PSA: Completely overrun

I think now might be a good time to make it clear, in case it isn't already, that I am completely overrun with work right now. Between my day job, my rehearsal schedule, writing a piece of theater every day in August, ten thousand little errands and chores, and how the second year of my grad program is turning out to be a lot more intense than the first-- what I don't have is a lot of free time, and I what I do have is a lot of stress.

So please forgive me if I'm hard to get in contact with for the next few weeks, or if I'm not able to do anything. I still love you all... I'm just struggling to stay on top of my work and life responsibilities, and scheduling in social time, any non-work time at all, makes it harder to get everything done.

Titus tonight, Intercon tomorrow

Woke up yesterday with a sore throat. There seems to be a number of illnesses running around right now, so I could have gotten something worse, but I am not thrilled to have anything making speaking uncomfortable with Intercon tomorrow. I am medicating with tea, and if it's still painful tomorrow, I am going to buy a bottle of Chloraseptic to spray down my throat. The stuff isn't good for the voice but it's worth it to enjoy the biggest weekend of my year.

I am almost entirely packed, just a few things that I'm still using remain. The only major chore left is to cook the dishes I'm going to pack to take with us so we won't have to depend on restaurants. I haven't decided whether I should do it today or tomorrow afternoon before we leave, I guess it depends on how much else I get done. Tonight the priority is get dinner made in time for Jared and I to eat before we go over to see the opening night of Titus.

I've been to a couple dress rehearsals, and it is a very funny show. Last night was the Naked Tech, or the final cue-to-cue where the cast runs through their marks in their underwear trying to make as much fun of the show and blow off as much steam as possible. I'm really happy that this tradition has endured and has made so many participants happy. It's part of what makes HTP so much fun to be a part of and cements people's affection for and desire to participate in the club. Last night's Naked Tech was really hilarious, and a good time was had by all, old timer and newcomer alike. It's actually getting to the point where the club is made up of more than just a small core of devoted actors and coming to be considered as an audition option for a larger-growing pool of Brandeis actors. It's taken years to get to that point, but I think it's finally happening, and it makes me really glad. There used to be so much bad blood between the groups for no good reason at all, and it means a lot to see how much progress has been made.

Quick bulleted update



Mixed bag here, some good and some bad. First, the good:

- It's official, I'm going to become a direct employee at Integralis rather than a contractor from an agency. Not sure when it's going to happen, but the process has been started. My rep is going to try to get me a pay increase, which would be really nice, but it's not like I'm going anywhere if it doesn't happen.

- I actually think I'm losing weight, which pleases me. I tried on some clothes that had started to fit like sausage casings and they were a lot more comfortable. My thighs are still too big and I'm still softer in the middle than I have been in years, but I am seeing results while still feeling good about my eating, so using the calorie counter has been working.

- Today I am going to upgrade my phone. I've had an iPhone 2 I think for about two years now and it's showing it age, running slow and blowing up constantly. I'm going to cash in my upgrade and get the new one.

Now the bad:

- Still haven't decided what my next project will be, because this week was an endless parade of expensive, pain-in-the-ass chores that all took longer than they should have. Had to pay to get my car fixed, chase down some undelivered packages, take the HTP props and costumes back to club storage, pick up new scrips for both Jared and me, pay a parking ticket and two hospital bills, and run all over creation trying to get the immunization hold lifted off my Lesley file so I can fucking register for classes. Some of that stuff is still not quite resolved, and I'm still stressing over getting it all done rather than trying to start something new and productive.

- Got back my final packet for the semester with my teacher's comments. My one-act is pretty much a mess, which is discouraging. I never loved it and only wrote it because I had to, but still, I didn't think it was as flawed as all that. And I have no fucking clue how to fix it. For a variety of reasons, I am not feeling particularly good about my work right now, so now I'm stuck between wanting to generate more theatrical writing to redeem myself and never wanting to look at that shit again.

- I want to act again, or direct somewhere other than of out Hold Thy Peace's pity, but nobody will fucking cast me or pick me for it. I don't know what I'm not doing right. I hear other auditions that I don't think are as good as mine, and yet I never get cast. And the directing resumes I send out never come back. I guess I'm not as good as I thought I was, and I'm getting fed up with trying and never getting anywhere.

Conqueror of chores

Yesterday I was the Chore-Accomplishing Powerhouse. I've been very busy with more external responsibilities (work, school, directing Merely Players) that I haven't felt very much like spending my remaining energy on stuff around the house. But I finally made myself call the neurologist and get an appointment-- that I wasn't putting off, I just kept forgetting and never remembering until after office hours --and getting that out of the way lit a fire under me. I cleaned my bedroom, changed the bedsheets, put together my new office chair, repacked my fabric basket, vacuumed the carpet, cleared out all the stuff I'd been driving around in my car, stored the new banquet tables I bought down in the basement, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, took the air conditioner out of my window, and threw a roast in the oven for dinner. A lot of this stuff has needed doing for a while so, now I'm glad to have gotten it out of the way.

But I'm still not done. I started painting away the little spots of remaining orange paint on the trim in my bedroom, but never had a chance to finish. I need to keep taping up the blue and get that all covered up. I also need to get around to hanging my big mirror. I've been a little tentative because I don't want to damage it or the wall, but I think I know what I need to do. I have monkey hooks and I bought the stud finder app on my iPhone that valleyviolet* recommended, which might be enough, but I wonder if it wouldn't be helpful to get some eighteen-gauge wire to string it up with. Also, I think I'd like to make that corner of the room a bit more functional. As it is, both mirrors are in my bedroom, while the dresser I'd previously also been using as a vanity is in my office, making getting ready in the morning a bit awkward. Usually when I leave I have just tossed my hair brush and everything onto my bed, which is not as organized or neat as I'd like. I much prefer everything to end up in its proper place. So I've decided that once the mirror is hung I'm going to place a little table beneath it to make that spot into a real vanity. I've been checking out Craigslist and eBay to find something that might serve. The trouble is that spot is in the narrow space between the wall and the door to my office, so I can't put anything there that's so wide it will interfere with egress between the rooms. But I found a little thing that I think will work. Doesn't look like much now, it's a cheap, unfinished half-circle kind of table I'll be picking up on Saturday. But I kind of like that because I can stain it myself and choose the color. I bet I can make it look nice.

I don't have anyplace to be this weekend, so perhaps a run to the hardware store is in order, and I can spend the rest of the time seeing that this stuff actually gets accomplished.

Intense week of theater

Gah. Things started getting busy last Thursday and won't let up until the end of this coming weekend. We got Jared successfully moved into his new place with an intrepid team of him, Bernie, Steph, and myself. It actually went pretty smoothly except for the actual travel, because traffic was so awful it took three times as long to get anywhere as it should have. But I'm glad to have gotten it taken care of, and I think it's been nice for Jared to be in Somerville since he's in tech week for his show.

The show is going to be going up this coming weekend. I promised to attend all four performances starting on Thursday, the Saturday of which the big potluck picnic will be. I am excited, but I need to be ready and in organizational mode to make sure everything goes off all right. Hope to see as many lovely friends as possible there!

As for my own activities, this past weekend I spent finishing my latest homework assignment and recovering from a blindingly bad migraine. Saturday and Sunday I spent working, but I woke up on Labor Day with a halo in my right eye that I only noticed when I tried to go back to my school reading. Soon the headache set in on the left side of my head, followed by waves of nausea and vomiting. If Bernie hadn't been able to quickly run me over some Excedrin Migraine, I don't know what I would have done. I've only just started getting migraines about a year and a half ago, and even then I've only ever had four or five, but that was easily the worst one I've ever had. I had recently experienced a lot of the factors that contribute to getting migraines-- stress, long hours staring at a computer screen, hormonal changes due to my prescription running out and being unable to get a timely refill appointment --but it does kind of make me nervous that they seem to have become worse with every episode. It may be something worth addressing with a doctor, before I end up with an aneurysm or something.

Auditions for Merely Players are tomorrow night. I was a little nervous at first, as not very many people had contacted me with interest in coming out, but now it looks like things will be fine. I'm very excited to nail down a cast for this. I have not gotten the name of a single person I wouldn't like to cast, so I fear if I get many more I'm going to run into the same painful situation as I did with To Think of Nothing-- more fantastic people than I can use. The decision maker will probably end up being comparing it to Dave's cast list for Margaret and taking those with smaller parts of who didn't get parts in his show, which was my plan all along.

I also am trying out for a couple of things myself. I found a production of Titus and a production of Romeo and Juliet that have an open call. I wish they weren't this week, as it doesn't leave me a ton of time to prepare, but them's the breaks sometimes. I am not terribly optimistic, as I've tried out for a lot of things this summer that I didn't get in, but you never know unless you try. That is the closest I can get to being hopeful, I suppose, being convinced it's futile but keeping at it anyway. It's probably the only thing keeping my functional, given what a pessimist I really am.

Assignments loom...

Well, this weekend was not as productive as I intended it to be. Entirely too much of it was spent in the Depression Pit, with the rest of the time not being quite as productive as I hoped it would be. But I did get some of my list checked off. I bought a can of white paint to touch up the white trim in my bedroom, though I haven't started painting yet. I bought a new iron, which works great and I think will improve the quality of the seams I sew. I got a nice new blue-and-white striped shower curtain to replace the hideous plastic fish-print one we had in the upstairs bathroom. The shower has a sharp downward slant due to the ceiling shape on one side of it, so I have decided to cut the curtain to fit the space and sew new openings for the hooks. It will be a good chance to teach myself to make buttonholes, as that's basically the sort of openings the curtain originally came with. I haven't quite cracked how to use my machine's automatic buttonhole attachment to make attractive-looking results, but I've been working on it (unfortunately late into a sleepless last night, and the machine was apparently so loud that I must apologize because it woke up blendedchaitea*. So sorry, dear, won't happen again!) and I think I'm starting to get it right. Didn't get my kitchen knives sharpened, though, which has been on my list for a long time now. And I didn't get near as much homework done as I should have.

I kind of worked myself into a corner because I decided to not think about my poetry assignment packet until I was done with my playwrighting one, which was due a while earlier. Problem is, I didn't even really look at the poetry assignment until that point, and the due dates were closer together than I realized. So the necessary books for it were ordered later than they should have been and I have to go into crunch mode again. I am quite nervous about this one; on top of having to mark out scansion on a piece of text from the readings, something I have never been good at despite all my experience performing iambic pentameter, I also have to write eight pages of a "play-poetry" in verse. Gah. I'm terrified it's all going to come out all wrong and the professor's going to be like, "Do you know what iambic pentameter is at all?" And of course there's my classic problem of never knowing what to write about when I don't already have an idea going in.

On one final school-related note, I got back my adviser's feedback on my first packet submission. Mostly positive, I am relieved to say, though I made some really stupid errors that I am embarrassed and kicking myself over. And I totally misunderstood the "writing subtext" assignment, for which I generated this scene. I blame using that damn Hemingway piece, "Hills Like White Elephants," as my model. Because the characters in that do actually talk about their problem at least a little even though they never actually say what that problem is, I guess I thought my piece would fit the terms if my character just never flat-out defined their issue either. But that's not subtext, dumbass, which was the whole point of the assignment. She actually liked the piece in a vacuum, and complimented my ability to write dialogue-- a bit of a surprise, as I never felt my "regular" dialogue was ever all that natural-sounding --but asked me to redo the assignment. I am irritated with myself, but I feel like redoing it is justified. The moral of the story is never try to do anything that Hemingway does, because it's just going to be wrong. :-P

Current status of Illyria

I have begun painting my bedroom. I have taped up most of the white trim, covered my workspace with tarps and dropcloths, and cracked open my gallon of 100 Acre Morning blue. It was harder work than I remembered it being, as it's been a while since I actually painted a room. The paint goes on well with both a roller and a brush, though during the initial coat a second stroke tends to slightly displace the paint laid by the first stroke, exposing little patches of orange beneath the nice new blue. I have found that if I wait for the first coat to dry and then touch up the imperfect places, I get nice solid coverage and probably won't have to go so far as putting on a second coat. Given the very weird shape of the room, with all its odd angles and bites taken out of the shape, it's hard to estimate how much I have finished, but I'll say I've gotten about one quarter of the way around the room. Not bad progress for one evening's work alone. If I can get that much done each day I should be finished by the end of the week. I'm thinking I'll have to touch up the white trim too, though. The orange paint looks nicely done on the walls but must not have been applied with well-placed painter's tape, as the trim often has orange bleed-over on it. I'd like to fix that up as well. I plan on staying here for at least the two years of graduate school, so I want it to look nice.

In regards to other aspects of settling into Illyria, thing seem to have worked out. I have been cooking quite a bit in the kitchen, and it's just as nice as I hoped it would be. There is a ton of counterspace, a luxury I haven't had in years. The appliances are lovely-- having a dishwasher makes cleanup so much easier, and I love the gas range. Not as big a fan of the gas broiler, I've discovered, as compared to electric, but that's a small thing. I also was happy to discover that there was enough room in the spacious kitchen to keep my baker's rack, which though now a bit barer than it used to be I really like having around to hang certain tools and produce on. Here is how it looked this morning before I left for work.

I really really like it. Unfortunately I like the living room a lot less. It's tough to condense from a larger space into a smaller one, so in an effort to maintain a certain amount of seating the room ended up a bit cramped. I'm also not a fan of how the washer and dryer are in a closet in the wall, meaning nothing can be put up against that side. But we've sort of worked out a compromise, and I suppose it's comfortable enough.

I will post pictures of my room once the painting is done, and I've finally got the place the way I want it.

Things to do this week

Looking at my calendar, for the first time in quite a while I see a free and clear week with no commitments on the schedule. This will be nice, as I have a number of things I'd like to accomplish this week.

First of all I intend to spend quality time with Jared, who after a long week where we barely saw each other due to his work schedule then spent the weekend in New York visiting kamianya*, so we haven't seen enough of each other lately.

Next I would like to get going on the painting of my bedroom. As I mentioned, the place is a pretty brain-gnawing bright orange color, way too intense for the room I spend most of time my at home in, so I decided to paint. I bought a gallon of a nice light blue shade, a color Disney's paint line calls 100 Acre Morning, which I chose because it has a primer already built in. I'm hoping that will completely cover the orange without requiring a dozen coats. My dad put a package of paint supplies in the mail this morning with the intent of my receiving them tomorrow, which means I can spend the week working on it. Anyone who'd like to drop by to lend a hand, your company would be much appreciated, and I will of course repay your efforts with home cooking.

Thirdly, I must prepare for my upcoming residency period for starting grad school. I have only one week of classes to attend, but it will be intense. The residency schedule looks to be grueling, a solid block of classes from 9AM (or 8:30, in some cases) to 6PM for nine days. It's been two years since I was last in school, and certainly even longer since I had to pay that kind of attention for that extended a period. Hope I'm up to it. I also need to make sure I've done all the preparation and signed up for all the things I should have this week. I'm a little nervous, as I'm seeing things that I don't know how to take care of right now, but I guess I can send e-mails to faculty and ask for direction.

Those are my priorities. I am not totally ruling out any other sort of activity, but it will have to be fitted in around these.

Illyria progress



Here follows a somewhat disorganized brain dump regarding the current state of the move-in.

Things seem to be evening out at my new house. There is still plenty of unpacking to do, but there is now new carpet in my room, and my bed, with its cut-up-then-rebuilt box spring, is set on its frame and made. I'm a wee bit afraid of putting too much stress on the box spring by taking it off the floor and onto the frame, but it seems stable, at least for now, and I desire to have the under-bed storage space.

The order of today will be to go home after work and lunch and continue unpacking. I have brought all of my personal boxes up to my room by this point, and the kitchen table is rebuilt. Now things must be put in their proper places; I won't be really comfortable until that's done. My landlord said I can store unused things in the basement (a typical unfinished, slightly musty New England basement) which is nice at least for the stuff I'm not concerned will mold or get damaged by damp, so I won't have to be crowded by my old microwave or my baker's rack until I figure out what to do with them. The living room will have to be thinned out, as it's currently holding more furniture than it comfortably fits, but that means I have to decide whether I'm tossing out my old white leather arm chair, or I have space for it in my bedroom, or if I just want to wrap it in a tarp and put in down in the basement.

Appointments also happen today. Cable and internet set up was scheduled to happen this morning, though due to work I couldn't be around for it. Hope everything goes smoothly for the roommates in my absence. I also have to get to Elsinore to let in the rescheduled cleaning crew at 6PM. Not looking forward to that, as someone will have to stay with them while they clean, which could take a long time. I'll have to bring my iPad or something to work on while I wait.

My room will be very nice when I am finished setting it up. After remeasuring, I realized my stuff would fit better in the divided upstairs bedroom after all, and blendedchaitea* was wonderful enough to switch back with me. Which I am happy about, as that was the room I really wanted all along. I have decided to use the larger part as my bedroom and the smaller compartment as my little office, where I will have my computer desk and I think a little table to do other project work, like sewing and larp packing and stuff like that. I've always wanted to be able to say "If you need me, I'll be in my office." I have two closets for clothes, and two other low ones in the wall, one I plan to use as a cubby for my books, and the other for shoes and whatever else.

The room has only two problems. One, it has no light fixtures. I will have to invest in some serious lighting, as I strongly dislike rooms that are too dark. Not sure what the best kind would be, so I'll be doing some research, and taking recommendations if anyone has them. And two, the main room is painted an intense, Home Depot orange. Not an ugly color, I guess, but not one I want all over my walls. So I have secured permission from the landlord to paint. I am thinking I'll go with a nice light blue, which would work with my wood and my bedding. In the next week or so I plan to look at paint chips and choose something, then lay down tarps, break out the painter's tape, and maybe have a little painting party. As always, anyone who would be interested in helping is welcome, and will be compensated with home-cooked food.

That's all for now. I am eager to get home so I can continue getting the place into a liveable state.

Move accomplished

Well, the move is concluded. It took hours and hours, and had many more wrenches in the works than my careful planning aimed for, but thanks to the efforts of many lovely, hardworking people, my stuff is in my new place. I have a ton more to do to get things in order (thrown off by having to wait for things out of my control, like new carpets getting laid AFTER I had to move in, and the cleaning service for the old place losing my reservation, grumble, grumble) but I am determined to get through them. I don't want to get into any more detail of the struggle, as just thinking about it all stresses me out, but I am determined to move forward productively from here. I would just love to call attention to my wonderful, generous friends-- Bernie, bronzite*, laurion*, lightgamer* , acousticshadow2*, ninja_report*, marigumi*, john_in_boston*, niobien*, Prentice, Emily, Michael, and jh1230* --who gave their time and effort, and I will be making them all an excellent dinner in thanks.


Now I have to go collapse.

Moving to do list

- Engage moving truck - DONE

- Pack things in kitchen - DONE

- Pack things in living room - DONE

- Pack things in bedroom

- Pack things in basement - DONE

- Cancel current NSTAR account - DONE

- Cancel current oil account - DONE

- Arrange for final oil fill - DONE

- Call Formal Oil AGAIN re: final oil fill because it doesn't seem to have happened yet - DONE

- Call National Grid to make new gas account - DONE

- Fax ID and proof of residency to National Grid - DONE

- Confirm all things are in order with National Grid

- Cancel Verizon account - DONE

- Engage Comcast account - DONE

- Buy Groupon for massively discounted cleaning service so old landlord doesn't gouge it out of our security deposits - DONE

- Arrange for my cleaning service to come to the house

- Send out plan for lovely moving helpers - DONE

- Throw away massive amounts of trash and recycling

- Pick up keys from new landlord on Saturday

- E-mail old roommates about moving out finalizing - DONE

- Send old landlord information about cleaning service, key dropoff, and ask for security deposits to be returned within the legally proscribed thirty days

Gah, so much to do, so little time to do in it...

Moving: call for help!

You know what's the best part of having friends? They ask you to help them move, yaaaaay!

So as I have mentioned, lovely friends, I will be moving out of Elsinore at the end of May and into what is now officially Illyria, a new residence about the same distance away from Brandeis on the other side. Originally the plan was to split the moving between two days, packing up the U-Haul on May 31st and then unloading everything in the new place on June 1st. Unfortunately the truck is only available on the 31st, so both the loading and the unloading will have to happen in the evening of that day. Harrumph. I suppose that will have to be that. I suppose I will try to have all of my smaller possessions (clothes, books, cookware, etc) already moved in before then, and then have only the sizeable furniture pieces left to move during the time I'll have the truck.

So I am asking for any lovely friends who might be available in the late afternoon and early evening of Tuesday, May 31st to lend the strength of their backs to moving a significant chunk of furniture to be taken to my new place. Someone who is comfortable driving a ten-foot truck (over a distance of about a mile) is particularly welcome. More details will come closer to the date when I make a firm plan on action. To entice you to come, all those who contribute are then invited to what will be my inaugural dinner party at the new place on Saturday, June 4th in thanks for the help.

So, if you are inclined to be generous, or just want in on the reward dinner, e-mail me or comment here letting me know that you're available to help. Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Five sheets plus bluesheet

Five sheet done for The Stand, wheeeee! I even managed to write the bluesheet. That I want to get out very soon to the lovely players, but it still needs a little tweaking, so I will hold off a bit longer yet. I have a litte bit of a space in some of the character sheets referring to THAT THING WHAT THIS GUY DID WHAT I AIN'T FIGURED OUT YET that I need to figure out and fill in, and the bluesheet has a spot like that as well. I think that will be my focus for now-- not move on until I crack an angle for that.

Still sick, but surviving. Only real problem is I have a sinus headache. It's making it tough for me to concentrate. I also have a bunch of things to get done this afternoon-- grocery shopping, showering, helping Jared dig out his car, and writing another characte sheet --before he and I go out to have dinner with acousticshadow2* this evening, so I can't afford to screw around.

The busy marches on

Feeling much better after a good night's sleep last night. I still need a long hot shower and enough mental wherewithal to put an actual outfit together before I'll feel totally normal again. I look like a complete schlub today; will have to change later in the day when I have the brain to do it. Didn't have time or energy yesterday to finish cleaning the kitchen, but I am resolved to finish it today. My bedroom could also use straightening up; whenever I get very busy, the less I attend to things like putting stuff away properly, so the place is uncomfortably out of order.

So with Halloween and the Wrathskeller now behind me, Winter's Tale becomes my primary focus. Despite having finished up with several major activities, my schedule remains packed. I'm trying to keep myself busy; it staves off the gloomies, don't you know. ;-) As of now, less than a week away from the beginning of tech week, I am feeling pretty good about the show and my part in it; despite some kinks with how difficult it can be to get a large group of people scheduled to be in the same place at the same time, the scenes I've gotten to watch are very sharp. We did Act III and the first scene of Act IV yesterday, and at first I didn't really feel on my game due to tiredness, but with a few times through I actually felt like I nailed it. The one thing I really want to work on is my upset when I'm leaving the baby in Bohemia and it starts to storm. I never really felt like I hit on the right level of emotion; I always feel a wee bit flat. I shall have to practice that before we run it again.

Fortunately there is no rehearsal for me tonight. My dad is in town on business, so I will be having dinner with him and Casey. After lunch with bronzite, which I am looking forward to since I have not seen much of him lately, I am hoping to get my chores accomplished, and then spend the evening with the family.

I don't clean because it's fun, you know

I always take slight issue when someone characterizes me as "loving to clean." I must gently disagree, my dear, with that assessment. Yes, I often wake up early even on the weekends to have time to devote to chores, but I only wish I could teach myself to love cleaning. I also wish I could teach myself to love exercise and hate the taste of Coke and cake frosting. Then certain desireable behaviors wouldn't all be so much of a pain in the ass. But alas, I love sugars and fat, I really do not like most kinds of physical activity, and I get no joy out of the act of cleaning itself. In fact, I frankly distrust anyone who says they "love to clean." When you encounter someone who describes themselves that way, it tends to be a sign that they don't clean enough for it to have become a real chore yet. Because believe you me, it certainly loses any fun or novelty it might have had given how much work that means on a regular basis. What I do get out of it, however, is an extreme sense of wellbeing of the results thereof, having a neat, orderly, and sanitary space in which to feel comfortable and relaxed. It's very disconcerting for me how frequently I encounter people who don't clean on a regular basis because they "don't like it." I don't exactly view that as something that factors into the necessity of the operation. I must say, one of the most surreal and funny moments I've experienced in recent memory is when I excused myself from a social activity on the grounds of having to go do chores, the response I got was, "But you did chores last week."

Waaaaah, busy

Wah, so busy. Busy at work, busy at play, and busy all this week. I was going over my schedule for the next week and it is packed. Yesterday I spent the day with Jared until it was time to take him to the airport, and then I helped Steph run her auditions for Winter's Tale. We saw a lot fewer people than signed up, but there were definitely some promising candidates. Unfortunately due to family committment I was unable to attend the second round. My parents are in town today and tomorrow to help my brother move from his old apartment into his new one, and I am expected to report for moving crew duty. There's a chance I can show up tonight for callbacks, but I'm afraid I won't count on it. Thursday won't be so complicated, but this weekend is packed full. There are two parties I must attend, one of which I must cook for, as well as a show to see. Rawr, so very, very busy.

At least I did something useful today. To make up for my deliquency at auditions, today I ran Steph through my favorite exercise to help with casting a show, the one where you make lots and lots of sample casts in different combinations to see how you feel about them. She's considering a lot of people for a lot of roles, and doing this helps you compare how you feel about one person as opposed to another in any given part. I've used it a lot in the past, and I think the stuff we talked about it will help her run an efficient callback. I'm really excited to see how things go!

MR. AND MRS. GIANT TURKEY

Had a productive weekend, I am pleased to say. This past weekend was the first I've had in a month that wasn't totally committed, so I used the much-needed free time to do whatever I needed or wanted to. Spent a lovely Saturday getting my hair cut and hanging out with friends playing games at the house. Sunday was devoted to chores. The house has been in need of a good cleaning for a while now, and I took care of some things that probably don't get done regularly enough, like polishing the wood and scrubbing the grout in the shower. I am proud of my hard work. This evening I finally got around to parking the mini-fridge in my bedroom out on the back porch to let it defrost. The tiny little freezer compartment has over time become consumed with frost, which is now encroaching on the rest of the space, so it's high time that got taken care of.

Also washed my hair for the first time after the new cut. As I predicted, negotiating where to part it such that my new sideswept bangs lay properly is proving tougher than I would have liked. The place I customarily parted it doesn't quite distribute them the way the stylist had them. It doesn't look bad that way, but I liked the new way too, and I want to figure out how to execute that look on my own if I so choose. I'll have to mess with it some more.

On a final note, on my way home from the gym today I came across two of the biggest turkeys I have ever seen walking around as I went down South Street. I noticed them because a fellow runner had stopped to take pictures of them, so I whipped out my phone and happily snapped a few shots of my own.



Meet MR. AND MRS. GIANT TURKEY.



PLEASED TO MAKE YOUR ACQUAINTANCE.

Though there are quite a few of this sort of bird hereabouts, and I always greet such a sight with a delighted cry of "TUR-keys!" these two were particularly remarkable because they are so big and so flashy-looking that I'd swear they weren't the regular old wild birds you usually see around here. They look to me like they were domestic turkeys escaped from somebody's farm. If so, I wonder how they got there, and what's going to become of them. Quite a surprising sight, and one that made me very happy to come upon.

Overwhelmed

Feeling overwhelmed. I am so behind on the responsibilities of life and work that I feel like all I do is run from one thing to the next and never make any headway. My to do list seems a mile long, and I have no idea where to begin. On top of that, my body seems to be rebelling in every way possible; I feel like someone should hang a biohazard sign around my neck. I am, needless to say, not at the top of my game right now.

I had forgotten until Thursday night that there were two all-day rehearsals for Love's Labor's Lost this weekend. I'm sure they'll go fine, but I really could have used the time to try and get other things done. I also want to go to oakenguy*'s show tonight; I've always wanted to see him act, and the fact that the show is Shakespeare-themed I'm even more excited. I arranged for two tickets, but in my distracted state I forgot to invite anyone to come with me. If anyone wants to attend an 8PM at the Unity Church of God, 6 William St., Somerville (Davis Square), give me a call and let me know. See www.theatreatfirst.com if you'd like more information.

Girly evening

With the boys off at a poker game tonight, I spent my evening to myself being the most abject fifties stereotype of a woman that I could possibly be. First I handwashed some delicate laundry items and threw the rest in the washing machine. Then I settled in to give myself a home pedicure, nothing fancy or complicated, just a nice soak in hot water with some fizzy bath salts, a scrub, and some shea butter lotion. It is a nice, if temporary, way to deal with my pain issues. Then I put lotion all over my legs and arms while I waited for the dryer to finish.

I've always wanted to be able to have a routine for taking care of my skin, but I've never been able to figure out what might be good for me. I've always been prone to acne and I hate it, but Ive never managed to find some treatment that actually worked. I tried Proactiv for a long time, but it never seemed to have any connection to whether my skin got better or worse. Since I quit using it in a rage I've been a lot clearer, but I'm afraid to use anything on my face now for fear of messing that up. I'd like to find a moisturizer with sunscreen in it, as those contribute a lot to skin health and wrinkle prevention, but I'm terrified that picking the wrong one will make the acne come back. Maybe if I do get to see a doctor I'll ask to get to see a dermotologist.

Furniture accomplished

Gah, long day yesterday. Yesterday was my day of "get kitchen furniture in order come hell or highwater, God damn it," and God damn it, I got it done. On Monday night my kitchen cart came in, and Jared and Charlotte so graciously put it together for me while I was cooking dinner. Monday was a really good day; Charlotte and Frances came over to Elsinore to have a little body-painting party, followed by dinner. Charlotte did a beautiful design on my lower back and on Frances's arm and shoulder. And to make things even better, beforehand she gave me one of the nicest massages I have ever had. I'll have to ask her in more detail exactly what she did, because it was fantastic. And while Frances and I made a dinner of pesto pasta and ratatouille, she and Jared undertook the surprisingly complex task of putting together the cart. How lucky I am to have such helpful, capable friends. :-) I really like the cart, too; it rolls smoothly, has a good-sized cabinet for storage, and is a perfect height to use as extra counterspace.

As for yesterday, I managed to make agreements with two sellers on Craigslist to pick up a replacement for the kitchen table and a replacement for the pantry shelf. Mission accomplished, but not easily. It involved lots of driving, more than I'd expected because on the first run neither of my two GPS devices could find the address. So that involved lots of fighting back and forth around one-way streets in Cambridge and lots of awkward calling of the seller trying to get to an address that neither my phone device or my car device recognized the existence of. But I managed to secure an item known as a chef's or baker's rack. I started looking for one as a replacement for the shelf-as-pantry we've got going on right now after seeing one in Matt and Lise's kitchen on Sunday, and very quickly I found one. I like it because it combines shelf space with a metal mesh backsplash you can use to hang things on. I've always kind of disliked the old pantry shelf; as Jared once put it, "It's a lot less kitchen than it is garage." I'll be glad to have a nicer, more versatile piece as a replacement. Though it occurs to me I'll need to buy some hooks if I want to start hanging stuff.

Getting the table didn't turn out to be too bad, and the seller was extremely helpful in getting it loaded into my car and making sure everything was set. The table is pretty similar to the one that was there, except it has a little drawer in one end. We removed the legs and it slid into the back of my car just fine. Though the table was all I really wanted, he said it came with four chairs at no extra charge. The chairs are not excessively nice, they are a bit worn and the white paint is flaking off, but I took them anyway just in case I can fix them up. They would probably be perfectly fine if they had a new coat of paint. Maybe I could sand them down and stain them. That will be a project for this summer, I think. And so I accomplished two fairly significant furniture pieces, all without spending a ton of money. Not bad.

After all of that, I was pretty exhausted, especially since I hadn't eaten all day and my back was stiff from so much time in the car. But still, I managed to get them unloaded at the house. They're not really set up yet, as the table needs to be reassembled and their predessors are still taking up their intended space, but I'm proud of getting it done. As I said, I will feel really good about everything when the place is finally all set up and ready to be used.