kind of set up and let go. This one I was constantly doing something: spinning a sconce, turning on the smoke machine, flying snowflakes in and out, moving an entire schoolroom (with children on it), making that school room look like a tree lot (as quietly as possible), and handing out cocaine to the little ones (that one is a lie). I really only had 7 minutes of sitting. But it kept me on my toes. The stage manager was a trip. And not the good kind like you get from stale portabellos. It was like tripping over an electric fence and landing in a sewage refinery. Yeah, not a fan. First of all, the man has a horrible stutter. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about people with this disability. They are certainly as intelligent as the next person, they just have trouble expressing themselves. My trouble starts when the main part of their job is TALKING IN MY EAR! He couldn't call cues on time, he called them different every time, he tried to shift the blame onto the run crew, and was generally unlikeable on every professional level. On a personal level: he would turn on his com and leave it on the entire show. So when he wasn't stumbling through his calls, he was chewing on Now and Laters and breathing through his nose IN MY EAR!!! Then there is the certain run crew member who just stood around watching you. This was disconcerting on two levels. 1. It is one of my biggest in-the-office pet peeves for someone to stand/sit and just watch you do something that they clearly could and should be helping you do. 2. He's creepy. He has a child-molester beard and all the social graces of Sweeney Todd. But overall it was a truly enjoyable experience that compelled me to continue working there on the next show: Of Mice and Men. That's going on now. Well, not RIGHT now... at least I hope not... No. Mice and Men isn't quite as fun as Christmas Story, but I like it a lot. The material is so compelling that even after 4 weeks of performances I still tear up at the end (if I feel like watching). The actors are decent. Lenny is amazing, a better retard than what's-his-face in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. The downside is that they are the people that assume you're beneath them because they're "ACTORS!" But I love the people I'm working with and I've yet to grow tired of the show. There are a lot of performances, so I'm getting more hours and they serve us breakfast before every student matinee. But speaking of student matinees, I hate kids again. There's nothing more offensive to me than rude people in the theatre. Nomatter what crap you're watching, pull yourself together for a couple of hours, will ya? These kids talk through the entire show, then they laugh at the most inappropriate moments. It makes me want to bleed from the ears, these kids. We have about two weeks of performances left, then I will (regrettably) be looking for work elsewhere. There's simply too much off time between this and the next show. I've actually signed up with a temp agency, and they seem relatively excited about my abilities. So I'm looking forward to having steady hours, regular paychecks, nights and weekends. But I am going to miss backstage. I feel this post ended abruptly. But that's okay because I feel like my posts look longer with the slimmer column that accompanies the new format. But I like the format too much to change it now. Tune in next time for my reflections on my Holiday season.

If You do not Let Me Gut out this House and Make it My Own I am Going Insane and I am TAKING YOU WITH ME!!!

Oh my God! Where am I? What's going on? I've come up with a new template. I do hope you like it. I'm pretty sure I do. Perhaps it will motivate me to spend some time here. Fill you in on what's most important: me.

Tag! Body Spray!

Do not think for a moment that I'm proud of that title. I just opened Word to see if I spelled “atrocious” correctly. I did. So continuing with that theme (that theme being typing) I have decided to update my blog. I got an email the other day from my dear dear friend Beth. In it was the phrase, “hope we catch up sometime.” That cut me to the quick (though, on the bright side, I now know where my quick is). I’ve been getting similar messages across the board, and have been stifling the guilt for becoming uncharacteristically withdrawn. But I finally realized that my college friends could very easily become like my highschool friends (i.e. people I don’t care about) and I desperately don’t want that to happen. So this post, friends, shall serve as my promise to you to be a better friend. This will include more updates on “Sighings,” as well as personal correspondence! So look forward to a better Trey and a brighter tomorrow. To commemorate this occasion, I shall do that thing people told me to do via tag. FIVE THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT ME (AND YOU WERE PROBABLY BETTER OFF NOT KNOWING ANYWAY) 1. I was obsessed with Legos as a child. They were the pined for Christmas gift every year. I think I stopped asking for them sometime in highschool. I never wanted to play with them, though. They were to be constructed and displayed. The End. When I left for college and my parents were turning my bedroom into a guest room (never really happened) I took my fully assembled Legos and placed them carefully in the attic. 2. I cannot eat shrimp cocktail. I love shrimp. I love shrimp scampi, popcorn shrimp, fried shrimp, shrimp skewers, etc. (The ‘etc.’ is in lieu of a long Forrest Gump quote that I didn’t feel like looking up.) It’s a texture thing for me. Cold + Shrimp = Gag Reflux. 3. I have a goatee because an orthodontist once told me that I had a weak chin and recommended that or mentoplasty. He wasn’t even my orthodontist. 4. When I was little, I could be occupied by playing with water. For hours. Sure, I did it in the kiddie pool and in the bathtub. That is somewhat normal. What isn’t normal is that I would periodically go into the bathroom, fill up the sink, and splash around. This is even stranger if you take into consideration my intense fear of swimming. 5. I was very excited when I found the OKGO treadmill video on YouTube, thinking that I’d stumbled across a tiny indie band that only I could truly appreciate. Then I found out they did that dance at the effing VMA’s before I’d even heard of them. I still like them, though. Very much

Why hasn't Trey updated?

I'm not sure how to put this. I'm kind of a big deal. Perhaps now you understand why I'm very busy. I’m flipping through the channels, because after weeks of going without TV, I’ve remembered that there is an antenna attached to my television. It took me a while to come to this realization. I went through my entire DVD collection. Twice. I missed new episodes of “LOST” and “Heroes.” It’s either daytime TV or the news. (Dr. Phil doesn’t come in clearly. There’s this horrible hissing sound). I start watching the news because air traffic was making it look like something serious was going on. There are all kinds of exciting fonts and tense voices. But after a couple minutes of my undivided attention, all they’ve said of several major highways is the word, “typical.” Before the commercial break, the anchor tells me that someone has stolen the Baby Jesus from a nativity scene somewhere in town. [This is the part where I wonder why the heck someone still has a glowing nativity scene in their yard, but then I look at my Christmas tree sparkling in the corner] Unsatisfied, I flip to “Bernie Mac.” Don’t ask me why. I knew I wouldn’t be entertained, but I also knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. This is what I’ve been doing for the past two months since I last updated. No joke. I’ve become a waste. A void of human thought or emotion. Someone of absolutely no value to society. A doo-doo head. A guy who quickly runs out of euphemisms for himself. There’s a single fly in my apartment, which is a surprise considering the fact that I haven’t removed the garbage from the past two weeks or washed any dishes for three. I don’t mind him. We’ve actually bonded. He doesn’t move much. Typically he’ll hang out on the end table while I’m on the futon. I like to think it’s because he wants to be like me. But my better judgment tells me that he doesn’t move because I don’t bother to turn on my heat. I’ve named him Seymour. I took a picture of him last night: Yep. This is my life. And now you know about it. I’m going to turn off the TV. …if I can find the remote. Oh there it is. But it’s really far.