Captain's Log:

Well it's been a very quiet week. Very quiet. But it's given me time to adjust and settle in, which is nice. However, I was not relocated to my permanent quarters till yesterday. It is amazing! I was finally able to unpack and put things away. Everything is organized and put where it belongs. It feels nice to be settled and to have my personal effects out.

We managed to find civilization out here. It's about 20 minutes away so that's not too bad. The town, however, is so tiny and small. Last night, we went and saw a movie in their "movie theater" if you can call it that. There are only three screens. They are very tiny screens and they made me miss digital. We saw Star Trek (squee!) as it was the last night it was showing. They had to move it out to move Up in. So they are now showing Night at the Museum 2, Terminator and Up. The tickets and concession are pretty cheap though, so there is that.

They have a siren here that they blast for so many different reasons that it has a tendency to go off multiple times a day and the locals don't even react. Yesterday it went off three times. It's like a tornado siren on crack.

We got to take a look at the theater. It broke my heart. The poor theater gets no respect. Props, costumes, trash, all thrown everywhere. Nothing is taken care of. It's just thrown down and stepped over. One of the things that broke my heart was seeing stacks and stacks of vintage Life magazines just left out and ignored. The oldest one I managed to peek at happened to be from 1943. THOSE DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER CARE!

The weather out here is beautiful. I can't wait to find the track and start walking. Once the rest of the crew gets here, we'll hopefully get access to the gym.

( So, who wants pictures?! )

Captain's Log:

I have taken to using Captain's Log before my facebook status and in my blog's to protest the fact that facebook refuses to allow me to call myself Captain Hooker. I resent this greatly and have decided that they do not take away my ability to consider myself a captain. So there. To be honest, the desire has little to do with the awesome of Star Trek and everything to do with the fact that it reminds me so much of Captain Hook in Peter Pan. But who cares about the why's, right? This is all about the action. The point remains the same. Facebook allowed me to adopt the name Basil Fawlty, taken from an obscure John Cleese character from the hilarious Fawlty Towers, yet they will not let me add the simple title of Captain. Well I thumb my nose at them!

As you can see by the title, something is going on in my life. At this very moment, I am sitting in a dorm room in Blair, Nebraska. This room is merely temporary accomidations, and that is the only reason I am willing to deal with a burned out desk light. I can survive for two days without my desk lamp. It is the Captain thing to do, is it not? I could tell you that Dr. McCoy would agree. After all, does he not say that a little suffering is good for the soul? So I will suffer in silence, rather than cause trouble.

The end of Dirty Dancing is on right now. So much nostalgia watching this. It improves my mood having that movie as my background noise.

Anyways! On to the deal at hand.

As I stated previously, I am now in Blair, Nebraska. Sitting in a dorm room. In the dark. I will be here until July 20th. Quite a long stretch of time, yes? There is good reason for this though. I have marooned myself in the small town of Blair (much dismayed to learn that there is no Walmart in the town of Blair) to be a part of this project http://www.dana.edu/about/blackelkspeaks.

Many of you will remember I was a part of this production a year ago back in my home town. Well we've taken it to the road!

(Swayze just said "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." I wish him strength for his fight with cancer.)

I will be reprising my roles as Lucy and Queen Victoria. I will also be props mistress (as far as I know at this point). I'm thrilled to be a part of this.

(It's the final dance. GUH. I use to try and copy this dance when I was wee with a Pillow Person for my partner. Always makes me wish I could dance.)

AHEM ANYWAYS BACK TO THE MATTER AT HAND (hopefully).

Left this morning at 9 am after a night of no sleeping. I was far too anxious. Arrived around 4 pm. Was informed by many road signs that shooting waterfowl from the the highway was prohibited. Had to put a halt on my vehicular version of Duck Hunt. Sadness.

(Fuck me isn't Swayze gorgeous in this movie?)

Finished two books on the way down. Started on the third in the trilogy. Love that trilogy. It's The Forbidden Game trilogy by LJ Smith. Doubtful you have read it, but if you have, you win!

Anyways, my pilot (Kenny) and I arrived a week before the rest of the hoarde, so we shall see how this week adds up. I plan to try and update daily on progress and developments, as any good captain would. Will have pictures to go along with, hopefully. But for now, we will cut this transmission short as I am far too distracted by Swayze and have many things yet to do. I was in the middle of making a pitcher of water. Should finish that. Also would love a shower. And need to sort through things I potentially will need these next few days. Obviously, tv and internet is established. Futher developments reported as time progresses.

This is Captain Hooker, signing out.

This is a photo update, to document the show. I've got pictures of before, during and after the show, and I want to share them all with you. This was such an amazing experience for me. It was a very moving show, a very powerful show, recounting a dark time in our history as a nation. It needs to be told.

The show was a huge success. We were sold out for many of the nights, and we got lots of standing ovations. But this wasn't an experience that I was really looking for accolades. What I wanted to accomplish was to put this part of our history out there. And I think we pulled it off nicely.

Grandma Coyote said she loved the show. I got to spend some time talking to her after the show, and she was really impressed with our efforts. She was such a cool lady. We were talking about my performance as Queen Victoria, and it was mentioned that one night, I needed to give the queen a cockney accent. So, I burst into "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from My Fair Lady, and accompanied that with a little dance, for effect of course. Bless her heart, after she stopped laughing, she put her hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear "You shouldn't do that around us old people, we can't control our kidneys!" She was such a beautiful woman, and she looked really good for 83 years old. I was so glad she enjoyed the show.

My Queen Victoria was a hit with the audience. People laughed every single night because Black Elk said "She looked like a fire coming." I don't know why people laughed at that, but they did. He also said "She was little, and fat, and we liked her." They laughed at that too. That one I understood.

Anyways, on to the photos!

( Behold this day, for it is yours to make )

I cannot relay how truly incredible this experience was. This was our directors last Center Stage show, and I hope we made it a good one for him.

The show has been going so well. We have an exhibit going on in the gallery across the hall from the theater called "Images of Black Elk". I like to go in there before the show and reflect on the images from Pine Ridge, the Lakota reservation, and the graves of the chiefs in our show. Tonight, I finally cried. It's such an emotional play, and the pictures are just breath taking. The pictures of the Crazy Horse monument got me. The poem that is to go on the side is just..I can't even say.

For the last two nights, we've had a Native American bless us before every show, and he burned cedar,sage and sweet grass. Tonight he wasn't there, as he had to go back to Nebraska, and I missed the scent. He wants us to bring the show to Nebraska to perform it there, and I am so all over that. If it goes through, I am completely there. Tomorrow, Grandma Coyote, a very prominent native american in the area will be attending. I hope we do the show justice for her.

It's been such a journey, and I will be forever grateful that I got to be a part of this experience. I wish I could say more, but it's so personal and so internal, I don't think I could possibly vocalize this in a way to do it justice.

Moccasins have been placed in the hands of our ever capable costumer. Hopefully, something can be done.

Tonight I had so much fun at rehersal. During the play, there's a scene where General Custer parades into town and everyone comes and cheers for him and blah blah blah. Naturally, I was placed in this scene because I am totally awesome and loud and ad lib like crazy. Anyways. Custer is played by a friend of mine, and I tell him every night that I'm going to make his cheering scene awesome. Last night, I asked him if he thought I should wear a shirt that said "I Love Custer" during the parade to try and pep people up, and he, of course, thought that was a fabulous idea. So naturally, I went home and the first thing I did was I took one of my dads old white undershirts and a sharpie and wrote in great big letters "I LOVE CUSTER...let's have babies!" across it. I put it on under my Sirius Black shirt, and felt ever so sneaky. I showed it to a few people, but mostly, I kept it a secret. That was SO HARD for me to do, because when I'm doing something fun or exciting, I want to share it with EVERYONE!! But it was hilarious, because when I showed it to people, it looked like I was flashing the person I was showing hehe. I got so many confused looks from passers by.

So, like always, I go and tell Rich that I am going to make his Custer scene extra amazing. Tonight he goes "Why, are you going to show me your boobs?" I about seriously died laughing right there, because he had no idea I had that shirt on under my other one. I merely smiled and said "Something like that."

Now, originally, I had planned to go out wearing just that shirt, but after that remark, I knew what I was going to do. I got into position and was still wearing my Sirius Black shirt over the Custer shirt. When Rich made his entrance, I yanked up my Sirius shirt, which made it look like I was flashing him! ahahahahaha oh man it was amazing. Props to Rich, as he held character for it! It was like a scene from Girls Gone Wild. Oh the hilarity of it all. It caught SO MANY people off guard. I caught sight of my director out in the audience. He had his hand on is face and he was shaking his head. He thought it was hilarious. During notes tonight, he asked me if I was trying to hold a wet t-shirt contest on stage. Hee.

The scene I do after that is my Queen Victoria scene. I went out as Queen Victoria in just my Custer shirt. Tested the mettle of many actors tonight I did, as I saw so many people biting their lips to keep from laughing. Oh we have fun.

What is not fun, however, is that there is a guy who has a crush on me. For once, a guy has a crush on me and it's not a guy I like. Ugh. He likes to stalk me and mess with my hair and stuff. I kind of don't like the attention. And his mom seems to have taken a liking to me too, and she's rather awkward too. Tonight she told me she just wanted to pinch my cheeks. And then she came to the front of the stage where I was laying and in this really high squeaky voice, she held up to fingers as if to pinch my cheeks and said "I just pinch your cute little cheeks" and was talking to me like a charicature of an aunt. Y'know, the ones that the kids never like cause they pinch their cheeks and kiss on them and stuff? Yeah, it was like that. But really creepy as I'm 23, not 3.

I've introduced glomping to the cast. IT'S SO MUCH FUN! I've been hugging on everyone for weeks, but now I glomp them.

OH! Also! During my Queen Victoria scene, I have two body guards. Originally, I did not, but one night while we were goofing off during the scene (my director likes to tease me, and I reciprocate, if you haven't noticed), stalker guy decides to jump on my back and wrap his arms around my neck and face and say "I kill you!" Well. As there are a bunch of people backstage with rifles, I decided to recruit two of them to be my "guards" for a joke. The director actually loved it! Ha! Anyhoo, last night, one ofmy "guards, my friend Adam, decided to crack a joke about me being overrated as the Queen. I fired him on the spot! This left me one guard short. But! My problems were solved! Tonight, my friend Joe asked if he could be my guard, after I told him about firing Adam! Bless his heart, I adore him. He's 70, and this is his very first show. I told him of course he could! So when the time came, I went and got him, and he was all surprised! He thought I was joking! Oh and bless him, he was so nervous. I just wanted to hug him. But he did fine! And he's so excited, his grandson is flying out from Hollywood to see him in his show. His grandson is an actor!
Here's hi sIMDB page http://imdb.com/name/nm1859513/. I think it's adorable that he's flying out to see his grandpa. And, he's hot. Hee! But Joe is so excited, Brandon just landed a Budweiser commercial.

I think that's enough for this update. Ciao bellas!

It's funny, but every time I dream about a celebrity and I remember that dream, they pop up in the news within the next few days. After I had that dream about Daniel Day Lewis, he showed up in ONTD in a suit very similar to the one he was wearing in my dream. Sunday, I had a dream about, of all people, Triple H, from wrestling. It really makes no sense, because I don't WATCH wrestling. No one in my FAMILY watches wrestling anymore. It's been years since anyone has. And yet, Sunday night, I had a dream about being married to him and thinking it was oh so wonderful. Then yesterday or so, I see an article that shows a picture of him and his wife announcing that they are expecting a baby. WTF dreams?!

Rehersal is...well, going. It's a HUGE cast and not everyone is always there, which is rough. Tonight though, we pulled a magnificent prank. My friend Jeff is really uptight about doing things he think make him look foolish. In this play, he has to do a lot of sort of dancing to convey things. One of the things he has to dance for is a horse race. He carries a horse stick and does this step thing around in a circle and just absolutely hates it. So I pestered my director, who loves me, and he consented to let us bring in a hobby horse one night and have it handed to him in place of his horse stick. Now, this hobby horse was amazing. It was purple with a white mane, it had pastel roses on it's head and pretty pastel ribbons hanging from its bridle. hahahahaha oh God he hated it. I also made him do the hokey pokey. Because when I lead warm ups, that's what we do. It relaxes people for the most part. They laugh and smile and have a good time. Breaks tensions and what not. He hates the hokey pokey too.

I also spent the night running around drawing hearts on peoples hands with hot pink highlighter. They are now marked as my valentines. I got almost everyone, including the director. Everyone is my valentine! It's a day celebrating love, and I love my cast, so they are all included! From the 9 year old girl to the 73 year old man, they are all bearing marks of love! People need know they are appreciated, and that's what I was attempting to do. Now I think I must go to bed, because I have to love on my babies and my peoples tomorrow. I want to go and pick up some cookies or something before rehersal so I can spread love in the best sort of way, the yummy way! Ciao!