Monday, October 4, 2010

Erin - Oh my gosh! Where have you guys been? or Mile High-perventilation and Seasonal Affective Disorder Seattle

Oh hey guys! How's it going? What?! You haven't been getting all of my posts? You're kidding me! But... I put so many on here. I took a lot of time and care creating some witty and amazing posts about my journey. I can't believe you haven't seen them! There must have been some sort of computer virus or problems with the blogspot satellites or a glitch in the matrix or something! It's really a shame because I have just been blogging so hardcore for all of you and I am just so shocked that my posts just didn't work and...

Alright, alright! I can't lie to you guys! Not when you look at me with that tone of voice. So, I may or may not have completely forgotten to blog. I don't know how it happened! Now for the last few weeks, I was out of town choreographing Halloween shows. The other 7 weeks, however... well I don't know what to tell you. I knew I needed to do it. It was constantly nagging at me from the back of my brain. I ignored it. I'm sorry. Let's just forgive and forget, move past this and start fresh. Deal?

Anyway, as I said, I was traveling bringing Halloween joy to theme parks near and far. My first stop was my FAVORITE place, Denver. I know Kelly shares my passion for the Mile High city. It's hard to explain what it is about Denver that brings me such joy. The vibe there is just delightful. They have 300+ sunny days every year, the weather is never ridiculously gross, hot or humid (even on a sunny day, you can go in the shade and get chilly) and the people just seem happy! (There is a strong possibility that this is do to the plethora of medical marijuana clinics sprinkled throughout the town, but who am I to judge?!).

The other thing I like about Denver is that there are so many healthy, outdoors-y types about. I figured it would be so easy and I would feel super inspired to keep up with my training regimen. I somehow forgot about 2 tricky things. Jet lag and high elevation.

Here's how my travel to Denver went down...
10:30am - Flight #1 departs
12:00pm - Flight #1 lands in DC for my layover
12:01pm - All passengers set to be on flight #2 are up in arms as the size of the plane has been downgraded. 64 people lose their seats. I am one of those 64.
1:16pm - After much line waiting have been given a travel voucher and a new flight.
2:26 - Flight #2 - part deux takes me BACK to my original airport where I sit for a total of 4 hours.
7:00pm - Flight #3 takes me to Denver
1:30am - FINALLY arrive at my hotel room after getting rental car and driving another 45 minutes.


It was super fun. Needless to say, I was a little tired for the next day's 10 - 10 rehearsal. I made it through that one and the next before I had a nice leisurely 5 - 10 rehearsal the next day. What a perfect day to run, I thought. After many minutes lying in bed and mentally psyching myself up, I got going. Mind you, when I say "minutes", I mean hours and when I say "psyching up" I mean beating myself up to the point where not running would seem downright shameful and everyone I know would look down on me forever.

I hauled it to the hotel gym. Again, when I say "gym", I mean small room with a treadmill. This brings me to the high elevation. You would've thought I was a 90 year old, 5 pack a day smoker. I would like to say it was also because I was drained from travel and rehearsing... I'd like to say it, but I don't think I can. All I can say is thank goodness there was no one else in the gym (small room) so I didn't have to hide my embarrassing gasping for air and consequential motionless 10 minutes lying on the floor post run. After a few more days of this, I was just getting used to the murderous mountains when it was time to pack up and head to...


Seattle!! This was my first time traveling here so I was super excited. Then I remembered about the rainy, cloudy weather. I'm not a sun worshiper by any means. I try to keep my pale, pale skin in the shade as much as possible. Many bad sunburns in the past have taught me my lesson! I was not aware, however, that I was so affected by the sun and it's magical vitamin D rays. I thought growing up in Pittsburgh and being relatively nocturnal would keep me from falling victim of the depression one can suffer on dreary days. In reality, it was all I could do to get myself to rehearsal most days while trying to hide the figurative Eeyore-like cloud over my head from the cast. I did eventully make it over to LA Fitness to use my week pass 3 out of my 7 days there, but my clever plan of purchasing a pass to make it seem like I was wasting money if I skipped a gym day did not work out as planned.


The moral of this whole story is, I need you blog people (both the very few real ones that actually follow us and the thousands of imaginary ones I wish were following us leading to our wildly successful, New York Times best seller). If I tell you my tales of woe and suffering, they may slowly turn into tales of triumph and glory. I hope this makes up for my 2 months of silence... guess I'll see you guys in December!

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