I don't really like water

I don't like the act of drinking water all that much, or maybe it's that I don't like the taste or something.  I'm probably just effing weird, and yeah it feels good to have water after a run or other high energy activity or when it's hot but if given the choice to quench my thirst with water or orange juice, apple juice, kool-aid, watered down flat diet coke I got from McDonalds for lunch yesterday, or nasty lemon-lime gatorade, I'll choose any of the latter and leave the water on the table.  I can actually feel the difference when I start drinking more water, my body feels better but it's getting it into a glass to put into my mouth that I have trouble with.  I'd rather taste something, maybe?  Or maybe it's that the Chicago water doesn't taste very good?  But this has been a recurring problem throughout my life.  Hrm.  Anyhow, today I'm going to "check out" of the U-505 and get my pewter pin and be able to give tours for realsies.  I'm excited for the show on Thursday but have not yet found an intern to fill in for me at the IO yet, which is a little nerve-racking.  Even if it's just for two hours so I can bust out and do the show and then come back, that would be enough, I just need to FIND somebody!  Sooo busy!  Ah well, I like it that way.  Hope your Tuesday is smashing!  

Thank you for reading!

Lisa B.

P.S.  

Tomorrow I'll get back to science, I swear!

Just what I did on Monday. That's it.

Today I did some things:

1.  Gave my first tour of the U-505 all on my own, with NO help from anyone.  I should be getting my pewter pin in the next day or so.

2.  Sat at home thinking about how my socks are all dirty because it's been so wet outside and I should really invest in some good snowboots but I won't.

3.  Went to Gingers after having chatted with my friend Tina online and ended up running into a bunch of people I know and playing set at Gingers tonight, which was fun and some of the first improv I've done onstage in front of people in months.

4.  Did tech rehearsal for show at Sketchfest on Thursday....went awesome.

That's what I did.  That is all I have today.  I am tired.

Hope you had a great Mondaytacular!!!  Thanks for reading, as always.

Lisa B.

historian fantasy rant

I wish I was a spy.  Well, sometimes I wish I was a spy.  I just wish I could do everything because there are so many things in the world that get my engine turning!  I've recently turned over in my head the thought of becoming a historian.  There were these two drawings in my parents' house growing up that pictured an old man in a huge library with thousands of books all over the place, large bookshelves from floor to ceiling and a comfy armchair in the middle of it all.  I want to be that old man and I have a feeling the only way to do that is to become a historian.  That would be the only feasable way I could be interesting and long winded but justify having an enormous library where I spent most of my days.  I could sort of introvert myself into my library and make huge creative discoveries and connections between ideas.  I could know about scientific history as well as world and social history (sometimes the same thing) and write large interesting volumes that many people would of course want to read because hey, I'm a historian.  "This was writ by that great historian, Lisa Burton" they'd say.  Perhaps it would be long after I was dead and gone.  People would come in and discover my bones in a secret passageway with all my writings strewn about me, put them into a book and say, "goodness, this woman had an incredible grasp on history!"  And wait!  I would have super secret information about the world because people would need to connect the dots to tons of discoveries and why use a computer when they could just come to me, the garbage center for useless knowledge, and I could use my brain to connect the dots for them and tell them what book they can reference it in so that their discovery of the masks of the Guadelahara can be archived with the correct artifacts because they are said to have mysterious magical powers.  Hm.  I'll sleep on it.  Hope you had a fun Thursday and I'll probably write tomorrow!  Thanks for reading!!!                

~Lis 

History, Coal Mines, and Billy Corgan

History is sooooo so so so interesting.  To everyone.  Young, old, rich, poor, everyone loves history.  Something about it is wonderful, magical even.  I get to give tours now of the U-505 submarine at the Museum and I'm totally digging everything that goes into it.  It's like previous to this I had never heard of a submarine or something.  All of a sudden doors have opened up and wars seem interesting to me.  Never before have I been so intrigued by military machinery, no offense all the boys I know, but I just never have up until this point.  I have three books that I'm going to try and get from the library so that I can read through them.  Three boring-sounding books about submarines that I am so excited to read I could pee myself.  I got to walk some kids through the submarine tonight and I decided that at the point I'm at now that was maybe a bad idea because the kids and I just kept going back and forth about how totally sweet it was to be on the inside of a real life submarine.  I then realized that maybe I need to do my research and get over this fantasy of old-timey war.  Most of my friends will be excited to know this spark of history interest has ignited a fire that may be difficult to put out anytime soon because not only am I now interested to know more about WWII (not that I didn't know a lot before I mean come ON we're all required to learn about that stuff in school just now I WANT to know) but I also am excited about US history in general.  Ok, enough.  

Aside from that, I went on a coal mine tour today, also very interesting.  The machinery coal miners use is heavy duty stuff!  Man alive, to think so many men got paid so little money to do so much work, and right here in Illinois no less!!!  Yikes!  Also, Billy Corgan was in the Museum today.

Hope your Wed was spectacular!!!

Lisa B.

Twyla heck am I asking so many questions in this blog?

I am currently reading Twyla Tharp's "The Creative Habit" and though I'm finding a lot of the book to be self-helpey, I'm really enjoying some of the basic points about harnessing the creative power within and using it on a regular basis.  Today I'm addressing a section of the book having to do with muscle memory as compared to improv as an art form/skill.  I'm going to open the floor for discussion on this because I'm not sure how I feel just yet....and I'm not even sure I'm making an accurate comparison here, but these are the wires that connected themselves in my head as I was reading:

If you learn skills while learning improv say.... how to just react to whatever "gift" is given to you, or how to spout out the first thing that pops into your head....and if skills learned for dancers that are like that, how high to raise a leg for a certain dance move or how to spin around without vomiting all over the first row....are all of these skills grouped into the category of MUSCLE MEMORY?  Because we're then applying those skills to other structures or forms in the improv world, and for dancers it would be to different dances.  We should be able to do those things without thinking about them but to do so we really had to work at it at first...well, for most of us.  IF THIS IS TRUE I ask you this.....is that a good thing?  Aren't we, in improv, constantly trying to stretch ourselves to break out of habits and patterns to be ready for whatever is thrown at us?  Don't we do messed up extra hard excersizes to warm up to scramble our minds to accept the impossible every time we step out onstage?  

I hope I didn't confuse you too much today.  For my small mind, this question is like wondering about the size of the universe.

I hope you have a pleasant Monday evening!  Mine will be filled with grilled cheese and tomato soup!

L. Burton

A letter to the early morning CTA train operator

Dear CTA train operator,

You are a wily fox if ever wily a fox should come.  You are the designer of daily destinies and 90% of the time you are the god I curse.  Though for the most pare you are the witch that snatches away my hopes of being early or on time to work, this morning you are the savior of my sore bag-heavy arms.  After being shoulder to shoulder on a full megabus, not getting sleep, waiting 15 minutes in the cold for my bag, cursing myself for being the idiot who wore jeans with holes in them, and sorely missing the city from whence I came, I was not surprised when I walked up the stairs onto the platform where my brown line train sat, doors freshly closed.  But you saved me.  You noticed.  You opened the doors and I thirstily scrambled inside.  

I thank you.

L.M. Burton

Oy, what a year and welcome 2009

This last year I lived in three different cities, created and met many of my goals, have started to take my creative education to the next level with writing and taking more and more classes, been really poor and really rich at points, purchased my first laptop and my first awesome cell phone, promptly lost that cell phone three months after I had it, started a blog, started reading blogs, saw the conclusion of one relationship and the beginning of another, met countless new friends, been depressed for maybe the first time in my life (oy, money!), saw history, had some of the happiest and proudest moments of my life, and overall, I think 2008 was productive, but a rough one for me.  I'm really looking forward to do more in 2009 and try and figure out what the honkin' heck I really want to do.  Do I want to keep pursuing the funny knowing there are millions of funnier people out there?  Do I want to go back to school and get an education degree and be a teacher?  Would I rather spend my life traveling or settle down and then travel to my little heart's delight?  One day at a time, people.  For now, I'm pretty happy doing what I'm doing but I'm looking forward to being in one place.  I know what I want and how to get there, this process is killing me, though.  I'm pretty impatient.  I'm dealing with the risks I've taken thus far and I'm excited about more risks.  2009 will be another good year for me.  A life-changing year perhaps?  Isn't every year?  Don't we come out different?  Or are we the same person we started out as?  I like to think I'm a little different than I was last year.  For 2009:  I'd love to get a camera.  I'd love it.  Ok, it's time for me to watch some tv until I have to get on the megabus and go back to Chicago.  

Hope you all had a pleasant New Year!!!  Happy 2009!

Lisa M. Burton