Tag: Terminator

Goodbye old year, Hello NEW Year!!!

Christanna Rowader1 Comment

I just finished reading last year’s post on the coming of 2010, The Sequel: 2010, and still marvel at how much can happen in one short year! 2010 is over, but boy was it interesting. Although this year wasn’t nearly as epic or life-changing as 2009, it still remains memorable. If there is ever a year which is not, I gotta say, that would suck. I don’t do boring.

To recap, 2009 was filled with an unwanted ambulance ride to an unwanted hospital visit, therapy with an awesomely sarcastic therapist, whimming adventures with my San Diego Whimclosest friends, the start of this blog, internships, short-short hair, parties, graduation, moving to California, Red Carpet events, and meeting the Terminator. By the end of the year, my resolution was to either find a way to quit BJ’s or fall in love again. Or both! Did either of them come to? Hmmm…

2010 wasn’t as dramatic as ‘09, thank goodness! But it was still entertaining. At the beginning, I had decided to be in a relationship with the Terminator, the man I had been seeing consistently since the first week I had moved to California. I had also been going on a lot of auditions for film and stage, but nothing catching until the summer when I got cast in Roger’s and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. I met some wonderful people and it felt incredible to be on the stage again. Earlier in the year, I had been saddened about not making any close friends. I had the Terminator and his friends. But his friends weren’t really my friends; I was the “girlfriend,” someone who would eventually disappear. I had people at work that I liked, but couldn’t seem to find the right connection.

Then the Terminator and I broke up, for no other reason but that it wasn’t going Red Carpet Eventanywhere. Thankfully I was in Cinderella so I could keep busy. I was also working a LOT! That’s when things started to take shape. You know, that feeling where you felt like you finally found home? A new girl named Alisha moved here from Las Vegas. She and I instantly clicked, our personalities and way of life being agreeable. I also got a new roommate, as the old one moved out. Her name was Monique. When she and I met, it was like we had known each other for a long time. Instant friends, we were. I was finally making a good group of close friends.

First boyfriendAlso, epically enough, I had finally reconnected with my famous ex-boyfriend, Chris Cameron, putting everything else at rest. The thing of inspiration: horoscope prediction. Or whatever you call it, cause I really don’t believe in that stuff…Go figure.

Speaking of boyfriends, near the end of this year, I have officially had a THIRD boyfriend. Third times a charm, ya know… Um, sure.

The funny thing is how we met. Here I was out with my girlfriends, being forced out actually because I was in hate-men mode. I had had another new experience with a date that went horribly wrong a week earlier. Needless to say, I didn’t want to be touched by another guy for a while.

So here I was at Bogie’s, a lounge bar in Westlake, where my girlfriends wanted to teach me on how to use men and get free drinks out of them. Low and behold a football game was on TV, and I decided to yell out FIRST DOWN randomly. Because that had become a new saying by me as of late. A handsome man standing next to me at the bar asked, “Do you watch football?”

I glance at him and say, “No. I just yell out ‘first down’ any time they move.”

He laughed, but I turned my back on him and started talking to my friends. One of them frowned at me and said, “Turn back and say hello. At the very least, get a drink out of him.”

I became irritated. I didn’t want to play this game. In fact, I didn’t want to have to socialize with anyone there, especially a man. Even if it were Ryan Reynolds who had said hello, I would have ignored him…

Ryan ReynoldsWell, okay. Maybe not Ryan Reynolds, cause that would have been AWESOME!

I can’t seem to really remember the order of things, but somehow I ended up having a full on conversation with the man I named Mr. Georgia. He seemed normal enough. Winking smile

Eventually we switched “business cards,” lol! How dorky is that! And by the end of the week, I was flying with him, and two comedian celebrities (names have been removed for privacy reasons) on a private jet to Arizona. If that’s not a whim, I don’t know what is.

I had no idea Mr. Georgia was actually interested in me until he asked me out for dinner. Being that I’m a whimmer, of course I agreed. And I’ve been with him since.

Now, to come back to my new year’s resolution for 2010. I wanted to quit BJ’s or fall in love. Well, unfortunately I have not been able to find a good way to quit BJ’s. And as for falling in love… Let me put it this way. For the first time ever, my mom is actually interested in talking with me about my boyfriend and about anything! She literally calls just to talk about Mr. Georgia. I asked why, and she said, “Because you talk differently about him. You’re actually happy.”Las Vegas

Marilyn, one of my best friends from college, says I’ve fallen in love, my mom says I just need to say it aloud, Monique, my roommate, says I’m smitten and I glow when I talk about him. Although I won’t be the one to admit anything that makes me vulnerable, I guess you could argue that one of my resolutions was fulfilled, if you count what everyone else is saying.

OH I ALMOST FORGOT!!!! I got rid of the hybrid car owned by my dad and purchased my very first car! Now I am fully independent from my parents ENTIRELY! Now that’s epic.

So what about 2011’s resolution? Hmm, that’s a tough one. Oh I got!!! Just came to me. To find a good agent to represent me and send me on more auditions, ones that I can’t get by myself. At least that’s something I can have more control over.

Happy new year! Another round of adventures are coming.

One Year Down, More to Go…

Christanna Rowader6 Comments

I’m burning a Pumpkin Spice candle right now in honor of fall coming. So it’s been a full year since I’ve moved out to California and I’ve had some good experiences and bad. I feel like I’ve lived a whole different life from the start of the year to the end.

For the first part of the year, I had the Terminator and the group of friends that came along with him. Since he and I parted in the summer, that whole life disappeared, along with the friends I thought I was growing close to. And so is life.

For the last few months of the year, I have had numerous theater auditions. One of them I screwed up massively and wanted to punch myself in the face for that. The others, I received amazingly positive and encouraging reactions from the panels of auditors, but still managed to not get booked. And so is life, again. I’ll be covering more of this in a separate blog.

However, the good parts occurred near the end of the year when I finally made some close girlfriends. This was something I’d been wanting all year long, and knowing me, I’m a very impatient person. I always want it now, now, NOW! I’ve had a few exciting I'm the one on the far right.adventures with my girlies and a few not so pleasant ones. Let’s just say I’m really not a fan of clubs where random horny guys grab, pull, and push you everywhere you REALLY don’t want to go. If you don’t know my name, you can’t touch me. Nuff said.

Actually, not nuff said. So I did a stupid thing and went on a date with a guy I met in Santa Monica at a bar who couldn’t control his hands. Because I’m an idiot and always give people the benefit of the doubt, I think to myself, well a date won’t hurt. I was also being an idiot thinking I can control any situation I put myself into. WRONG! Of course I’d been warned about these situations before, but I’m 25. I think I’m invincible, not gonna lie. So this date turns into me being far too drunk, half passed out on the couch, then being lifted onto someone’s (oh yeah, Mr. Santa Monica’s) bed. The nasty occurs with me in that drunken stupor thinking it was a dream, and BAM! after it was over, my instincts kick in. You’re a little late, Instincts, way to be. I get the hell out of there, drunkenly stumbling down the stairs, cutting up the back of my heel on the way down, driving when I REALLY shouldn’t have been, and crying hysterically on the phone to my best friend Anthony. I made it safely home. But in the most stupid and dangerous way. So, needless to say, that’s not gonna happen again…but I’ve been wrong before.

Just gotta throw this in here: people make me sick. It’s called evolution! Let’s evolve into people bettering humanity, not fucking it over. And……nobody listens. Oh well, worth a shot.

My defense system results in me getting very angry. After my one night experience, days passed with me fuming. All I wanted to do was punch things. Guys blatantly staring at me at work, PUNCH! Older men making flirtatious jokes at me, PUNCH! My manager making a sexual comment, PUNCH! My buried memories of other guys making me feel threatened, AIR PUNCH PUNCH! And so is life…

But it shouldn’t be. And yet, nothing will ever change.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I made peace with my infamous ex, Chris Cameron, who was basically my first everything…well, almost.

Also met the producer and manager for Funny Man, Mr. Georgia (names have been removed for privacy reasons). Gonna be flying home this weekend on their private jet to see my parents. Some of you probably think I’m stupid for doing this, but it’s a major whim! And this blog is called Whimming Lessons after all. I’ll cover more on this later after this weekend. We’ll see if I was stupid or not.

So you wanna challenge?

Christanna Rowader6 Comments

I got one!

I’m starting to feel the heat of life. It’s been nine months since I moved from Arizona to California, and the first eight were easy, smooth, controlled, and, honestly, a lot of fun. I had a boyfriend, a job that generally made good money, and beautiful weather. But I wasn’t in any shows yet, which was fine. I think the only patience I have in my strong-willed, stubborn brain is literally reserved for the days when I pretend to be an actor.

But then, in just one month things pop! Near the end of May, I was leaving for my cousin’s wedding in Missouri. On that day, I knew I was recently cast in Cinderella and also got a call announcing that I was approved for Wonder Woman within Six Flags Magic Mountain. Good news, wouldn’t you say? I tell my boyfriend at the time how excited I was and then realized how busy I was going to be. He responded with a very dry, “Good luck.” That marked the first step towards the downhill slope coming my way.

To back track ever-so slightly, I was also on the hunt for a new job. This being because my General Manager was turning everything to hell and I wanted out. Unfortunately, I can’t go anywhere until I have another job lined up.

Back on track—I’m at my cousin’s wedding and I realize just how truly happy she and her husband look. Believe me, I can smell faux-happiness anywhere. Except in myself, funny as that is. So at this point, she tells me to never settle, that he’s out there, that she’s been in many relationships never fully satisfied until this one. This sinks hard into my over-analyzing brain and I leave Missouri with a sour lump in my stomach.

Weeks go by and I still can’t find a job. Nobody’s hiring, or they say they are, put me through two interviews, then never call me again. I go into one place weekly just to see if they have an opening and I’m never able to see a manager. At this point, I feel like a stalker.

“Well at least I have Wonder Woman and Cinderella,” I mutter aimlessly.

Oh wait! Not so! I had been approved by Warner Bros. and DC Comics, but Magic Mountain wouldn’t pick me up. They neglected to set up any interviews or even return my calls. I actually had to drive 40 min. up to Magic Mountain thinking I had an interview scheduled at 1030am to find out they wouldn’t see me until 1230pm. I was so angry because my life is already too busy that I just left. There was no way I was going to sit around for two hours. No way!

So Wonder Woman is out of the picture. On top of this fabulous discovery, my boyfriend and I were having deep conversations. Conversations about calling it quits. And then it happened pretty much in the same week.

So now Terminator is out of the picture. What do I have left? No real close friends, that’s for sure. I spent most of my free time with my relationship, neglecting to work on making any friendships. I actually sobbed one night—obviously with a glass of Merlot nestled tightly in my grasp—and I’m talking a full-gusty meltdown of pathetic gush where I cried to my cat about how “alone” I am and how “I have no friends.” The only thing that could actually sober me up was, shockingly, the Vicodin I took thinking it would put me to a hard sleep. Not so. I was as chill as a popsicle.

Then I could really ponder on what I had left. What was it? Oh yeah! Cinderella and my awful serving job. And the sad thing is, every time I walk into a new restaurant to apply, they all say, “We’d love to hire you! But we need you to have more availability…” Go figure, Cinderella would be the one thing keeping me from escaping my current job.

So as I sit here typing out smoking little letters of impatient frustration…I realize the challenging part of California has finally arrived. I’m either having to fight very hard or submerge myself in utter patience—which I actually fight very hard to do anyway. But I won’t be beaten! My stubbornness would rather kill me. And if Plan A never works, I have plenty of Plan B’s waiting…patiently.

Not even a year

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So, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Many things have occurred since my last post. I have done numerous auditions for film and theater of all kinds. I also did an audition for the character Wonder Woman for Six Flags Magic Mountain. Warner Brothers and DC Comics had to approve of my appearance for Wonder Woman. Amazingly, I got the approval on top of being considered one of the best looking Wonder Women they’ve ever seen. If only they’d do a movie…

Also, I got cast in Roger’s and Hammerstein’s musical Cinderella. My first rehearsal was today and it felt great to be apart of a musical once again. Cinderella marks the first big show I’m apart of in California. Of course, I was in the monologue show called Sex, Relationships, and Sometimes Love, where I played a seductive, sexy rapist who lost interest in her prey, but that lasted only for a little while.

I feel pretty good about my almost first year in California. Although the only thing I realized after being here for nine months is that I haven’t made any close friends. And because of that, I’ve found it very lonely. One of my closest friends came to visit me recently and I noticed just how much I missed having good, close girlfriends. I had such a good time with Marilyn and her fiancé that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself. For the nine months of living here, I had failed to make any good friends. In reality, the closest friend I made was the Terminator, the man I had been seeing for, ironically, nine months, but since he decided to “terminate” the relationship, I found myself back at the beginning.

So, if that’s the case, I’ve always been good with beginnings. I think the one thing to learn from this is to make good friends first before anything else, otherwise you end up alone.

Once upon a time…

Christanna Rowader4 Comments

…There was a very young girl who liked a very young boy. She’d punch him and shoved him into trees and was so sure he’d know she meant love. But the boy cried, running to the first grade teacher, pointed at the girl, “telling” on her. The girl’s face fell in sadness. She was so sure he knew! And then there was detention. This made the girl very angry, and she vowed to never love the boy again, rather to kick his butt just a little harder next time.boy and girl

As I was growing up, I wanted more than anything to be impervious to emotional pain. I believe most of us strive for this in vain. Because when it comes to relationships, pain is part of the warning label. WARNING: YOU MAY DEVELOP A BROKEN HEART.

As a constant analyzer of human emotional reactions, throughout the years I have examined my closest friends’ relationships, and have been occasionally envious of them. I watched how they showed the most complicated and controversial emotion, love.

First, there was Emm and Jay. The two expressed their love for each other so publicly and so unashamedly it was sickening! And after a year of nearly spending 24/7 with each other, they still seemed stuck in the “honeymoon” phase. In fact, they said the “love you” words to one another within the first week of dating, so who is to say “love at first sight” doesn’t exist.

Then there was Rach and Tony, a tug-o-war sort of relationship. One always being more needy than the other, and when things seemed to be finally leveling out, suddenly the tide would shift and the other person would do all the needing. Always in love, but always unbalanced, grasping at something too far for them to reach.

In my recent couple encounters, I had met a very unique girl and boy called Stunt Gee and Stunt Bee…for they are stunt performers. The two spent nearly every day together for about two years. They were very private with their affections for one another and acted very practical. During one of my conversations with Stunt Gee, she mentioned how she has never said “I love you” to Stunt Bee and believes very strongly that it shouldn’t be thrown out so easily as most people tend to do. She explained to me her viewpoint on the “love emotion” and felt that it should only be said when you mean it. MEANING you will NEVER take it back. Her opinion on love leaned more on the “forever” aspect of things.

I said to her, “Sometimes it feels I’ll never get there.”

She said, “That’s called a broken heart.”

Which leads to me and my new adventures on exploring relationships again. After surviving a fabulously destructive unrequited love relationship, my emotions on love automatically went into full lockdown. This was all subconscious of course, because I honestly didn’t notice myself locking up. That is, until I met the Terminator. I noticed that with such a nice guy, I felt absolutely nothing and wasn’t doing it on purpose. It took a long conversation with my dad, who apparently went through the same lockdown when he was my age, to help me warm up. So I pushed myself into trying love again, allowing it to happen naturally. It was like getting back in the water after nearly drowning to death. I’d been analyzing my every move and emotional response in an attempt to figure myself out, to see if I even knew what being in love felt like. And when I finally decided that I got it, I collected enough courage to whisper it to the Terminator, who, in turn, remained…silent.

So now, after being jealous of my girlfriends’ relationships, how they were all so quick and eager to profess their love and have it returned, after surviving a horrible relationship where the boy never really loved back, then being surrounded by a couple that didn’t believe in saying “I love you,” I find myself not wanting to be involved in the whole mess.

But there’s no getting away from it, not when you decide to get involved with someone else. So I must learn to love happily without being loved in return. Though it sucks! I’d rather take the detention…but not this time. Time to grow up just a little more.

Had the craziest dream last night…

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I am visiting Marilyn, my old roommate in Arizona, and Bellie, our kitty, wasn’t really dead, then in L.A. trying desperately to find the Terminator, gave up and met some other actors to do a stunt show in the water with a real great white named Jaws, "Jaws" decided not to cooperate and really try to eat me, not cool, then left the beach to go find Terminator again, ran into a gang of motorcycle dudes from Mad Max, I started shooting them up because they were bad, then they chased me all over Australia, me on my own motorcycle trying desperately to lose them and find my baby and…wife? Yep, I physically turned into Mel Gibson in Mad Max.

2010: The Sequel! And…what should be my new Resolution?

Christanna Rowader2 Comments

Of course, I’m referring to the 80s film 2010 which precedes 2001: A Space Odyssey. Neither of these films actually foretold the future of the Millennium very well. We have not built a base on the Moon and have not found the answer to the beginning of intelligence on Earth.

However, once 2010 hits, a simple revelation will be made…sort of. Of course, I’m referring to myself. What else are blogs for but to write personal accounts, heavy opinions on topics that reside within my own brain, untouched and stubborn to the outside thoughts of others, but mildly interested and appreciative of those thoughts.

2010 is coming and so a whole new year will unfold. It was only a year ago when I was making my slow-crawling ascent from the depths of despair which I had somehow allowed myself to tumble down into. My New Year’s Resolution then was to go “whimming,” to start a whole new look at life, to find happiness when happiness seemed so foreign and far, to embark on adventures, to laugh and play, to DATE like no other had dated before! Allowing myself to be open in case lightning struck me hard, waking me from a dreamlike reality I had been escaping to.

I found it: the path to Happy Ville. I found the ability to not need too much, to use logic rather than emotion ( in simpler terms, I have found a way to become more Vulcan), to be more confident in my beliefs about life, to not be knocked down, and so on.

At the beginning of 2009, I was barely surviving my own destruction, deciding on writing being the only way out. I made the bestest (YES, bestEST) of friends I could ever think of having and had the pleasure of creating memories I will never forget.

In 2009, I discovered the life of dating many different types of guys, while finally slowing down with The Terminator, whom I also refer to as my manfriend.

In 2009, I finally found a home: California. I never thought I would feel so comfortable here as fast as I did. I still revel in the fact that people here actually pronounce my name correctly right off the bat, rather than always screwing it up as they did in Arizona. I always think that’s a sign I belong…

However, not everything is all peaches and cream. My grandfather, Papa, is dying, mentally and physically. Once the smartest man I knew, is now the weakest man I know. I thought it would frighten me that he couldn’t remember me or mom, but it hasn’t. I had come to accept this, along with the rest of my family. He may not last another year, and even if he did physically, he will have no memory left. He brought me up as a child, but he will not witness me become a wife, a mother, a successful person…It is weird to think about.

Nonetheless, I actually did conquer my previous New Year’s resolution. I found the motivation to keep up a consistent blog, I finally graduated college, I got the hell out of Arizona and didn’t get stuck in a place I never wanted to be, I found a drama-free living situation with roommates who are kind yet distant, I am interning in two places at once, both being apart of the entertainment industry, I have already done three different Red Carpet events, met Patrick Kilpatrick, and have developed friendships with wonderfully interesting and fun people.

Most importantly, I found where I belong. I found my Happy Place. I guess finding happiness is easier than losing weight…? At least it is for me—I like food too much.

Next New Year’s Res.? I am FINALLY READY to find Love!…Although, considering this is much harder to achieve than even losing weight, I might change it to Being Able To Quit BJ’s. Or maybe they shall both be my New Year’s Res.? What do you think? Which one should be my Resolution? Love or Quitting BJ’s? You tell me.

I hope all of you had your wishes come true this year. And even if they didn’t, or you feel disappointed in some part of your life, just remember, tomorrow is another day! (thank you, scarlet o’hara).