A Couple Days of Updating, and some random thoughts

Hello, everyone. I'm giving up on catching this thing up, so what I'm going to do is post a bit I have written, and then at the end some snippets of e-mails I sent my mother, that tell things I've been doing and thinking about.

I spent Sunday afternoon sleeping, because I had to work from 7:45pm-3:45am. Cleaning the Fantasyland restrooms. Thrilling. I had been dreading it, but it turned out to not be bad at all in the end.
When I first got there I went to the restrooms by Peter Pan, and started out by disinfecting the baby changing table. (Incidentally, that always makes me imagine someone putting their baby on the table, folding it into the wall, and pulling it back down and getting a new one. I kind of want to write a story based on that.) When I went back to the storage room to get the sink-cleaning chemical, there was that lady! The one who nearly drove me to tears the last time I was cleaning the bathrooms by scolding me about leaving the door locked (which I did this time, since the park was open)! And she insisted that she was supposed to be here, and that her manager told her she was here until eleven, and when I showed her on the schedule that I was clearly supposed to be here at that time, she just reiterated that she was told to be here until eleven. Taking a deep breath, I decided that this was okay, we could just work together, since it was a busy night it wouldn’t hurt for the restrooms to get extra cleaning. It looked like she was going to go sweep the floor, so I took down the cleaner for the sinks and started to walk into the bathroom. She stepped into my path.
“I am here until eleven. Go talk to a manger.” Rats, this stupid lady was going to drive me to tears again. I don’t know what it is, but when someone speaks harshly to me and I don’t expect it, it makes me cry. It’s very annoying because it happens when you most want to be collected. At any rate, I said – quite politely, considering,
“Okay, I’ll do that.” And I went backstage to the fantasyland base where the managers or coordinators were most likely to be. But none were there. Fortunately, just then someone came through with a radio and when I begged him he let me use it. The manager wasn’t available, but I got a hold of a coordinator. I explained the situation to her, and she kindly told me to just sweep around the Peter Pan and it’s a small world (yes, it’s supposed to be uncapitalized, that’s how it’s always written, even on signs, it’s weird) area for now, and she would find the manager and figure out what was going on and then come find me. Much relieved and comforted, I did so. It’s so nice when someone else is going to take care of a problem. And it was also nice to get to go sweep, because it meant I got to chat with guests and also watch the fireworks.
One man I talked to was a seasonal Disney employee who had previously been on the college program.
“Yeah, it’s a good experience, being away from your parents and all, and you can have a lot of fun if you get out and party and stuff,” he said. Blink-blink-blink.
“Nah, I’m 19, and my roommates and I have a rule that nobody’s allowed to do stuff to get themselves terminated, because we like our apartment and our roommates and don’t want to have to move.” (If roommates leave then people have to move around to consolidate and make room for new CPs.)
“Ah, you can keep it on the DL,” he said. I couldn’t believe my ears. I turned to his three-year-old son, sitting there in the stroller.
“Small one, don’t follow in your father’s footsteps. Trust me.” But that was all the more I said on the subject.
From that and from other things he said in the course of the conversation, it was clear that he believed in doing anything he could get away with. There was no wife with him, and he never mentioned her. I’ve got to say, as much as I despise divorce, I could not judge his wife too harshly if she left him. He wasn’t very creepy, exactly, in the augh-run-for-your-life kind of way – he was just empty of any rectitude (look that word up in the dictionary if you don’t know what it means), or any reason to do anything but what he felt like doing. Oh siblings, my dear siblings, the next time our mother yells at you for living to do whatever you can get away with, tell her, “Thank you, dearest mother, for preventing me from growing into a horrid creepy empty person with nothing to live for.”
When I eventually talked to the manager and the coordinator, it turned out that mistaken double-scheduling had been going on all night. They decided to just have me go and help with bussing until it was time for her to leave. I didn’t mind that a bit. It meant that over a third of my shift was spent sweeping and bussing, which made the whole thing go faster. And I also got to “go above and beyond” – there was a family there who had been told that Ariel was going to come back at 10, and she wasn’t, and they were very disappointed. So I called guest relations at City Hall, and got them to get Ariel to write the girls personal autographed notes that they could pick up on their way out. J
Cleaning was actually fairly easy, except for the first round because that lady had not done a thorough job and the back of the toilets were dusty and they were not so clean as they ought to have been. But after I’d gone over everything thoroughly once it was easy. Cleaning restrooms isn’t that bad, and the time goes by faster than when you’re sweeping. And I actually get less dirty, because I don’t have to do trash runs. My long nap held up for me and I didn’t get as tired as I expected – in fact, when it was all over, the shift I had been dreading, it was just like, “Oh, was that all?” But I wasn’t thrilled about having to get back on the bus in just over 12 hours. It was a bit strange, hearing the birds start to chirp as I was going to bed. Needless to say nothing got done on Monday morning except sleep and a bit of e-mailing.
Monday I was in Tomorrowland. Since I was doing both a zone and a trash run I had done before, it didn’t require a lot of thought, which was good. But it wasn’t very crowded that night, and at one point, a little before my 45 minute break, I noticed that there was a very short line for Space Mountain, which I hadn’t been on since getting here to Florida. And I’d brought normal clothing, to change into for the bus ride home. Hmm. Hmm-hmm-hmm.
Well, as you can probably guess, the moment my 45 minute break started, I bolted down the stairs and ran down the hallway to my locker. I changed into my street clothes, ran back upstairs, and, slipping my Disney ID into my pocket, entered the world of Guests. Because my locker was at the opposite side of the park, and because my costume has a belt and buttons and takes some getting out of, all this took about 15 minutes. 30 minutes left. I arrived at the Space Mountain entrance. Wait time, 20 minutes. Ooh, cutting it close. But I didn’t have to take my clothes all the way back to the locker, I could keep them with me. And besides, the wait times aren’t always accurate. I went inside.
I was able to walk right up, almost on. I couldn’t have been in line more than ten minutes, including the time it took me to get to where there were actually people waiting. I didn’t get to sit in front (I like it best in the front…) but I still had a grand time. I love that roller coaster.
Toward the end of my shift I spent a good 10 or 15 minutes playing with a little girl named Julia. She and her mother and grandmother were sitting at a table, just resting before the long trek back to the park entrance. I started talking to Julia and before I knew it she was chattering away, whispering secrets in my ear, tickling me, and then we were chasing each other around the planters! “Isn’t it a shame that she’s such a wallflower,” her grandmother said, rolling her eyes. Julia wanted me to “catch” and tickle her back, so I just tickled the top of her head. A good improvisation if I do say so myself. I think the most endearing thing about her was that she didn’t treat me like a grown-up. We were ageless, equals, just having fun.
Okay, so since I’m a week behind, I’m skipping to the highlights. Tuesday I went shopping. (Note: shopping, to me, means going to Walmart for groceries and other necessities, not to the mall, unless otherwise noted. Just so you all know.) I know I did other things too but I can’t think what. Oh yes, I finished working on Ali’s birthday present. I’m sure I did other things… oh well. Must not have been anything too exciting.
Wednesday I went to the Magic Kingdom again with Marijka. We did Adventureland this time – Pirates of the Carribean (it has Jack Sparrow now, which improves it, but it’s still not a “love” ride for me, like Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh are), Jungle Cruise, The Enchanted Tiki Room (sibs, you aren’t missing anything by not seeing this one, trust me), Aladdin’s magic carpets (whee! That one’s fun), and the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. Marijka wasn’t so interested in the tree house as I am and so we went faster than I like to go. Of course, I have a definite tendency to wander slowly through everything… Then we had just 15 minutes before we needed to leave (we both needed to be somewhere at 9), so we made a dash for the Astro Orbiter. Unfortuately, although the line said 20 minutes, and we had a little flex time, it ended up being more like 35. I was just going to the college group so it wasn’t a big deal for me, and Marijka called her friends that she was going to meet up with and they had changed the meeting time to 10:00 anyway. So that was no problem. The Astro Orbiter is set up like the Dumbo ride, except it’s way up in the air and goes about two or three times faster. Which means it’s pretty thrilling – you kind of feel like you’re going to fling out into space. Marijka shrieked and clung to me the entire time, which I thought she probably would… it reminded me of riding with Rebecca, who did the same thing. J
We took the monorail back to the TTC and drove home. We got home at about 9:30, so it was too late for me to go to the college group, but I didn’t really mind. I’m going to go tomorrow, anyway.
Thursday I was working on Main Street, doing normal street sweeping. I don’t think anything interesting happened, other than me having three trash runs. But they were bagged and quite easy.
Friday was insanity. I hadn’t gotten home until 2:30 that night, which meant I was in bed at 3:30. I was meeting a friend, John Dickensheets at the Ticket and Transportation Center at 8:00, which meant getting up at 6:55. He was in Florida for a conference and had the day free. So we and his friend Lisa parkhopped all day, and saw all four parks. In one day. And me on three hours sleep. It was so much fun! I was really happy because I was afraid it would be awkward since I don’t know John super well (I mean, you can’t help knowing someone pretty well once you’ve spent weeks with them in the sound booth for shows, but we weren’t especial friends or anything) and I didn’t know Lisa at all. But Lisa was an absolute kindred spirit, and the three of us got on fantastically. My new Facebook profile picture (yes, the one with the Figment hat on my head) was taken that day. I would like to write more about all the fun things we did, but it’s so late that it’s early and I am tired, so I will just say that John teased Lisa and I all day, saying that he was touring Disney with the Lollypop Guild, because we are both so short and tiny (she is even smaller than me!) – we had to look very amusing going around Disney because he is fairly tall.
Fortunately, I was on Main Street again for work that night, doing parade clean up. I had to do a pushbroom instead of a vacuum and I like vacuuming better because it’s so much easier. I feel very inept at pushbrooming. But parade is still one of the easiest things to do, and I was extremely glad that that was what I was doing on three hours sleep and a day of park hopping.

So now I will just post a few snippets of things that have been happening, because I’m giving up on catching up. These are from e-mails I sent to my mother, but they give the general idea of what’s happening with me, and what I’m thinking about.

Tues, Oct 16:

I cooked today. Last week I went out and bought vegetables from the produce aisle - new experience there - and today I washed, peeled, and cooked them and they're in the crockpot being made into soup. I don't think I'd ever held a turnip in my life before. Do you peel turnips? I didn't know so I peeled it just in case. Since you peel potatoes and carrots. I hope the soup turns out okay. It smells good at any rate. Do you like thyme? I like the smell but I never had it before as far as I know so I hope I like it. I didn't put cabbage in even though the recipe calls for it because you only needed 1/4 of a head and I didn't know what the heck I'd do with the other 3/4 and I don't like cabbage anyway. And I bought real quaker oatmeal that you cook, and today I finally managed to cook it without boiling over the milk, and I had it with strawberries, and it was really really good.

Wed, Oct 17:

The soup turned out pretty good, and it made the apartment smell very delicious. I think it came out exactly as the recipe intended. I liked it, and Abby liked it. Marijka didn't particularly care for it. (She didn't say so, but she did the only-eat-half-of-it thing.) It's very much a vegetable soup - there's nothing in it but vegetables. It's good - especially because the turnip gives it a little bit of substance because it's not overcooked - but there's nothing comforting about it. It needs something. I supplied the something by eating it with club crackers, but I'd like to figure out what I could put in it to make it right. I feel like what it wants is something like cornbread. It needs some sort of substance thing - I wonder if barley would work? And some sort of warm-but-not-spicy flavor, like what cornbread has. Hey, I wonder if I could put corn in it? Does corn turn into absolute mush in a crockpot?

Friday, Oct 19:

I'm killer homesick. I don't think I've ever been homesick enough to cry before in my life. Don't get me wrong - it's not that debilitating can't-cope can't-think-of-anything-else homesick of a miserable kid at camp; I'm not miserable here and I don't actually want to give it up and come home - I just miss everyone and everything. And I'm sick of still being homesick because I've been homesick off and on for two or three weeks straight. It's kind of funny - when I was younger and went on youth trips I'd feel guilty that I'd never get homesick, like I must not love my family very much if I didn't miss them at all. Now I feel guilty for being too homesick, like I ought to be coping better and getting over it. Is this normal?
I went to a seminar/panel discussion thingie for Entertainment tonight, and met the Technical Director, Assistant Technical Director, the stage manager of Lights, Motors, Action!, and the Character Director. So yeah, that was pretty sweet. (I sound like Thad...) And I found out lots of things that made me happy. Someone asked the panel, "If you want to get into Entertainment, but your major isn't in an entertainment field, how much will that hinder you?" And three of the panel members simultaneously held up a "zero" hand symbol, and the other three laughed. And I almost cried for happiness, because one thing that I have worried about rather often in contemplating my life is that there will be lots of things I would love to do that will be closed to me because I am not a theatre major. And they said that basically a degree shows that you can make a commitment and carry it out, and beyond that, no matter what you learned they're going to teach you to do it their way anyway. And I also talked to David, who was doing the introductions and faciliating, and I asked about the end-of-season auditions (for next college program) and they're December 5th which means I have a month and a half to keep doing ballet, and then he asked how tall I was and I said " 5'3" " and he nodded, pleased, and explained that between 5'7" and 5'9" is the "dead" height range that nothing's really in. So yeah. Oh and somebody else said that the same person has played both Alice and Sleeping Beauty. I about passed out. And they were so encouraging about just doing whatever you're doing really well, and that was how someone would notice you, and it was so wonderful because that's what I had thought originally but it didn't seem true down in the dark tunnel surrounded by cynical people who don't believe in magic anymore. And now I know - it's the people who keep believing in the magic who move up. The people who have been in the same custodial position for years and are cynical, didn't stop believing in magic because they were stuck there, they're stuck there because they stopped believing in magic and started being cynical. And they also said to be proud of whatever role you're in because they're all important to the magic. So this week I'm going to go to work with a smile, I'm going to go above and beyond, and when somebody asks me what my role is I'm going to say, "Magic Kingdom Custodial," as proudly as I would say, "Entertainment." Because that's the Disney magic. And the people who are higher up in the company still believe in it. So there.
That's all my ramblings for tonight, I guess.