It's been 24 days since I've posted and I'm sorry. Life in LA is completely different than anything else I've experienced this year and part of that is being too busy to update the blog. Everyone said they thought LA would be the pinnacle of the tour for us (biggest houses, highest merch sales, rave reviews, etc.) but I was always skeptical. Turns out we're both right. Here's the deal:

Housing: Kaitlin H, who is so wonderful and somehow miraculously swoops into my life every time I have a problem, hooked me up with a friend of hers who has a gorgeous house in Sherman Oaks. I have my own room and bathroom plus there's laundry, a pool, a huge kitchen, several living rooms... It's really a beautiful house and pretty close to everything. It's also significantly less than all of the company housing options. Sweet for saving money and living in a bomb house!

Car: Jamie rented me his second car crazy cheap and it's awesome. Bright red Ford Mustang convertible with a killer sound system and the car is lowered. Definitely a fun car to drive. Also insanely cheaper than the car rentals the company is using.

Show: Dear God. The first two and a half weeks were very nearly sold out every show. This means 2700+ merch-hungry women who actually fit our sizes and don't care about the prices. Welcome to LA. Our sales are off the charts. I can't even describe how insane it's been. We spend the whole show recovering from the last sales period, refolding and restocking the booth and trying to mentally prepare ourselves for the next round of ass-kicking while crying and eating candy to make the pain go away. I wish I was exaggerating. Don't get me wrong, it's always better when sales are huge. I'm happy, the sellers are happy, the bosses are happy... It's just a lot of work for everyone and it's EXHAUSTING. I hear that these first few weeks have been subscription-based tickets and now it's open to single-ticket buyers and so houses have dropped quite a bit. We'll see what this means for our sales. My feeling is that if the subscribers (who are at the show because they have the tickets and not because they love DD) are buying merch like crazy, the smaller houses of rabid DD fans will buy just as much. I hope I'm right.

Friends: I have some! And what a difference it makes. It's been really great to catch up with some old friends from home whom I haven't really seen very much over the past few years. Also, this means my copious downtime with this job isn't spent alone in my apartment. So much better!

Design: I've been working on the pitches for the new merch lines for Catch Me If You Can the Musical and The Addams Family musical. I've been having a blast designing the new items with complete creative freedom. Whether or not the ideas and items get used or produced the process has been really cool.

Next up: Nothing is 100% sure yet, but I'll be going up to Seattle to do the 3-week out-of-town tryout of Catch Me. It's probably just going to be me for the merch (no sales staff or assistant) but I'm excited to see the show, explore Seattle and catch up with KCanny! This will also give me some more time at home before and after to see my family and friends and figure out what I'm doing next.

That's the scoop. Somehow I've found time to catch up on the season finales of all the shows I've been watching and even start some new series. Sadly I've been neglecting Filmibuster a bit but I'll get back to it, I promise. Pho has been going strong and we're kind of in the home stretch, so keep checking that. More info coming soon. Thanks for reading!

Note: The California Supreme Court voted yesterday to uphold Prop 8. Although the 18,000+ marriages that took place will remain vaild, I think the decision is appalling. If anyone has information about renewed efforts and campaigns please let me know how best to get invovled.