Day 22 of 33

Oh gosh, I've hit the last third of my time here in San Diego. Fortunately, I think I have already done and seen so much, there's not much more I feel I absolutely MUST fit in. Hopefully I can find some time to see some friends from LA, but that may be a stretch.

Today was my day off. Instead of going on some grand adventure, I spent the day trying to line up work for when I get back. I played some smart moves so I think I can go back to the jobs I left... but I'd rather not have to do that. I realized how few people I actually know in high enough places to get me some jobs. I started emailing people I did not know, because I figured only good things can come of it.

In the afternoon, I went to see a reading of a developing play by John Cariani called Last Gas. John is one of the actors in the festival shows (and very good, at that) and is the author of one of the most popular plays among regional and summer stock companies in Almost, Maine. Henry, the director of Shaw was directing the reading, and a couple of actors in shows from The Old Globe acted in it. Note: the picture is not THE reading, just A reading for clarification of what a reading looks like.

I found out that Alex had actually seen this same play in a previous incarnation when it was staged at Portland Stage in Maine. I talked to John briefly after the reading and he said that, because he had already seen a staged production, he could not stand seeing a reading of it. I think everyone in the room really enjoyed the show, though.

It reminds me that I really want to work on developing some new shows. I wish I had a great venue in New York that was willing to just give up a room to have a reading in.

I had some more adventures in cooking last night, as well. When I first went to Nebraska and ordered tacos, I was surprised to find them not in a shell, but laid out on what I called corn latkas. Well, I tried making my own corn tortillas and discovered why. It was extremely difficult to roll out the corn flour into small pancakes, and then to try and transfer these to the frying pan to solidify. I made quite a mess on the stovetop here. Fortunately, I'll be leaving soon so I probably don't need to clean it up. Long story short, making nice tortillas for soft tacos was not in the books.

I then took some sliced garlic and threw it in a pan with some oil and lime juice, then threw in some shredded chicken to get it to a nice brown. Right before taking it off the heat, I gave it a little sip of corona.

The final product looked like this. We've got the corn latka topped with the chicken. On top of that is some home made guacamole (Yes, I finally made some!), some diced tomatoes and tomatillos, and cheese. Delicious.