Tag: focus

🎼 Get It Cracking If You Like, Must Be A Full Moon, Feel Like One Of Those Nights…🎶

It kind of looks like a backdrop with a large spotlight shining thought the fabric. She so pretty!😊

Hello Gentle Reader!😃

Last night, there was a big beautiful full moon!🌕 (Does that ⬅️ look like a ball of cheese to anyone else?) I have always had a bond with her. I don’t know why. I always greet her with a “Hello, Bright Lady” when I see her in the skies.

Sunday night, I had the hardest time getting to sleep. I don’t know if it was subconscious energy that kept me awake for all but three hours of the night but when I got out of bed this morning, I wasn’t tired. I am not saying that there is any thing to tie the two together, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I wondered if there were.

To me, a full moon is a perfect time for reflecting. I think of it like the moon is a big spotlight in the night sky asking you to share your thoughts about what’s happened since the last time you were in that light. The moon isn’t going to tell anyone. Your secrets and plans that you are too afraid to tell people are safe with her. In sharing those parts of yourself you may not feel comfortable sharing with people, you kind of let go of that energy that was bottled up. This is a great thing! Think of that energy as a sparkling water. Over time, all those bubbles eventually leave even if the can or bottle was never opened. The drink was never tasted and enjoyed. Now, my Dear Reader, think of the enjoyment that happens when you get to take that drink. Maybe even finish it. And who knows, perhaps restock with another?

I did a sort of meditation today for no reason whatsoever with all of this in mind. I really do think it was spurred on by the lack of sleep, because I don’t really meditate, although I always say I should. 😂 As I laid in my bed waiting for sleep, I began to read a book called Milagros by Helen Thompson. One of the big take aways she has written about so far (since I haven’t finished reading it) was that when something is bothering you pay attention to that thing. Then it talked about charms, but that is a little more involved and it tied those things together… Anyway, I am getting off the topic…

When you have a headache, you try to figure out why. Stress, dehydration, hunger, iron deficiency, caffeine addiction… you go through the check list to see why your head is bothering you. If these aren’t the culprits, you keep digging. This is like a total DUH! moment, right? Well, I decided why not try and go through the same process with insomnia? Where did this energy come from when not an hour earlier I was falling asleep on the couch? I wasn’t stressed. I definitely wasn’t dehydrated. I wasn’t uncomfortable with the room temperature or the bed. I didn’t have anything on my mind. Or so I thought.

My Sweet Reader, I had looked up when the full moon was going to be at it’s maximum just before I went to sleep. I don’t know why. I get these random urges and energy spurts occasionally and just have to go with the flow. If I don’t, I become cranky. Like I am fighting a prime objective or something. I got in bed and turned to my routine of looking up YouTube ASMR videos to mellow out my brain. As I watched, I began to fall asleep. Once I took off the headphones and prepared to fall into dreamland, I couldn’t keep my eyes closed. I noticed that my heart rate had quickened slightly, so I tried to adjust my breathing to get it back to normal. It seemed to have worked, but by that time, my body felt like it was awake. So I laid there for hours waiting.

After what felt like forever, I had began to read, got up and walked around the apartment, tried to knit and scrolled through social media (which I know is a bad thing because of the blue light in the screen) I decided that I was going to place my stones to get charged by the light of the full moon. I began to think about the moon and watched the moonlight on my floor under the window. Somehow, watching the slow movement of the light finally got me back to feeling like I would be able to rest. I thanked the moon for her help and finally began to fade away.

Don’t know why I have this fascination with her.

Today, I wrote out a promise to myself with the moon watching overhead what I wanted to do during this next moon cycle and once I finished it, I felt a very real shift in my energy. I am much calmer. MUCH calmer. I have more focus. I was able to complete another project that I kept procrastinating with. I began my character development on the next show I am going to be working on. I can’t say that writing the promise and the energy shift are linked, but again, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wonder…

I mean, we all know that the moon affects the tides and the ocean and since our bodies are mostly water, it makes sense to consider that the all mighty moon just may be that influence that helps you to reach out to those stars in the sky.

What a nice thought to ponder as I lay my head down for the night.

♩♩♫ What’s Love Got To Do, Got To Do With It? ♪♬♩♩

Only EVERYTHING!!!

If you aren’t doing something that you love, you need to step back and reassess some stuff.  Having celebrated yet another birthday at the beginning of the month, I contemplated my reality vs. my wishes and I know that something has to give somewhere or I am going to lose my ever-loving mind.

I have since done such a thing.  Hence my absence from Facebook and this site.  I have to admit that at first I was scared and the mere thought of looking at my life with a magnifying glass made me sweat like I was running for my life.  In some senses, I guess one could say that I was, er…am.  I’ve even gone so far as to reassemble my Dayrunner and actually have appointments written in it.  Not like the time I bought it and left it completely blank.  I think the most exciting part of buying it was that first time I got to put everything together.

I’ve refocused my energies back into the things that I love the most.  Of course, I’m sure you all know that it’s the Arts.  Dance classes are going really well.  The drive is kind of a pain because of the amount of gas it takes.  Don’t get me wrong, I love being in the car.  I think I am part dog when it comes to that respect.  It’s just so fun!  I still feel out of sync with some stuff because they are in the middle of learning routines. Having to jump in and learn on the fly has been challenging, but I am finding that the more that I figure out the steps and get them right the more excited I feel about trying to figure out the rest of the dance.  I appreciate the positive feedback that I am getting, but part of me sometimes feels like it’s only because I am one of the few guys in the studio.  I am giddy for the corrections that I know I need.

I’m trying to find the best course of action to take for a vocal coach and an acting studio to work with on a consistent basis.  Here’s the problem, they are always SO expensive!!  Finding a teacher that I can afford with some sort of steady training would be wonderful, but when the ends are just barely meeting, it’s kinda tough to find a way to stretch the funds.  It’s gonna take some creative budgeting, and I’ve never really done well with sticking to a budget, so I smell trouble.

But because I love this stuff, I’ve decided that it must be done.

 

And we’re up and running!

Tonight was Opening Night and it was weird.  At least it felt weird to me.  But after the insanity that was our final dress performance, I suppose that it turned out pretty well.

Last night, just before the end of Act 1, one of my cast mates slipped and hurt his back pretty bad.  Then there were a crapload of costume malfunctions.  I totally forgot to remove a table.  Woops…tee hee.   There were missed light cues due to the fall.  A scene was cut and we had to change the order of one of the scenes.

So now that we’ve come to showtime things are getting back on track.  I felt like there was a scattered energy throughout Act 1.  It seemed like there were a lot of extra pauses that we’ve never had before. Then came intermission which seemed to last FOREVER. Finally when the audience came back in and Act 2 got under way.  This time the focus was there and it totally just zoomed by.

Great job to my fellow cast mates, you are amazing!!

And a special note to Ms. Melinna: Gurl my friends loved you!

 

Something stressful this way comes…

Sam Valenzuela and Lalo Lopez acting like hams!

We had a designer run-through last night and the work was very, very rough.  There were a lot of questions from people, usually starting with the words “In the script it says…” and then adding a detail that hasn’t been spoken of, or addressed as of yet.  It’s funny how many things can be accidentally overlooked when focus is on one aspect of a play.

When we get into the last few weeks before Opening Night, things begin to get stressful sometimes.  Everyone begins to intensely focus on the task at hand.  People begin to “wear” their characters in the hallways and in the wings while waiting to go on stage.  The usual lively jokiness that abounds in the hallways may cause the actors to break concentration.

One of the many things that I try to do is be respectful of my fellow actors and before performances, I try not to fool around if I see them focused on their entrance.  One of the worst things that an actor can do is either miss and entrance or come onstage late. I would hate to be the cause of something like that, so I do my best to stay out of the way.

Since we open in two weeks, things are going to be tough and a wee bit on the stressy (yup, it’s a made up word) side. One of the best things that we as actors can do for each other is to know our lines, our scenes and entrances, and to keep the silliness to a minimum.  But I have to emphasize that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop laughing.

And with these people, I don’t think that will be a problem.

Lalo Lopez, Sam Valenzuela, Jay Vera, Anees Guillen, Maya Malan-Gonzalez, Jessica Castaneda

There’s a switch to The Switch…

Wally realizes that he's just poured his BFF's dreams down the drain.

I went to see a sneak peak for Jennifer Aniston’s new flick “The Switch.”  I was all set for the typical chatty girl talk type of movie about love and relationships, and the difficulties that are being felt by Aniston’s character.  It turns out that this movie really isn’t so much about her as it is about Jason Bateman.  What an absolutely wonderful surprise!  I have been a fan of his since his work on the 80’s television show “The Hogan Family.”  He’s been in a few movies recently in minor roles, but this is a great role to bring him back into the spotlight.

The Plot: Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) wants to have a baby.  She’s been in and out of bad relationships and decides that it’s time to finally do it.  As her BFF, Wally (Jason Bateman) is the first person she shares her decision with.  It’s clear from the outset that Wally is in love with her, so you already know how the movie is going to end.  Her good friend Debbie (played by the deliciously hilarious Juliette Lewis) convinces Kassie to have a party to celebrate the insemination because it’s “what everyone is doing nowadays.”   At the party is Roland, the charming-turns-kinda-creepy donor (Patrick Wilson) who whips up a batch of baby sauce in one room while the guests party it up in the rest of the house.  After having not only too much to drink but also a pill from Debbie, Wally is as high as a kite and on a trip to the bathroom, he finds Roland’s contribution to Kassie’s goal.  After some funny bits of playing with the stuff, Wally actually ruins the batch and in a last minute decision “creates” a replacement contribution.  Once Kassie becomes pregnant, she moves away because New York isn’t her ideal place to raise a child. The movie reunites them back in NY seven years after the incident and Uncle Wally now gets to meet this adorable child, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson) who is just as nutty as he is.

Personally, I found that the majority of the film focused on the relationship between fathers and sons or rather the relationships between father figures and sons.  Throughout the film you can see Wally falling in love with this quirky kid, who believes Wally is just an uncle, and the struggle of revealing to his BFF the truth of what happened on the night of her party 7 years ago.  The struggle that Wally goes through once he realizes that he’s Sebastian’s father is a fantastic display of heart that reminds me why I have such respect for the actor.

I have to also mention the outstanding performance by Jeff Goldblum as Wally’s coworker, Leonard.  I don’t know if it’s just great casting that is playing off of Jeff’s real personality, or if it’s his go-to character quirk, but in this role, he shines.

One of my favorite scenes is when Wally first gets into the bathroom where the “incident” takes place.  Having been in that position where you have to hold onto the walls to keep from melting, Wally was perfection, and I could only laugh and laugh remembering exactly what he was feeling like at that moment.  Once you see it, you’ll understand.

While the major focus in advertising is being focused on Jen Aniston, Jason Bateman is really what this movie is about. Him and the kid.