jMcJohnson

The past three and a half weeks have been filled with fun and merriment and awesomeness, but I for one, am exhausted. It’s the good kind of exhausted, though. The exhausted from working really hard, laughing really hard and having a ton of fun.

Ryan and I are still in Florida as we are doing TWO, count ‘em TWO teen Lovewell programs this summer. Are we crazy? Possibly. Actually, I am less worried about getting two programs done and more worried about the fate of my back after 7 weeks on a dorm mattress. Ouch. I am also not terribly excited about the 48 hour turnaround time on our move to Lawrence at the end of July (packing AND moving in that time frame); but I am living this all one day at a time, therefore that will not be discussed at this moment.

We just finished creating and producing “Daybreak-The Musical Documentary of John Delaney” (our first teen show) and I have to say…it was good. It was really super extra good. In fact, I hope as many of my pals can see it as possible because it’s one that I am really, really proud of. I love every Lovewell show I work on like it was my own child (mostly because I feel that the excitement and pain of birthing these shows is akin to childbirth ((ok, not really, but still)) ) but this one has a special place in my heart. Not because of any extra thing I or any of the staff or students did or did not do, but because it was just a really magical process this time. Every process gratifying, but this one just had that…unquantifiable thing that makes it extra meaningful.

The show is about the death penalty and is just filled with amazing songs and monologues and characters that really explore the topic from all angles (truly, all). We waited a little longer to start writing this time, and I think that having a really strong idea for what the show was supposed to be really helped. And the students felt it too. That extra awesomeness. The kind you can’t capture if you try. It only comes around once in a while (and I have no idea why) but I felt really lucky to be a part of it.

Anyway. It was cool.

More to come. Happy 4th of July.

This weekend should have been a time of rest and rejuvenation before the upcoming week of crazy Lovewell creation, and instead it was jam packed with awesomeness. So awesome, in fact that we all collapsed last night around 10 PM.

Friday night we basically ate Jack’s burgers and then hung out with some of the Lovewell girls discussing crushes and cute dudes. Good times.

Saturday night went to a birthday party for Margie at Casa de Spangler. It was very fun and included her mother’s outrageously delicious chocolate cake. Seriously, best cake ever. Just as I was thinking we’d head home, some of our younger pals decided that we should all go see Jacob’s band play in Miami. At 1 AM. Even though I was poised to poop all over this little party, I said what the heck. And we drove to Miami. Did I mention it was 1 AM? The show was great and we had such fun getting our eardrums blown out by the DJ who insisted on playing “It Takes Two” at approximately one zillion decibels.

Yesterday however, was the big day. The day we drove to Port St. Lucie to have a date with destiny, and by destiny I mean Brandi, Bjorn and Harper. Brandi and I met via blog (and mutual friends) and it just so happened that they were in Florida visiting family at the same time we were here doing Lovewell. So we decided to meet up.

We had some sweet Florida barbecue in a restaurant that was decked out for the 4th of July. On the 14th of June. It was awkward for about 10 seconds and then we all just chatted and ate and had a totally non-awkward good time. Harper was sweet and content, Brandi was hilarious, and I really need a recording of Bjorn saying “it was a nightmare” because it sounds much more meaningful in his German accent.

Also, I took exactly two pictures. Here’s one of them.

Aren’t we cute? God bless the internets.

We have arrived in Florida. So far is is alternately hot and pouring rain. My two favorite weather situations!

We are living in the dorms at Nova Southeastern U and while it’s nice to not be living in a tent or something, I am beginning to feel like that dude in the Lethal Weapon movies who declared “I’m getting too old for this shit.” Plastic covered mattresses, sneaking in beer, and a mini fridge. Welcome back!

In non-complain-y news, Lovewell is going quite well. We are having a ball and just now getting to the point where we are trying to discover the big idea for our show. On that note, if you’d like to keep up to date on the latest Lovewell developments, you can follow us on Twitter…lovewellteen and lovewelljunior or you can check out our blog at blog.lovewell.org. The kids make the entries, so they are sure to bring the hilarity.

In other news, I am meeting my Internet crush this weekend! Brandi and her sweet German family will be in Port St. Lucie on Sunday where we will meet and hopefully not creep each other out too much. Her blog is on the sidebar, and if you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend you do. Pictures that may or may not involve putting a mustache on her baby are sure to follow.

I love being down here, but if you are reading this, chances are I miss you.

My poor blog has suffered some serious neglect over the past month or so. Since I am leaving on Monday to drive to Florida (where I will be working for seven weeks) I thought a major update was in order!

Around the first of the month Ryan and I drove to Carrollton, Ohio (just west of Pittsburgh, PA) for two weeks of creating with the newest version of the Lovewell Theatre Project. Two great friends of Lovewell (and all of us personally) graciously offered up their beautiful farm as a place for us to work and live.

Since our friends Mats and Margie had just graduated from college as we began, we all decided a party was in order. We started with tissue paper hats:

French and Flirty

Modified Pirate

Aunt Jemima with Vodka (?)

Sadly, after the first day, I sort of forgot to keep taking pictures. I did remember to take a picture of this:

This is Katy next to the sign for Knickers Restaurant. Knickers is on a golf course and they offer shrimp cocktail for $1.99 (I had it; I’ve had better) and the name is just awesomely hilarious for many reasons. One reason: isn’t it really just named after old fashioned underwear? Who the hell wants to eat at at a restaurant named after underpants?

But I digress. We wrote for two weeks and came up with a really fun show. We did a very small reading and people responded really favorably to it. Living at the farm was challenging for me for a lot of reasons. It really made me realize some things I personally need to work on, like:
1. Going with the flow.
2. Personal insecurities/insecurities about my work.
3. My need to control my environment at all times.
4. My obsession with cleanliness/extreme aversion to bugs (actually, this will most likely never change.)
We had a great time, and I was really glad to be a part of it.

I’ll leave this section with a shot of the gray stick-on mustache that I got at the grocery store, lost, found again and put on to show everyone; only to discover no one was around. Typical.

Moving on…

After we drove back from Ohio, we were home for less than 48 hours and then we drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico for Tim Bunker’s wedding. This is a lot of driving, it’s true, but we are huge road trip people, so we were excited. Sadly for you, my blog readers, I already posted the best of my pics on my Facebook, so go there if you want to check them out. I will say that the wedding was absolutely beautiful; Stephanie looked lovely and Tim was a handsome devil. The had one of the most creative and personalized weddings I’ve ever been to; although really, all our friends have had really wonderful and unique celebrations.

Our sweet table card.

Although the wedding was great, New Mexico will always be remembered in my mind as the place that got Ryan over his fear of spicy food. He ate red and green chile like a champ and shoveled in super spicy salsa by the chip-ful. Thank god, because to me, a meal is not really a meal unless it brings spice-induced tears to my eyes.

Aside from the wedding, the best part was seeing sweet little Samaire.

Her mom and dad aren’t to shabby either

We drove back to Kansas City just in time for me to do one of the dumbest things I’ve done in at least two weeks. While we were away, I noticed that I had this little white bump on the skin above my lip. It was white (uh, just like my skin) so it probably wasn’t noticeable to anyone but me. Nevertheless, I decided that it was time to try to eradicate it from my face. I decided the most genius way to do it was to squeeze it out (keep in mind I’m not even sure it was a zit…I really didn’t know what it was).

So I squeezed.
And I squeezed and I squeezed.
Then just when I was about to give up, I squeezed some more.

The results? Nothing ever came out. And I did this to my face:

Please do enjoy my gigantic nostril

Seriously, now I have to put Neosporin on it three times a day and look like I have face herpes 24/7. It kinda looks like a burn, and Ryan told me to tell people it’s where he put a cigarette out on my face to keep me in line (good idea). It’s really quite disturbing to look at. Plus, in the immortal words of Radiohead, I did it to myself, and that’s why it really hurts.

The moral of the story is DO NOT pick at things on your face. It only leads to heartache.

I did want to show you one more gross pic of my face:

I accidentally breathed on the lens, so it looks like an ad for a porno where the lead actress has flesh-eating bacteria. HOT.

See y’all in FLA…

31 looks good on you.

We returned today safe and sound from our road trip to Tim and Steph’s wedding in New Mexico (and not regular Mexico as my dad still believes). It was awesome but I will be honest, I have missed my bed.

No one can understand why Ryan and I like to drive insanely long distances. Here are two pics best representative of the kind of stuff we like to do on the road:

I miss our trip already.

I am having one of those times in life where you want to stomp your feet and shout “Nooo!” at the top of your lungs and throw yourself on the floor and cry until someone bigger than you picks you up and wipes your face with a cool washcloth and then lays you down on a bed; and even though you are still gulping back a sob or two you can sort of start to forget about what made you cry in the first place.

You know what I mean?

This is Katy’s dog Bowie. He tired himself out on the farm today by running around, looking for squirrels and jumping in the lake.

He goes from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds.

Isn’t he cute in whatever state he’s in?