shake and shimmy it and have some fun

In the summer of 2002, I was making up a level 2 UCB class that I had missed due to tendonitis in my ankle. The makeup class was at noon on a Sunday in July, I was getting over a cold, and I had to go work in a bookstore immediately afterwards. Despite my naïve love for improv at the time, I really wasn’t looking forward to it.
I didn’t know anyone in the class, but they were all very enthusiastic, and Seth had some great ice-breaking warm-up exercises. The first was a status scene; everyone drew a numbered piece of paper, and the lower your number, the higher your status. Nobody knew what the others had drawn, and if two people had the same status, tough. Find a way to coexist without canceling each other out.
I had a 1, meaning I was the highest status. It occurred to me halfway through the scene that this tan, short-haired girl must have had the same number. We stared each other down, wordlessly fought over a chair and worked together to make someone else leave. It was incredibly tense. Then Seth called ‘scene,’ and immediately the girl jumped up and hugged me, saying ‘that was awesome!’ I thought, ‘who is this cool girl?’
I would learn that her name was Amanda Allan, and she is indeed a cool girl.
We’d go on to perform together in Holiday Spectacular, Instant Cinema II, Butter, and a show I wrote, in which Amanda gamely played a dancing boy. She is one of the nicest, most genuinely talented people I know, and if her auspicious beginnings in voice-over are any indication, this girl is going to be HUGE. She’s been so graciously successful and so humble about it that people who don’t even know her are rooting for her (this is due in part to me bragging about her to non-mutual friends).
You heard it here first: HUGE.

she's making out with King Kong

And now, she who offered tonal advice on yesterday's entry...
Miss Maddy Mako.

When I first started to get really into improv 3 years ago (about a year after starting classes) I started hearing the same people's names over and over, but rarely had a face to match them to. One name, which I started hearing more after I got onto an Above Klepto house team in late summer 2003, was Maddy Mako. The message board for team members promised to shed light on "who's performing when and with whom. And who has a crush on Maddy Mako." After seeing this mystery woman's photo on a team page, I thought 'Fine. She's cute, and apparently everybody has a crush on her, good for her' and proceeded to draw various conclusions.
Cut to fall of 2003, when I started classes for Holiday Spectacular, and Maddy "everybody's in love with her" Mako is in the class. Imagine my surprised relief to find out that this girl is actually pretty awesome- down to earth, goofy, imperfect. And yes, totally cute.
These days, Maddy is one of my closest comedy friends. She's fun and unjudgy and never bats an eye when I email her to tell of my latest social blunder or biologically-related gaffe. Since I can see her office window from mine, we will likely eventually develop some sort of updated semiphore or light-based communication. Because apparently IMs, emails, text messages and real-life lunches aren't enough.

nothing you can sing that can't be sung

I've been meaning to get back into the 'how I met them' blogs, so what better day to start than today? And what better person to start with than someone who is birthdaying today?
Kevin Danenberg!
Oh man, it is crazy how much I love this guy. Which works out for both of us!
Kevin has reminded me that we actually met in 2003 after the first-ever full-length Melodious Din show. I blame my post-show haze for my not readily recalling him when we met again early this year at the going-away party for the mutual friend on whose behalf Kevin had seen the MD show. We must have talked at that party for over an hour (thanks largely to a friend who realized the connection and went to lengths to keep us from being interrupted). I gave him my number, went home, heard from him the next day... and the rest is awesome, awesome history.
So now this jazz saxophone-playing, computer-programming, B&B-quoting, Tom Brokaw-impersonating handsome ball of wonderful is an extremely important part of my life. I'll stop now, as to reduce risk of reader nausea.... but seriously, yay.

there's fire in their eyes and their words are pretty clear

To: The people
Re: A certain lewd-looking photo in a recent issue of a popular regional magazine

I KNOW. THANKS.

Love,
Jen

we rob banks?

(we don't, but we could. but we won't. please don't arrest us).

take me all the way

I realized today that I've been neglecting what was perhaps the highlight of our CA trip- the LA party! Since Kevin and I both have a fair amount of friends in LA (98% from college- I went to school there and some of his chums from CT have migrated), we decided to have everyone meet up. Everything about the evening was great- the swanky but intimate location, the food (everything from hummus to lollipops) and especially the company. The small-scale reunion was far, far better than the HS reunion, in that I had much more to say to people and I felt much more fullfilled afterwards. And Kevin's kickass jazz mix was far, far superior to the 'Who Let the Dogs Out" and "Baby Got Back" of the TPHS reunion.
The photos are all still on K's computer, but among the highlights:
*B Davis going out to get ice, then returning iceless and wearing a metal plate-cover on his head
*Kevin's college friend staging an emergency headshot session
*Seeing Zach Tabacco for the first time since he moved!
*Catching up with Mattangela before everyone else got there, even though I'd just seen them three weeks earlier
*Vicariously living the dream through Kevin's actress friends
*Reconnecting with my theatre geeks

they say the meek shall inherit

This entry is a work in progress. I plan to elaborate later and replace the demon-eyed photo from my mom’s camera with one she took with Kevin’s demon-proof camera. I also plan to cut and paste the entire online reunion rsvp list so people find this blog when googling themselves and the people they didn’t get to hook up with. Mwahaha.
We’ll start with arriving at the resort where the reunion was held, when my leg started shaking so hard I was having a hard time parking the car. Inside, at check-in, Kevin and I stood right behind a group of girls I was once terrified of, all of whom were now warm and sincere and still looked every bit as amazing as they did ten years ago. Moments later, we ran into a concentrated cluster of people I was actually pretty good friends with, who I hadn’t seen in six years at the most recent. (I occasionally have this weird notion that, due simply to the passage of time, I won’t recognize people I know. Never mind that I’ve stalked most of them out on MySpace and have more access to updated photos of them than of members of my own family. In 2001, when I went to meet Cat in Boston for Thanksgiving after not having seen her in 8 years, I was worried I wouldn’t recognize her, and she is a member of my own family!) But all of the faces came screaming back, for better (reminiscing with ST and my other ‘theatre girls’ over dinner) or worse (avoiding someone who sent me hate email as recently as four years ago).
It was during the class photo of more than 200 people that I got physically closer to half my class than I ever had when we were in school together. A former BMOC had his elbow dug into ST’s boob the entire time (“that’s not ok, not now, not ever,” she said later). Thanks to an overwhelmed, semi-competent photographer, it took nearly 20 minutes to simply get a shot with flash, so I took the opportunity to observe these people up close. The rowdy, drunk trust-fund babies are now rowdy, drunk trust-fund adults, but with extra neck-fat and grateful spouses. The beautiful people stayed, for the most part, beautiful; except now I can talk to them for reasons other than to apologize for being in their way.
Refreshingly, it was the underdogs who seemed to have changed the most- a formerly pudgy, bespectacled girl who I don’t think I ever heard speak in high school showed up glamorously svelte with her fiancée in tow; the nerdy, 4’7” kid from my algebra class is now a 6’, married investment banker with a baby.

reunited and it feels so... ?

ST: We're on top here, MacNeil. I got married and you stayed skinny.
**
That's the gist of it. Pics to come. Special thanks to Robyn Sklaren, Emmett McCarthy and Dimitry for help with outfit amazingness and to my wonderful, wonderful boyfriend for overall amazingness.

look to the western sky

I'm totally in San Diego! I'm sitting in my parent's living room while Kevin takes a (very, very able) crack at their Steinway. I've never blogged in such a sexily jazzy setting before! This is the most awake relaxing we've done since landing on Saturday night. The flight out of NY started with me having the wrong airline stuck in my head, and my reservation not confirmed on the e-kiosk at the right airline. But everything worked out ok and we did have a reservation and we did get on the flight from JFK to LAX. So my screwing up was a non-issue, for the most part. Just pretend you didn't read those last 3 sentences. Note to anyone flying Delta in the near future: you should BE so lucky to get one of the old Song airplanes, on which you can play in-flight, touch-screen trivia for free against fellow plane-mates. But if you are on a flight with me, Kevin, or both of us.... you WILL lose. The game went in cycles, and if either of us played a full cycle, one of us ended up winning. Kevin even ended up getting the top score for the entire flight. Take THAT, Chris in 6B!
Sunday we went to Sea World, where we took snaps of sharks, saw a dolphin show and I gingerly touched starfish. I think they liked me.
Yesterday we doubled up with my sister and her boyfriend at Disneyland, where I used to be an annual pass-holder, but where I hadn't been in about 5 years. It was great. We made it to all the obligatory thrill rides- Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Matterhorn, Pirates (now with animatronic Depp!) and the Haunted Mansion ('the ride DOES have video cameras,' said the 18-year-old seatbelt-checker as I stole a kiss from Kevin at the beginning of the ride). We also checked out California Adventure, which is basically an 'enh! keep up with Orlando!' extension of what was once a perfectly viable stand-alone theme park. It didn't hold our interest much past the 'Soarin Over California' virtual tour and the smoothie bar. We returned to the main park for chicken dinners and Space Mountain, then headed home.
Tomorrow it's off to LA, then back here on Thursday after a swing by Gramma's house. The reunion is Saturday. Oy. At least I'll have an amazing dress and an an even more amazing date.
Pics forthcoming. Maybe a freshman-year yearbook note.

I really dig those styles

Earl Warren Junior High School lies in the heart of Solana Beach, just blocks from the ocean. The school had a total surfer vibe already (and by that I mean a lot of scrawny kids wearing Billabong t-shirts with the sleeves triple rolled), and the 90-91 yearbook had a very heavy ocean/old-timey surfer motif going on. All that does a lot to inspire the musings of 12/13 and 13/14 year-olds:

Jenny,
Have a great summer. See ya at the beach!
Adam J

Adam,
Thanks! I don't think we ever did see each other at the beach. But I would have been hard to miss- a shiny white spork-child in a probably hot-pink one-piece who spontaneously combusts in direct sunlight. I do remember that you were very nice (you gave me a brand-new shamrock pencil on my 13th birthday- I think I kept it for 3 years or something), so I hope you weren't subjected to such a potentialy traumatic sight.
Jen

Have a totally awesome summer Dude.
Danielle

Same Danielle who in 11th grade apologized for "acting like a dumbsh*t,"
Thank you for not calling me a dudette.
Jen

Jenny,
Have a gnarly summer. It's been a fun year in History.
Siya,
David G

David,
It WAS gnarly! It was a thick, ropy gnarl of a summer! I like, totally went to theatre camp and spent several weeks in England and Scotland. I also saw the national tour of "Les Miserables" in downtown San Diego, spent a few late mornings watching 'Press Your Luck' with my grandparents and hit an ice cream social at my parents' lakeside club. It really doesn't get any gnarlier than that.
Jen

Jenny,
I'm really glad I became your friend. Have a really bitchen summer
Love,
Alex

Alex,
I was paranoid for months after this that my mom would see the word 'bitchen' and I would get in trouble. Years later, my mom would tell me that her cousin actually did get in trouble for "letting" someone write "bitchen" in her yearbook. And that was in the 60s! I didn't even know they had bitchen back then! So I was paranoid for naught- my mom is nothing if not a champion for the unfairly punished child whose yearbook is defiled against her will.
Jen