Plays

So the program I'm in at my CEGEP has this nifty English class that is highly theatre related. To a point where our mid-terms are Scene Studies and our final exams are Final Showcases. It's great. The classroom is the school theatre itself. There are three teachers, and anywhere from ninety to one hundred and ten students in total. A majority of the students are from the theatre programs, be it professional theatre or theatre workshop. There are some other students from other programs who get in simply because it fits their schedule. One way or another, it's a lot of fun.

A Scene Study is simply this; a group is formed (your decision). You select a scene from a film, television show, or play. Then you assign parts, rehearse it, and then reenact it. Costumes, props, as much as you can manage. It's a lot of fun. And it's great too, because since we're all in college, language is never an issue. In one of my scene studies last semester (I did two; American Beauty and Shaun of the Dead), I got away with saying "And your mother seems to prefer that I go through life with my dick in a mason jar underneath the sink." It was intense. I even broke a glass bowl on stage, and then got beaten up as a zombie later on.

A Final Showcase... this needs a little more explanation. In this English class, there's one major writing assignment. If it's your first semester in this particular class, you have to write an essay. But if it's your second to fourth semester, you can write a play. If the play is well written, it could be selected as a piece for the Final Showcase assignment, where these plays are actually performed in our studio theatre space.

Last semester I wrote a one-act, one-scene, small casted play titled Nameless Love. Five actors, three characters. It was an abstract piece about two people in love who didn't know each others' names. The script was about eleven-and-a-half pages, and the performance lasted roughly seven minutes. It wasn't a comedy, which made it different from roughly ninety percent of all the other final showcases. And it was the last play to be performed, making it such a bigger deal.

That's it if you care to see it.

It was an interesting concept. I had two extra actors because I wanted the audience to have an intimate closeness to the characters. You'll notice in the first half of the video, two of my actors are dress the exact same. The one that doesn't move and stands at the corner of the stage is supposed to be the "Inner Thoughts and Feelings" of the character. There's the same for the leading lady of the play as well. This way the audience knew what the characters were thinking and feeling. And the names of the characters were never said until the very end, when they finally introduce themselves to one another. It was very well received.

I've been working on a play lately for myself. It's going to be about superheroes, simply because one day I got the idea of how one could portray super powers on stage. It has absolutely nothing to do with my books, just to clear the air. This play is for me, but I was planning on using the Final Showcase assignment as a way to "test the waters." To see if it would actually work on stage. There's just one problem.

It's big.

The first draft of the outline makes this play out to be seventeen scenes long. I haven't even written the script yet, and I already know that that's bigger than whatever's been done before in Final Showcases. So this is my plan of action: write the script and try to shorten it wherever possible. Come up with set designs and figure out the fastest and easiest way to do set changes. Even begin to arrange the choreography for the fight scenes. If I can get this all done by the beginning of the semester, I can try to convince the teachers to allow this play to be put on as a Final Showcase.

I hope it works.

Proms

This past weekend, on Sunday, was GC's prom. I went with her because we've been "kissing on a regular basis" for nearly two months now, and also it'd be my first prom with a real date. That's right, you read it correctly. My first prom with a real date. In actuality, this was my fourth prom. That's right, you read it correctly. This was my fourth prom. Here, let me break it down for you.

1st prom: 2006.
It was the year before my graduating year. All of my high school friends were older than me, so this year the last of my true friends at my school were graduating. One of my best friends at the time was going to this prom. But her prom date bailed on her. And so did her second one. So, as the good friend, I offered to take her if she wanted me to. And she did. So, all kinda last minute, I managed to arrange the rental of a suit, getting a corsage, and getting everything sorted out. It was actually pretty cool. I got to go to prom with my friends, and have a good time. It was on a boat, the dinner was okay. I'm not a dancer, and the music wasn't too appealing to be, but when the slow song came on, I danced with my friend Rebecca. I would say "my date," but I was actually her date, so there. That was my first prom.

2nd prom: 2007.
This was my graduating year. My graduating class. This prom was my actual prom. But, get this, I didn't want to go. I knew that it was going to be on the same boat as last year's prom, except I didn't have anyone to go with, and I didn't really have any friends in that year. So I didn't buy a ticket. I wasn't going to go. But then in the last couple weeks of school, teachers approached me. Called me out of the Drama class I taught (officially I was the TA (Teacher's Assistant) but the actual teacher wanted to use this time to do work, and I wanted to actually teach, so it was cool) and everything. I thought I was in trouble. In actuality, they wanted to know why I hadn't gotten a prom ticket. I came up with an excuse, saying I didn't have the money. Then they offered to send me to prom for free. I was shocked, and said yes. So I ended up going. I had a suit already rented for another prom I was going to (which ended up being my third), so there was no trouble there. But I was right in thinking that it was the same as my first prom. Same boat. Same food. Same DJ with the same playlist even. All that was different was that it was a different slow song, and I danced with my step-cousin (who was a new teacher at my school) for that. All in all, it was my least favorite prom.

3rd prom: 2007.
This prom was for a different school. It was actually for the high school that was the extremely competitive rival of my own high school. But I went to that prom anyway, because of my ex-girlfriend. She invited me (as a friend) just because she wanted someone she trusted, someone she liked, and someone whom she knew wouldn't try to take advantage of her at any after-parties. Also; she didn't want her entire graduating class to know that her date would've been a girl (she's lesbian, just to clarify). So I agreed. I had rented the suit, and made all the arrangements (before I even knew I was going to my own prom). All was good. It was at a hotel instead of a boat. The food was really good. The music was great. We had the banquet hall until 1am officially, but nearly everyone had left by 11:30pm. Except for us. Me, my ex-girlfriend, and the seven others we were with. So for that last hour and a half, we got to dance to anything we wanted to, and we got to have anything that we wanted, since the banquet waiters were happy to do anything for us since we actually stayed. I even slow danced with my friend Matthew, as a joke, to mess up a bet our dates had made. After that, we went up to a hotel room to change for a party we never went to. Instead, we broke onto the room of the hotel, and watched the sunrise. Then we went out for breakfast. It was a lot of fun.

And then there was GC's prom, this year. Had I gone to school in Ontario it'd be my graduating year too, but Montreal (and all of Quebec) is funky with their education system. This was to be my fourth and final prom. I only agreed because it was GC. Had it been anyone else, and I wouldn't've gone. I even turned down two other prom invites that I had. But this prom was different from the others I had gone to, in the sense that the school had nothing to do with it.

It was organized by students. Most of them were of legal age in Quebec, so they arranged to have it on the Quebec side of the river, so that alcohol could be consumed. The dinner was pretty good. It was chicken, which is a common theme between all proms (or so I've noticed), but good none the less. The after prom was out in a ski lodge. The music was loud, and not exactly my taste. I'm not a dancer, but I tried to dance with GC. Managed to dance a little, but horribly. I felt ridiculous and uncomfortable, but I gave it my all, and managed to for a little bit. What shocked me the most though was there was no slow music for a slow song. It was the first prom I had been to that didn't have a slow song for all the couples. It was my last prom, and I didn't get to slow dance with GC (at her prom, on top of it).

But overall, I still had a good time. Slow song or not, it was still the first prom I had with an actual date, not an ex, or a friend, or going solo.

In the meantime, though, in the here and now, I'm working on this play I'm writing while waiting for GC to get back from work, which should be relatively soon. I'll talk about this play in my next post.

Super

I don't often watch TV. There's only one television show that I tune in purposefully for; Heroes. Other than that, I channel surf once in a while, but I really use the television to watch a movie or something. Unless I have guests over. If they want to watch something, then we'll tune in. Or we'll surf. Either way, if someone's over, it's an easy method of entertainment.

Earlier I was channel surfing, and I came across Myth Busters. It's a good show, and I really enjoy it whenever I come across it. What I caught in tonight's episode was an exploding vacuum cleaner, a rolling stone gathers no moss, and breaking glass with the power of your voice. It's the last one that really caught my interest.

With an amplifier, someone can break a glass if they hit the right tone. That's understandable. Match the tone and frequency, and sound can break glass, provided you have enough power to do so. With help from the amplifier, it's just a matter of hitting the right tone, and the glass will break. But can someone's voice break glass unassisted?

It can. I just saw it. It was really cool.

A man broke a glass with his voice. No microphone or amplifier. Just his voice. Even the concept of it is enough to make people interested, but the fact that it is humanly possible? That just blew my mind. It made me think of my books.

Yeah, the series of books I'm writing is completely fiction. It's all original from my mind. It's about superheroes, y'know? I try to make it as realistic as possible, adding science to fictional powers wherever I can. Seeing a man shatter glass with his voice alone just made me think of what I was writing about.

I love writing my books. I'm on the fourth one now, which is exciting to think about, since I started the series about eleven months ago. I always here people say "stick to what you know." I know a lot about superheroes, so that's what I ended up writing about. And it's working out pretty well for me.

The first three books focus on the same protagonist. There are five year gaps between each of those three books (second book takes place five years after the first, and the third is five years after the second). That system worked for me for the first trilogy. But with the fourth one, I decided to explore my options and change things up.

The beauty about writing about superheroes, even in novels, the same concept of comic books apply. As long as you have the character(s), there are stories to tell. One story can end, wrap up all the loose ends, and all of that. But if a character's still around, there's more to write about. Even though my fourth book follows a new protagonist, the main protagonist from the first three books is still around... in the background. But he's there none the less.

It's fun to write these stories. I don't know if they'll ever be published or adapted or anything, but I would absolutely love them to be. I want to share my writing with whoever is interested. So when I finished book four, I'm going back to book one, and doing self-editing, then I'll start looking for professional help. As in a professional editor, and then a publishing agent. Hell, if I find an artist, I might adapt the book into a graphic novel. That would work too.

But even if nothing happens with them, I still love what I'm doing with it.

Into the A.M.

Part 1.

I have sleeping problems. I find it difficult to get to sleep. And when I say difficult, I mean truly difficult. Difficult in the sense where I lie awake in bed for hours, doing nothing to keep my system going, and I just so happen to be awake. Lately, I rarely fall asleep before 4am or even 4.30am. Last night? I was still awake when my mother woke up to get ready to go to work. I was so bored lying in bed that I actually counted how many times the blades of my ceiling fan rotate in a minute, roughly.

It's rough, being in bed, knowing it's going to be hours before you actually manage to get some sleep. And you think you can do stuff to kill that time. Read, do some homework if you have any, write something, watch a movie, or draw a picture. But in reality, you can't. Doing that stuff just keeps your system going. It's ridiculous. And it's rough.

I've discovered that the best sleep I get is when I'm not at home. I can actually get something of a normal night's sleep when I am someplace other than my own home. Or if something's different, like someone's staying in my room and I need to sleep on the couch for a few nights. The further away I am from the image of home, the easier it is to sleep. Couch? Not that big a deal. A couch or a fold-up-bed in someone else's place? I could fall asleep pretty easily. Someone else's bed; I'll sleep as if I don't have any sleeping problems.

In fact, since GC and I became something official, I feel as if I have no problems at all when she's around. Not just sleeping problems, but any problems at all. When she's around, I feel good. I actually, genuinely, feel good. And let me tell you; when you have someone in your life that triggers that kind of feeling in you, hold onto them. Between you and me, I plan on belonging to my Girl in the Capital for as long as she wants me, and longer still if I get any say in it. I'm crazy about her.

But no (getting back on topic), I don't have any problems with my home, or my room, or my bed. They're all nice, great, and everything. No problems whatsoever. But I'm asking myself the same questions that your wondering; why. Why is it so hard to sleep? I don't know.

But I do know something.

Once I get to sleep, it's not very often I have what you would call a "normal dream."

PS: This was only part 1. You'll know when we get to part 2, don't worry.

Orange Juice

It's just a couple minutes short of 11pm (local time) as I start this. I'm listening to a playlist of songs I put together with one thing in mind; lip dub videos. I'm trying to organize a group of people to do a lip dub video to take part in this online fad/competition that's going on. While so far I don't have any group, I can work on picking a song to do, no?

I feel... ridiculous. I'm ashamed of myself. (This is on a note completely different from the music lip dub stuff, for your information.) Monday nights, I normally have no plan. But this entire day, I was bored. I tried to come up with something to do. Someplace to go. A plan of sorts. But I couldn't think of anything. I sat around, brainstormed for my book, among other things, but I literally accomplished nothing. Nothing at all.

Hell, even now, I'm just sitting here writing about how I'm just sitting here. I feel like I'm pathetic, or something ridiculous like that. I'm sitting here, drinking orange juice, eating the BEST CHIPS EVER* and listening to music. Gee, that makes for an exciting night, doesn't it?

Alright, I suppose it does. But I wanted to actually do something tonight. I wanted to accomplish something, and I failed to do just that. I had to settle for something I didn't really want to do in the first place. I'm not complaining, I'm just ashamed of my pathetic self.

*Miss Vickie's Sea Salt & Malt Vinegar chips are the best ever in my opinion.

10 feet tall, 1500 pounds easily. Oh, and he's Green

First: this post contains spoilers concerning The Incredible Hulk film. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Wow. That movie didn't just deliver. It completely exceeded my expectations. Edward Norton portrayed Bruce Banner amazingly. William Hurt as General Ross... I didn't even recognize him. It was his voice that made me realize who it was. And it was good. Tim Roth played the power-hungry soldier who ultimately because The Abomination, well, he played it spot-f***ing-on. Liv Tyler... okay, well, let me get into that before I get into the plot.

Liv Tyler played Betty Ross, daughter of General Ross and basically the love interest of Bruce Banner. She did it pretty well... in the second half. In the first half of the film, she was the only character that I didn't give a sh*t about. But in the second half of the film, as things escalated and the plot thickened, her part became more important, and she did deliver in the end. Don't get me wrong, she's a decent actress, but in the beginning, I have to say that her performance felt sub-par to me.

The opening credits of this film were just beautiful. It was almost like a flash-back sequence, showing how Bruce Banner became the Hulk in a freak accident with a whole "experiment gone wrong" thing. The entire film takes place around five years after said accident, skipping the whole "having to retell the origins", but the opening credits filled the blanks for people who hadn't seen the Hulk (2003). Then Banner woke up, establishing that it was a dream, and not simply thrown in to fill the blanks. It's not the only flashback either, so it works well as part of the film.

No, I'm not doing a moment-per-moment review. I just felt that mentioning the opening credits (and how the whole movie takes place 5 years later) would help with the decision of seeing the film. I highly recommend it. I took my mother to see it. She came just to entertain me, but in the end, she really enjoyed the film. That's right folks; my mother enjoyed The Incredible Hulk.

Now for the comic book geek in me, and all the other geeks out there.

The Hulk speaks in this movie. He actually has a voice, other than just growling and snarling. They showed the human side of our not-so-jolly green giant. His lines include "Leave me alone," and "Betty." He even yelled out "Hulk Smash!" during his fight with The Abomination, which caught me off guard. I didn't think they'd do it, but they did it alright.

There's science in this movie too. There's about to be this huge explosion (mixing fire with fuel is a bad idea), and Betty's in the middle of it. Hulk's eyes goes wide, he jumps in the direction of the fire. After clearing half the distance, he claps his hands together. Most people in the audience went "wtf?", but I understood right away. You can ACTUALLY put out fires with sound. Sound waves take up space, you see? And these waves put up more of a fight for space than air does. So it pushes the air out. No air means no fire. So when the Hulk clapped his hands, he actually blew out the fire without feeding it more. It was really cool to see something smart like that happen.

You know how in Iron Man, SHIELD hadn't been truly established yet? How the government agency did exist but they didn't call it SHIELD until the very end? It's not like that in this movie. SHIELD is referenced a lot in this movie. There's no sight of Samuel L. Jackson anywhere as Nick Fury, but the name (Nick Fury) was seen on a document during the opening credits/flashback sequence. It worked well.

Also seen in the opening credits was "Stark Industries." It was the same logo that was seen for the company in Iron Man. Which means Marvel Studios is getting smart. They're not just establishing the characters to lead up to an Avengers flick. They're establishing the entire Marvel Universe. It was really well done, and made the geek in me get excited.

Rumors of a Captain America cameo circled the internet for a while. While someone who worked on the film confirmed that the (soon to be) leader of the Avengers was supposed to be seen, they cut it from the film in the end. Bruce Banner never went to the Arctic Circle in this film. And I have to say that I'm glad they didn't have that cameo. It wouldn't have been the same if we saw the Super Soldier frozen in ice.

But they did bring up the Super Soldier serum itself. The very thing that made Steve Rogers become Captain America in the comic books. They used it on Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) and it was done very well. The first time we see him after his first dose of the serum (which was small), we watched him outrun a platoon of soldiers without breaking a sweat (while all the other soldiers were panting and out of breath). We watched him go toe-to-toe with the Hulk. The Hulk won, obviously, but Blonsky held his own with his newfound agility. In that first battle, Blonsky was kicked in the chest and was smashed against a tree. But he lived. His bones looked like gravel, but he lived. Low and behold, though, the next day he was fully recovered, and looked more buff than he did before. It wasn't overplayed, the Super Soldier thing. In fact, it was well done. His transformation into Abomination was done by combining Hulk's gamma radiation with the super soldier serum, and that too was well done. Not overplayed at all.

Now, back to cameos. It was established in a TV Spot for this movie that Tony Stark was going to be in this movie. Robert Downing Jr came in to film the one scene, which is good. However [SPOILER WARNING], this scene didn't show up until the end. He came into a bar to find general Ross drinking a lot, and they shared a bit of a conversation.

Ross: Stark!
Stark: I hear you have an interesting problem. The super soldier serum was put on ice for a reason. Besides, I always trusted hardware more.
Ross: You should talk.
Stark: You should listen. We're thinking of putting together a team.
Ross: "We"?

(I can't say that's it word-for-word, but it's close enough to get the idea.)

Tony Stark's appearance in The Incredible Hulk played the same role that Nick Fury's cameo in Iron Man did. It established that Marvel Studios is indeed planning on an Avengers movie later on down the line.

I like Marvel Studios. They're smart. Marvel was slowly taking over Hollywood with all of it's characters, but because different rights belong to different studios, these characters were destined to never meet. So Marvel made it's move to create Marvel Studios, to keep all their characters playing in the same sandbox. While other film studios (like those who own Spider-Man or the X-Men) don't want to let go of their rights, Marvel is setting up it's own line of blockbuster films. Shortly after Iron Man's release, they announced release dates for Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers. And with that scene at the end of The Incredible Hulk, it's very obvious what they're leaning towards.

And the best part is that so far, they're doing a damn good job.

So this Hulk movie gets my thumbs up. Both of them.

Reboot

I'm a big geek. Seriously. I read comic books, I have an asthma pump, I got a load of allergies, and really geeky looking glasses. Thick rimmed frames and all. Now, for your information, I don't see other people calling me a geek to be an insult. If I had to be labeled, it'd be that, 'cause I can't think of anything else that works. Hell, I'm in theatre, making me a theatre and drama geek too.

Comic book movies. There seems to be a lot of them these days. Some are incredible, like the recent Iron Man movie or Batman Begins from a couple years ago. Some are decent, but nothing amazing. And then you have the ones that just suck. The campy, hilarious-for-all-the-wrong-reasons, terrible comic book movies. I'm of course referencing Batman & Robin that had George Clooney cast as the dark knight himself.

Today, the new movie released by Marvel Studios is out. The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton was our green-skinned monster with anger issues. I haven't seen it yet, but believe it or not, I plan to.

Now, a lot of people I know are iffy about this movie. Why? Because the 2003 Hulk movie was a huge flop. It was terrible. Lacked a little something called plot, and made dogs into snarling gamma-radiated monsters. And then of course the big bad guy? Bruce Banner's dad. Not very good for the story of one of the oldest and most well-known comic book heroes. Now, I agreed with all these people. That movie really did suck. When I heard that a new one was going to be made, I wasn't interested at all.

Then I heard it was being done by Marvel Studios. I thought "okay, so, they'll at least get it right this time. But still not something worthy to spend 10$ to see on the silver screen." Then I heard that Edward Norton was playing Bruce Banner. He was always my fantasy-cast-list for actors to play Bruce Banner. Yes, I make fantasy-cast-lists-for-movies the same way fully grown men have fantasy-baseball-teams. So the fact that Norton, an incredible actor, was signed to play the Incredible Hulk, my interest was poked with a stick. I became more aware.

With a little more research and article-reading, I discovered that the actor portraying the scientist (plagued with an out of control beast inside him) had a hand in the writing process too. Then I came to learn that William Hurt was in it too. Not an actor I know a lot about, but he always plays his part well in the movies I've seen him in. And then I learned that Tim Roth was going to play the Abomination.

Slowly but surely, I found myself getting excited about a movie I thought I'd never be excited about. And then I saw the trailer, and my jaw literally dropped. In my mind, it was as if the 2003 release of Hulk had never existed, and this movie was fresh off the crop.

I've noticed that this is becoming a trend. Taking movies that didn't do so well, reboot the series, mostly ignoring the past ones. Batman Begins succeeded where the last Batman movies didn't, and it's sequel, The Dark Knight, is one of the highly most anticipated movies of the year. Superman Returns (2006) didn't ignore the Christopher Reeve's flicks, it just ignored III and IV, and was sort of a sequel to Superman and Superman II. Sequel in the sense of "after II there was a fork in the road. One path led to Superman III, and the other led to Superman Returns." If that even makes sense.

And now, The Incredible Hulk is a reboot of the Hulk film franchise, trying to make up where Hulk failed. I can tell you right now that in my mind, it's already made up for the last Hulk movie's failure, and I haven't even seen it yet. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to run to catch a bus to go and see it before the cinemas get packed with the "Friday Night Crowds." When I'm back, I'll review it!

Karaoke Kid

It all started off as just a couple of my old high school friends inviting me out several months ago.

I go to this CEGEP in St-Anne-de-Bellevue, which is like the furthest point west on the island of Montreal. Any further out than that, and you're going to end up off island. Anyway, St-Anne's is a small town, like a village, thriving with student life. It's all students renting apartments, or enjoying something of a night life.

Now, for a night life, there are a small handful of places in St-Anne's that you can go. There's "The Pub," which has a decent bar, a pool table, even a pinball machine. If I recall correctly anyway. There's a lot of space for people to dance though. It reminds me a lot of smaller clubs downtown where girls go because they want to dance. On occasion, the Pub will have some stand-up comedians, but other than that, I don't know much of what it does. It's not my cup of tea.

There's also this bar/pub/thing called Annie's. It's a student favorite, for the ones who aren't into club music or dancing. I've never been in there myself, and personally, I don't care to. From what I can tell, it's a lot like the Pub in a sense where it attracts younger people. And when I say "younger people," I really mean "underaged girls with too much make up and fake I.D. that even a monkey could recognize that it's fake." Nothing against bartenders or bouncers who check these I.D.s and let them in, it's just a touch ridiculous.

So I wasn't really one to go out in St-Anne's.

And then, several months ago, my friends invited me out to this pub called The Phoenix (in my first post, I called it "Reborn From Ashes" (because I wasn't sure how much I wanted to disclose about myself or my life at the time)). It was a Saturday night, and it was karaoke. It's a smaller pub. But immediately, I knew that I liked it. It had the right feeling, and the right crowd for me.

I didn't go too often at first, but I did go every now and then. I met some people there, and now they're really good friends. Saturdays have become karaoke night for us all, going on a weekly basis. We also go on Thursdays, simply to chill, listen to the jukebox, and play pool. I have a lot of fun there. I learned how to play pool there, and now I'm really good at it. Like, above average. I also get to practice singing there. I was never confident about singing, but now there are songs that I will sing at karaoke without question or second thought. It's my pub of choice.

That's where I just got home from. I got back from Karaoke on yet another Saturday night. The thing that made this Saturday, and last Saturday, different from all the rest was that I actually dedicated a couple songs to someone. The Girl in the Capital. My GC. It sucks that she wasn't there to hear me make a fool of myself (I say "make a fool of myself" in place of "sing") for her, but still, I sang for her.

I had a good night.

My Kryptonite

Nuts to me are like kryptonite to Superman. They're both green (or at least a jar of peanut butter is (yeah I'm allergic to that too)), they're both deadly to us, and if we're around a certain amount in the immediate vicinity, we'll get weak in the knees. If I ingest any nut of any kind, well, let's just say bad things happen.

Speaking of kryptonite, let me talk to you about this amazing girl. Kryptonite may be deadly to Superman, but this girl is able to make me feel weak in the knees and have butterflies in the stomach because she is simply that amazing.

I've mentioned this girl twice so far, so this is the formal introduction. It's the girl that I stayed with when I was visiting the capital of this great nation. It's the girl I called The Girl In The Capital in my last post, or GC if you will. She is the girl that I've been "kissing on a regular basis" for little over a month now (to use the blogging euphemism that she used).

We met in April, on the stage at the National Art Center. It was intermission; she was a performer, I was an audience member. I was trying to make my way to the Montreal team that was playing that same night, but GC and I bumped into one another on the stage. Now, this girl had grabbed my attention from the second she ran out onto the stage itself. It wasn't about how she entered, but it was just the fact that she entered. I noticed her right away.

So there we were, on the stage of the NAC, and I tell her that she's doing amazingly. I fail to remember to bring up her team as a whole, since I was too busy thinking "wow" at that point in time. And then we part ways. That seemed to be it. But thankfully for us, it wasn't so.

The wonders of the internet were how we made contact again. At first it was messages back and forth on FaceBook, and then we upgraded to MSN. One fateful night, we spoke about feelings. Now at this point it had become pretty obvious that I liked her, but I had no clue as to her feelings. So after a conversation that lasted hours into the night, we knew how we felt for one another. To a point where to make sure that it wasn't a dream, we made up codewords to say to one another the next day.

I was supposed to say Orange, and she was supposed to say Banana.

All in all, we never really needed the codewords to remember the conversation we had.

It wasn't much longer before GC was coming to Montreal. It was just supposed to be for the morning; an interview at Concordia University. I managed to convince her to stay for the rest of the day, so we could hang out in person. Let's just say that that day was magical, and we count that day as our first official one.

The weekend after that was the weekend of my birthday, and even though it was last minute, I was able to convince her to come over for it. She came Friday afternoon and stayed until Saturday night. It was my best birthday in years, simply because she was there. Honestly, on my birthday (which was the Saturday), it was just GC and I, sitting on the couch in my basement, watching Heroes. Which is one of my favorite television shows.

So the following weekend was when I went to the capital for the first time since New Year's Eve (not counting when I was there for Improv), and I went for her. Stayed with her from Saturday morning until Monday night. I even went to school with her, even though the school year had finished for me already here in my city. Yeah, I went to school with her, so what?

The weekend after my first visit to her place was one where we did not get together. It was the first weekend apart since our "little more than a month" began. But the weekend after that, I went up to the capital again. Friday afternoon until Monday night. But I was able to surprise her, by showing up ON her doorstep hours earlier than they expect me to be on a bus. It was so worth it for the hug we shared on her front porch.

So this was my formal introduction of the Girl In The Capital, since she was mentioned twice. To me, she is GC, where as to her I am the Cute Writer. And I have to be honest when I say that I cannot wait to see her again. It's her turn to come to my city, and she'll be here this coming weekend.