Our house. In the middle of the street.

It is late! I need sleep!

I just got home from my first night of training lights at the theatre. It was a lot better than I expected it would be. For one, it didn't take as much out of me as is does when I'm mingling with the patrons. Mainly, though, it was easier than I thought it would be ... probably because my teacher was DA BOMB (KW)! I watched the entire first show and then did (almost) all of the second show with moral support. Awesome!

What else? The stone. I had another bout of kidney stone pain this morning. It wasn't Vicodin-worthy, but it was pain of a there-are-almost-tears-in-my-eyes level. Thankfully I took some ibuprofen and it was pretty short-lived. The anxiety-provoking thing about this is that, now that I know what I'm expecting, I know that the pain should be returning. That is NOT a good feeling! I got some twinges of pain throughout the night, but nothing long-lasting. Let's see how tonight goes!

I had J. Christopher's today. Spinach and bacon skillet in the houuuuuse! It included many things that I believe are on the do-not-eat list, but that's okay. I forgive myself.

Tomorrow evening I have a workshop at the theatre. That being said, I'll probably take it easy all day since the weekend has been a little hectic. I went out last night and was up until about 2:00 a.m., and here I am at the same hour again tonight. What a wild child I am! At least I'm enjoying myself...

The eyelids are heavy, so I better give in and sleep.

Every little step I take

First off - The title of this blog is a lyric to a song. I actually wanted to title my last blog this lyric, but I didn't because a friend had just titled a blog about "steps" and I didn't want to overSTEP my boundaries. HA! Anyway, I chose to title the last blog the NEXT line of the song just so I didn't seem like a copycat. However, each time I've seen that title, I've been like, "What? 'You will be there?'" because it's not as obvious and takes me a minute to figure out, even though I wrote it. So, in summary, the last two blogs have been inspired by Bobby Brown's "Every Little Step I Take," which was actually inspired by ANOTHER friend's Facebook status.

Now, if you know me, you know that I can go off on unnecessary tangents like the one above. (BTW: Now I'm listening to Bobby Brown.) However, you probably also notice that it's after 3:00 a.m. and I don't have the day off work or anything. Both of these mysteries can be explained by one simple fact, and it's that I'm pretty sure another kidney stone is rearing its ugly head.

I got my first twinge of back pain last Saturday before the show, but it was gone before I began performing. This pain is FOR REAL, though. So, to explain the unnecessary tangent, I'm actually on Vicodin right now. I tried ibuprofen and didn't keep it down, so I upgraded to bigger guns. I think I'm about to add another half of a Vicodin to the mix to try to get the pain below a 3 or 4.

Well, yesterday (Wednesday) during lunch, I went to exercise. I wore my bathing suit under my gym clothes, planning to take a dip in the pool after I finished running. Shortly after getting on the treadmill, I decided I'd rather swim laps. I ended up getting off the treadmill and heading out to the pool, even though I was goggleless. The result: I swam 30 laps! Now, the pool at my complex isn't Olympic-sized or anything, but it's between 15 and 20 yards. So, that was a big accomplishment. It felt good to do the butterfly for the first time in what felt like forever. It was a great workout! Now I want to get a membership at some kind of indoor pool so that it can become a habit.

When I woke up with the back pain, I was hopeful that it was swimming induced. As I learned with the last stone, though, when there is not a single physical position I can contort myself into to feel better, that's bad news. Ugh. I am nauseous.

Well, I've got a big few days ahead of me, so I guess we'll see where I stand after another bout of sleep.

Kick it to the curb

So, Thursday was an eventful day; that Cortisone injection made it more painful than I imagined. I took some Aleve in the morning, hoping that the soreness would wear off as the day continued. However, I was horribly wrong. By 2:00 p.m. when the pain wasn't subsiding any, I decided to take half of a Vicodin. I'll tell you that definitely did a trick or two. I was at least able to relax a bit, so my shoulder stopped twitching and my neck loosened up a bit.

I met a friend at El Azteca before Thursday night's show. Dinner got started a little late considering the zebra running around on the Downtown Connector, which held up traffic quite a bit (it's no wonder Atlanta was just ranked third in the worst traffic among metro areas). Anyway, we had to move quickly, but we got in some good catching-up before we headed to the improv show. It was super-fun being spectators together, and the show was quite amusing!

I was relieved to work at home Friday so that I didn't have to sit up in a chair and/or walk around as much. Thankfully, I woke up Friday feeling remarkably less sore, but it was still nice to get to work from bed. I got a lot accomplished before I headed downtown to meet a friend at Willy's. We were both on the volunteer schedule, so we got to visit over dinner before we went to fulfill our duties. I was originally slated as the camera girl with her doing suggestions, but we flipped responsibilities since I knew my SC joint wasn't going to be happy about having to work the camera.

Today has been a really lazy day. I'm not sure if I'm just exhausted or if I'm still kind of fighting something, but I haven't felt up to much today. I slept in pretty late, which was nice since it's been a pretty jam-packed week. My mom ended up heading this way and we went to the Goodwill to do a little character-outfit shopping. I got a few good things to solidify some characters. Then we swung by El Toro (third Mexican reference in this post - I also forgot to say I had Willy's for lunch Thursday) and ate a late lunch.

This evening I haven't accomplished much. I dozed off for over an hour. I tried cleaning up a bit, too, but that didn't work out quite as planned. I got a bath, which was nice, but honestly I have no idea where the night has gone. All I know is that I'm feeling pretty drained.

Tomorrow I think some of the apprentice actors are meeting for lunch. Then, in the afternoon, a friend and I will be doing some filming for my CF video. I'm pretty excited to see the outcome of this; it's gonna be cooooool!

I'm all hopped up

Today was not the best day of my life. I will go ahead and throw that out there. I am not even afraid to admit that.

The good news was that I had a doctor's appointment that I went to all hopped up on Vicodin, so that was adventurous. My uncle drove me there and got to hear an entirely new side of me as I rambled in the car. I almost couldn't sit still in the car because looking out the window was like an out-of-body experience. I was being so loud in the car and then had to turn on my game face when I walked into the doctor's office. I was just kind of staring off into space. I am still kind of spacey if this doesn't seem as logical as usual. Not that I'm ever logical.

The appointment itself was horrendous, but the narcotics were amusing.

It isn't even 9:00 p.m. and I'm getting ready to go to sleep. I know that's slightly elderly of me, but I'm tired and feel like I might be getting a little sick. My SC joint is actually hurting some, too. I just popped a numbing patch onto that bad boy. Do I sound like an overmedicator? Cool.

Today I had a smoothie AND El Toro. What a swell eating day!