PERSONAL A Productive Weekend
I suppose the weekend really began Thursday night. It was the last show of our Skybox run for my Improvised show... and I think we went out with a bang. The show that was reviewed (and, thus that we improvised) was a play about a theatre group who thinks they're going to perform King Lear only to find out that they are instead doing a show based on the novel Moby Dick. I was probably one of the few people in the cast who had intimate carnal knowledge of both works (having been in Lear and read [most of] Moby Dick). I made my character, that evening, a loan from Joliet Prison who had played Gloucester in the Joliet production of Lear and who would gladly "perform hand-to-hand combat with real knives." When we were given Moby Dick, I made myself Starbuck (I would have been Queequag, but that role was actually assigned by the improviser who was playing the producer... so I had to think quickly). My favorite part of the evening was when the Producer character asked my character what I would like Starbuck to do in the play (the Producer was adapting it) to make me feel more comfortable. For some reason I said "I'd like to rape somebody and then stab someone's face off. With a harpoon!" In the immortal words of my friend Katy "It's the truth of what the character wanted at the time." So later in our show... when we performed the new Moby Dick show, I was able to rape and stab two of the space pirates (yes... space pirates). Nothing like saving your best for last.

On Friday, I had a rehearsal at Second City. My friend Rob and I have a show coming up the end of July and we're getting close to the crunch time. Friday night was the first time we did a couple scenes from memory and it went pretty well, actually. I'm just starting to realize, however, that a two-person show is far more work than I had even imagined. Especially considering that we're the writers and the producers... there is a lot of work to be done besides just running lines and rehearsing scenes, and I think Rob and I are a little behind where we should be at this point in the process. Oh well... July 23rd will come whether we're ready or not, and we might as well have the show as crisp and fast-paced as we can.

Saturday morning, Chelsey and I went apartment viewing. We actually made an appointment with the management company that owned my first apartment building in Chicago; that company (PPM for identification) has a few buildings in the Lakeview/Wrigleyville area that we were interested in seeing, and we viewed them Saturday. The man who showed us around was very nice and reminded me (in an odd way) of my PT Thad when I was at XSport. Granted, one is a personal trainer and the other is in apartment management, but their manner of speech, and approach to talking with new people was the same. We only saw one apartment that we liked, so we said that we'd be in touch after we saw a couple other places.

But we didn't view the other places Saturday afternoon because that was reserved for spending time in Gurnee at the mall. I know we just went there, but it didn't seem like we got an idea of what the Mills are like because we spent so much time watching movies the first time. So we wondered aimlessly around the mall for a while until Chelsey decided that she wanted a Nintendo DS. She has actually been thinking about getting this hand-held system for over a month (she fell in love with the New Super Mario game... which is sweet) and decided that this weekend was the perfect time to get one. So we headed to the Circuit City (which is in the mall, weird, huh?) and purchased the Nintendo DS, the new Super Mario, and a game called Brain Age (which supposedly trains your brain in minutes a day).

After splurging on video game hardware and software, we saw a movie: Pirates of the Caribean 2--Dead Man's Chest. I will not ruin this movie for anyone but let me say three things about it: 1) Johnny Depp's Captain Jack is one of the most original characters I've seen in years and he's still amazing; 1A) I hope you like the characters from the last movie, because there are far too many of them in this movie... As they keep recycling the same characters I'm left to wonder "how big is the world?" 2) Keira Knightley's character is still a moron, making me think this movie was writen by a man (there is a general lack of strong female characters--or female characters in general--in this movie. Even the strong character from the first movie, the one who wanted the Black Pearl to herself, is MIA in this movie); 3) The ending made me groan. That is all I will say about it... groan.

Sunday morning, Chelse and I went apartment searching again. This time, we went to a Lakeview property company and saw three of their buildings. Oddly enough, for me anyway, two of those buildings were right across the street from Jim's first Chicago apartment. The third place, just around the corner, is beautiful! We just had to take it. The price is right at the cusp of what we were willing to pay, but we get free satellite TV and free high-speed internet (which will probably save us around $100 a month here). There is no parking... so I'm going to have to decide whether I want to risk street parking (I'd need a permit and probably Illinois plates--and an Illinois license), or find a place nearby that rents parking per month. This is going to be a problem for me, but it's worth it. This building is beautiful, old and ornate on the outside, and the apartment has been refurbished--new floors, new ceiling fans, new stove, new microwave, new dishwasher (A DISHWASHER!!!), new showerhead, etc. It was honestly too good to pass up. Chelsey has expressed some remorse that we're leaving such a huge place and will be forced to cram all of our stuff in a smaller place... but I'm trying to be positive and reassure her that everything will fit, everything important that is (can you believe I'M the positive one? [Hint: No you can't])

Sunday afternoon and evening, we felt so relieved that all we wanted to do was sit around and play video games. We both had a try at Mario DS and Mario Golf for the Gamecube (which I picked up because Chelsey said she liked it)... and then I finally tried Resident Evil 4 (also for the Gamecube). I picked up a copy when it won billions of awards and then the price dropped to $20. The actual gameplay is amazing--the shooting engine is crisp (though hard) and the graphics are truly the most chilling thing ever put on a Gamecube. I actually haven't gotten that far, I keep getting my head chopped off with a chainsaw... but I'll keep at it. This game certainly saved the Resident Evil franchise... and will probably be what we see on the nextGen consoles when they release a new one. I can't wait.