State of the Phoebe

As you may have surmised by my last two posts based mostly around throwing up images, I have not felt very talkative or interesting the last several days. Overtime at work and lots of responsibilities have eaten up my brainspace. But I am committed to trying to post something every day to keep me always writing, even if it's just something short, even if I don't have anything particularly fascinating to say. So today in that spirit, I'm just going to give a general update on my life.

Work has been busy. I have mostly adjusted to accomodating my new responsibilities, but they fill my time a lot more tightly. This week I worked late several times in order to get things done by their deadlines. I need to limit my time at work so I can do homework without losing my mind, but I can use the extra money, as my budget's been a little tight recently.

Socially I've been somewhat withdrawn. Tiredness, a feeling of having nothing to say, and a desire for solitary pursuits have led me to retreat into my own company. It has allowed me to be very productive recently, which pleases me. I have worked out a lot, as well as worked on writing and sewing projects. I do miss hosting dinner parties, though. Haven't done it at all lately due to the being busy, weary, and in a budget crunch.

I am now preparing to go into the extremely brief, very high-intensity DREAM rehearsal period this August. Apparently it will last... two weeks. Hm. I seem to recall hearing at the audition that the process would be about a month, but apparently we've got two weeks. I know this is supposed to be a somewhat abbreviated, high-intensity, nontraditional production of Midsummer, but yikes. Got my script in the mail the other day, and as we are expected to come in off-book I have dutifully begun work. It's a pretty decent cut, slightly rearranged and pared down. As memorization goes, Midsummer is an easy show for it, as the dialogue is so musical. Helena in particular has some lovely speeches. I've got six scenes, and I'm already solid on the first one. I have also not cut my hair as per the director's request, though it's gotten so flat and lifeless it's driving me crazy. I want to just go get it trimmed and the layers touched back up without reducing the length, but hairdressers have a long history of ignoring my requests to not shorten it too much, and I really don't want to accidentally violate my promise to the director.

I have been working away at my school assignments. Mostly I've done the reading, I have quite a few plays and comic books to get through. As I mentioned, I've also started reworking Mrs. Hawking, the results of which you can read here. But there's a ton more to do. More reading, a plotting exercise, planning for my craft essay, planning more for the comic. I've really got to buckle down. I also need to start submitting my plays to more places for consideration for performance. Apparently some of my colleagues submit to like fifteen places a month in order to get anything at all, which I definitely haven't been doing. I just don't know where to find the submission opportunities. But I guess I'd better start looking.

So I'm a little stressed, a little withdrawn. But I seem to be getting things done.

Time well spent

I have been using my time very well lately.

I have had long workouts almost every day for the last two weeks, including walking, weights, and a good deal of ballet practice.

I have done good writing, if not necessarily anything I can post yet, nothing's quite complete enough to make sense. Should try to whip something into readable shape.

I've started on a new sewing project, the Foxy Boxer Shorts from Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp, my beginner sewing text. They are sort of complicated and I've already made mistakes, but what I need right now is actual, physical, tactile practice.

I've been reading good plays. I haven't been doing a lot of literary reading lately, so it's a nice change.

I've started cooking again, after not really having the time for quite a while. Now all I need to do is start having dinner parties again. I miss them.

I just got my DREAM script in the mail. Now I need to start getting off-book. Really looking forward to acting off of Jonathan as Demetrius.

I have not, by contrast, been terribly social. I've been feeling a little withdrawn recently and wanted time alone to do things.

Charmer in eyeliner

Today I was feeling sad and discouraged. Then I went out to see a play with a charming and attractive former costar who wore eyeliner just to please me. I feel better.

Thank you, friend. <3

Close of Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes closed to great fanfare and not a little bit of sadness this weekend. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but I was so happy and proud to be in this show, and I loved this cast. The cast party was nice too, with lots of good conversations, if bittersweet. The process and the people were so great, and now it's ending and we won't see each other all the time. I'll have to fill the time with a new project, but the thought makes me feel bereft.

I am worn, though. Too much staying up late, too much unhealthy eating. Today I am going to take a scaldingly hot bath and soak until I'm a wrinkly tomato. Then I may just cut off all my hair in frustration. I am so tired of starched updos packed full of pins that doesn't even feel like hair when you finally take it down. I imagine I will have a few days of prostration due to exhaustion where I don't feel much of anything except grateful for the chance to rest, but then will go into prostration due to mopeyness over the show ending. Getting into this play helped me out of a growing melancholy, so I hope I can keep that positivity going.

Last weekend of Sherlock

Final weekend of Sherlock Holmes performances begin tonight. In an effort to ward off any more debilitating ill health episodes, I am working to stay calm and hydrated. I mean, it's very unlikely that I'll get another migraine, this week has been weary but way less stressful than the last, but I really don't want to deal with that again.

My parents are coming up to see the show tonight and tomorrow. I'm really happy they can make it. They're even bringing my brother and his girlfriend on Saturday. They missed Merely Players due to scheduling issues, and I haven't acted in a show in a couple of years now, so that's special for me.

Also, yesterday I got to see Erik Potter, Tom Heller, and Lily Hwang, in town for their fifth-year Brandeis reunion. They made a campfire in Sachar Woods and invited me to hang out with them there last night. It was wonderful to see them again, after all that time. Erik actually lives around here anyway, so I need to make an effort to see him more.

If only I weren't feeling so tired. All week I have felt draggy, despite taking naps and going to bed early. Not sure what's wrong, though I know it's been going on since the show ended last weekend. I've even been eating right and exercising a lot. I'm used to bouncing back pretty quickly, but whatever this is, it's lingered. I guess I'll just have to push through.

On the eve of Larpocalypse

Last day before Festival of the Larps 2012: Larpocalypse! I am mostly ready to go, just have a few more things to get in order before tomorrow. One or two more things to assemble for The Stand, costume pieces to lay out, crash space to make up for our larper guests. I am ridiculously excited. I think both of my characters are going to be fantastic to play, and both of our games are going to be fantastic to run. This is the biggest Festival in its history, with over a hundred and fifty people signed up, a decent number of whom were friends I invited over the last several years who are now either real parts of the larp community or well on their way to becoming so. I am so proud of our little con for how it's grown and how successful it's become. Big props to our fabulous chair ninja_report* and her awesome staff including natbudin*, in_water_writ*, twilighttremolo*, and lightgamer*. Way to make it happen, guys.

Tonight is also when Jared and I are going to see Lenny's directing project, her HTP-sponsored production of Cymbeline. Sadly it's real performances are over Festival weekend, so instead of missing it we are going to the final dress rehearsal so we get to enjoy their work. It has some very talented actor friends in it who I am excited to see. They've had to deal with a lot of disadvantages, such as a terrible performance space, but they've worked really hard, and Lenny is an extremely talented director. So after I take care of as many last-minute pre-Festival errands as I can this afternoon, it will be off to an evening of theater just before I disappear into the roleplaying haze.

The Larpocalypse is nigh!

Notes from the weekend

This Easter my mom gave me her slow cooker to take back up with me. She bought it years ago and barely used it; she found most of her recipes came out better in the oven or stove stop so she didn't bother with it. But she thought that with my busy life I might be able to make use of it, so up with me it came. This weekend I decided to try it out and made a boeuf bourginnone, a recipe I make frequently. It wasn't bad, but I didn't have enough time to let it cook for the full five hours it was supposed to take, so it wasn't quite as tender as it should have been. On the stovetop I've made it in three or so, but on days when I can't watch the pot (and can time my presence in the kitchen just right) this could be of use.

Bernie also hosted an Avengers movie marathon leading up to the release of the new movie. Jane was kind enough to organize a group trip to the midnight opening in May, so this was to refresh its predecessors in our minds. I had to come in and out because of other obligations, but it was fun to watch and spend time with the fun people who were present. I hope they all forgive me for my catcalling directed at Chrises Evans and Hemsworth. Avengers apparently has pretty much uniformly good reviews, so I'm very excited. Unfortunately I have to go to rehearsal beforehand, but I'll get out in plenty of time to meet up with everyone a little later, well in advance of showtime.

I learned Singer is holding a sewing machine sale right now. Go here if you'd like to take a look. I am very tempted to purchase that two hundred dollar serger they're offering. That seems a little cheap for a serger, so maybe it's not all that good, and I should practice my regular sewing skills before I worry about how I finish my seams, but still... I kinda want one. I still have two more weeks to think about it, so maybe this would be worth dipping into my savings.

This is the last week before Festival of the Larps and I'm in pretty good shape. Paranoia is packed, thanks to Bernie, Matt, Mac, and Tegan, and The Stand is close to it. I have all my sheets and my costumes are in order. I just need to finish reading all the materials and I am going to be good to go. This promises to be an awesome weekend, and I'm excited to throw myself in. Thanks to our lovely con chair ninja_report* for putting it all together! Great work, dear!

Last Pride & Prejudice, first Holmes, and Jesriah casting!

Really good time this weekend. Friday night I went to see Pride and Prejudice again, this time with nennivian* and polaris_xx*, meeting up with electric_d_monk* and captainecchi* for dinner beforehand. Having learned my lesson, we arrived earlier and went to a lower-key restaurant. Their lovely company made for a very nice time, MUCH less rushed and chaotic than the previous Saturday, and we sat up close in the very front row. I enjoyed the different perspective this time; it made me notice things I hadn't been able to before. I found I liked the acting even better for the nuances I could see, and the costumes a bit less for some sloppy or unfinished details, though by and large I still thought it was good, particularly on the men. I am so proud of everyone involved for putting on such a good, enjoyable show, and managing to pack the Somerville Theater to the gills every single night.

Sunday was my first real Sherlock Holmes rehearsal. I think it went well, though I am still kind of nervous. Everyone in the show is very talented, and also quite a bit older than me. Maybe because it's been so long since I've been cast in anything, but I find myself especially anxious to prove I deserve to be there. Though both last night and the night of the read through I warmed up decently as the night went on, my acting has been having slow, stiff starts at the beginning. I worry that somebody thought, oh, they picked her because she's young and pretty rather than because she's talented. I'm sure somebody thought that at the read through, at least in the first half. So I'm feeling especially anxious to acquit myself well. So far I like all the other actors-- as I said, they are all talented --and think they'll be a great experience to work with.

Finally, last night I got my casting for Jesriah at Festival! I cannot tell you how excited I am for that game. I love playing madness and mental anguish, so I'm delighted to play a game set in a fantasy-Victorian insane asylum. Also lovely, my costuming hint suggests I may actually get to use one of those many thrift store evening gowns whose purchase I justified by telling myself they'd make great costumes someday. I am about as delighted about that as I am about anything else! I am supposed to look like a faded starlet from the '40s, so that means, I think, glitzy and slinky. I definitely have a few options that would suit-- I have two sparkly cocktail dresses, one in black and one in blue. I also have a red wiggle dress that I found abandoned in the green room that just happened to be exactly in my size, though the fabric is matte rather than shiny. I should probably also get a cigarette holder to gesture vaguely with as well.

Meh, slash fic

As I’ve mentioned, I’m not a slash fan. I tend to prefer when fan work sticks to canon, so I don’t really enjoy when the characters’ relationships are disrupted to suit an author’s personal preferences. But another thing that bothers me is how it encourages fans to interpret everything characters who are close to each other do through a lens searching for romantic possibility. This propensity in slash often leads to the invalidating of the notion that FRIENDSHIP CAN BE A POWERFUL AND MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP IN AND OF ITSELF. Of course, my making this argument at all is kind of missing the fact that slash is mostly porn. The assumption is made all the time that women don’t like or don’t use porn, which irks me for a lot of feminist reasons, and is obviously refuted by the existence of slash. So I don’t like to gloss over it, and that makes it a little less silly to bitch about. But still, there’s a big cultural concept going on that suggests that friendship is inferior to romantic connection. A girl who doesn’t want to date a guy is “demoting” him to friend status, for example. This is what pushes people away from making real connections with each other non-sexually or non-romantically, either because they think those relationships aren’t as valuable, or that they’re afraid that, since people assume romantic relationships are the only ones worth seriously pursuing, their attempts at closeness will be perceived as romantic interest. This is especially off-putting if there is a concern of making other think the person is gay. So we don’t get a lot of strong portrayals of friendship, or when we do, people wonder at the supposedly “romantic” undertones. :-P And in real life, we get lots of people who don't have any strong connections outside of their significant others, which leads to less emotional support in their lives.

Intercon L con report

Back from Intercon L, and although I am utterly exhausted, it was a heck of a lot of fun getting that way. I didn't prepare for the unusual schedule as well as I should have-- I'd stayed late to see the Titus naked tech on Wednesday, and I'd had two days this week when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, so I went in with less reserve than I usually did. But even if I couldn't stay up late, I was determined to enjoy this special once-a-year occasion as much as I possibly could. Ahead is my non-spoilery review!

Friday night jhite1230* and I arrived at the con about an hour and a half in advance of games, allowing us to connect with Seamus, who was one of our gracious roommates, socialize a little, and prepare. Jared ran off to meet in their game space for House of the Rising Sun. I socialized a bit and dressed in the hotel room to play Ariadne in Feast of the Minotaur. I must mention again how much I love this dress and how pretty I felt in it. It's a brand-new couture piece I bought on eBay for a fraction of its retail price, made of this luxurious crinkled velvet and washed silk straps in a gorgeous berry color. It's rare that I get a pretty princess role, and I've been feeling like such a frump lately, so I really wanted to look good for this role, and I think I succeeded. Thanks to for taking this picture:

I bought some sea shell necklaces to wear around my neck and maybe like a circlet in my hair, but I decided I looked better without them. Showing cleavage is not my preferred form of sexy dressing, but given the style of the dress I figured what the hell, just this once. Might as well enjoy the one benefit of gaining weight. However, I discovered a dress that's held on only with tied ribbons is not the most stable, and I found myself adjusting it to preserve good taste quite a bit. I should probably look into some body tape for next time I wear it. I decided to wear my beloved Bast sandals with it, and was pleased that they remained comfortable for the entirety of the game. I must have gotten twenty compliments on the look and felt very good.

The game itself was wonderful, but in a very strange way. As I mentioned, when I read my character sheet there was next to nothing in it. Some personality, very little plot. I heard other players found the same in theirs. But when we got into game, it took a little digging and faking it until we made it, but there was quite a bit of plot that existed in the world-- it's just that very little of it got into the character sheets. It helped that it was very strongly based in Greek mythology that, being geeks, we were all pretty familiar with. But I had a wonderful time, particularly interacting with the other excellent larpers, without whom the game would not have worked at all-- it takes active, creating player to dig up plot out of the ether like that. Highlights included offside7* and a new larper named Kelly Morgan as my sisters who gave me dramatic conflict and support at the same time, morethings5* who had a note-perfect transformation partway through the game that would have been awesome if only for the look he gave me at one point, and Alex Pogue as my Theseus who made the romance plot so interesting and fun. There was also a particular twist that I thought was a very clever way to get a crucial element into the game. I got the feeling there were a handful of characters who didn't have enough to do, but for the most part the nebulous plot was available for everyone to seize on to. Still, if it were up to me I think that plot really needs to get put into sheets. I don't know if it was a stylistic choice or if the writers just ran out of time and had to fill the sheets with something. I highly recommend this in its current state, if only on the condition that you are an active, independent player, but I can honestly say this is the most enjoyable game I've ever played for which I would still recommend a total character sheet rewrite.

The other other game I played was as Irene Adler in An Evening Aboard the HMS Eden. I put together a costume I was very pleased with relatively inexpensively, including a thrift store prom dress with a corsety-looking bodice, a gauzy black blouse beneath it to give it sleeves, and a wide Kentucky Derby bonnet with ostrich feathers on it. But I'm sorry to say I was quite disappointed by this game. It had a very fun theme/set dressing, but the writing was, at least in my part of it, pretty lackluster. As I said to some people after the game, all the direction I had was ticky-box goals-- what boiled down to "Okay, go ring that bell over there!" and once you've run over and rung it, you're unsatisfied because there's no reason to have wanted it nor anything interesting that comes of it. Join that club that doesn't do anything, buy a bigger airship that you can't actually use in game, cure this disease that doesn't have any in-game effects so why waste the time, that sort of thing. The only things in my sheet that were like actual plots, the mystery of what was going on with my sister and what the deal with this item I had was, no one seemed to know anything about so I made no progress on them. Not everyone seemed to have unengaging plots, Jared had a pretty good time and a number of people seemed about to stay busy, but I got the impression that around a third to a half the game was in the same situation I was. It was just very amateurish larp-writing, and though the GMs I asked for help didn't really managed to point me in any useful direction, I will give the gentlemen credit for trying really, really hard. I worry I came across as a difficult player, for which I'm sorry, but I think I failed to convey, no, I don't want another ticky-box to check off, I want a plot thread, but given the writing in the game they may not have been able to understand the difference. I will be hesitant to sign up for any game by these authors again.

Last thing I did this weekend was help natbudin*, emp42ress*, and simplewordsmith* run our game Resonance. By this point I was draggy and tired, but fortunately this run of Resonance mostly ran itself. We had a very good group of players who bought fully into the concept and were happy to ride the rails of the story we'd laid out. This game relies heavily on that willingness in order to work. We also implemented a new device in the third act to see if we could convince players to play it out the way we'd intended. In the first run, the third act didn't happen like it was supposed to at all, so we tried a subtle restructuring. It mostly worked if not entirely in the second run, and didn't really work at all in the third. So this time we basically put in a plot hammer. The hammer made it so the players had no choice but to do what we wanted them to. I think the players were fine with it, but seeing it in action I've decided from a writer's standpoint that I do not like the particular technique we chose. It is a kludge, and it's slightly off-tone in my opinion, but I will say that it works and players are okay with it, so ultimately it's an acceptable mechanism. I prefer the subtler one we implemented for the second and third runs, and I'm not really sure why it didn't work, but the fact of the matter is it didn't.

Also, one of my fellow GMs Danielle pointed out how susceptible this game is to becoming derailed by issues of Maslow's heirarchy of needs. We want the players to be thinking of higher-order issues, that's what the story's about, but the game's setting suggests threats to safety and physical well-being that human nature tends to want to attend to first because you can't do anything if you're dead. We need those threats to exist in a vague sense to maintain the atmosphere, but we really need to manage how pressing they are so as not to distract players from the real, emotional issues we want them to explore. We struck a good balance in this run, but I remember how previous runs have been stalled simply by questions of "But will we be safe if we do X?" that resulted in a reluctance to move forward into the unknown.

I left early on Sunday to catch the last show of Titus, which I'm glad I did, but still, I was sorry I couldn't spend more time socializing. Intercon is one of the most important moments of my year, and I love how it surrounds you with creative, interesting people. I was happy to hear that Jared and EB's game House of the Rising Sun ran great, as did The Prince Comes of Age by Kindness, Matt, and Bernie. Congratulations to everyone who brought their artistic labors, and thanks to everyone who helped make this con so wonderful.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween...

Had my Halloween celebration this past Saturday. Here are our Avengers assembled, with me as Black Widow, Jane as Loki, Bernie as Captain America, Mac as Bruce Banner, Jared as Iron Man, Mike as Nick Fury, and Matt as Hawkeye. This is the first year I participated in the group costume, so I was drafted into being Black Widow to fill out the group. Black Widow was easier and I didn't feel like doing a Wasp costume, though it would have been fun to have an Antman action figure in my pocket that I could periodically pull out and go "Say hello, Hank." I confessed I kind of half-assed it, using my black leotard, leggings, tall boots, and the cell phone holster Rachel gave me. As usual, by the time Halloween rolls around I'm too burnt out from everything else to make the costume a priority. Still, I managed to spray my hair with red temporary color, thanks to some help from Steph. It flaked off on everything and stained the skin on my back, but it sort of made me look more like Natasha Romanov.

The evening was lovely, so I'll just include some more fun costume pics.

SHIELD directors Stark and Fury.

The no-face off between Prentice's Slender Man and john_in_boston*'s the Question. Jenn had a suggestion they should switch costumes, then remove their masks and freak the fuck out of everyone.

morethings5* as a German serial murderer of children from one of the earliest movies about serial killers. Of course.

nennivian* and bronzite* as Peter Pan and Tootles.

twilighttremolo* as a candle, one of my favorites I saw all Halloween. Look at that fabulous hair and lovely dress!

niobien* as a creepy yet still adorable ghost. I think it must be very hard to make her not adorable.

thefarowl* and Plesser as characters from Slings and Arrows, katiescarlett29* as Carmen San Diego, Carolyn again as a ghost, polaris_xx* as not-Xena, Prentice Slender Man, and April in a cosplay outfit for some anime character I've never heard of.

Cutest Zatanna EVER.

Ballet to come

This week at the ballet school I've just started going to is "Back to Basics" week, which means the classes will be focusing on reviewing the foundational stuff on which everything you learn from then on is based. I am pleased with this, as since I've just started I could use a plain laying out of the basics. This would be a good time for other newbies to come, if anyone is interested in learning.

Also, the week after that is "Bring a Friend" week. My understanding is that anyone in the class who brings someone new with them that week gets both of them to take the class for free. I would love it if someone came along with me, for company and to take a free class together. Just throwing it out there! Contact me in either case and we can figure out the details.

Dorky fun photography idea!

I have had an idea for a photography project that is silly and dorky and I think would be cute and fun. I want to get a long table, cover it with gaming paraphernalia, sourcebooks and dice and character sheets and battle mats and minis and suchlike, and then set up a bunch of people around it arranged in the same poses as the figures in Da Vinci's Last Supper. Everyone could wear their nerdy T-shirts or their cloaks and elf ears or look like goths or punks or whatever style else that is associated with gamer culture. I kind of want to myself in the middle, because I'm arrogant like that, and be DM Jesus. ;-) I think I'd call it The Last Session, or something like that.

So I need twelve people to volunteer to be my models. I need a photographer too. I might be able to get my brother to do it, if he has time, but if anyone else is interested, let me know.

So who's game? :-)

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.

Saturday picnic for As You Like It

 
As you may know, Jared is going to be portraying the wicked elder brother Oliver in a production of As You Like It. usernamenumber* is in this show as well as Touchstone, one of Shakespeare's awesome fools. It will be going up in Seven Hills Park in Davis Square the weekend of September 8th - 11th. I would like to plan a lovely potluck picnic dinner in the park before the show on Saturday the 10th and I would like you all to be there with me. The show is at 8PM, so I figured we could arrive in the park around 6, and play and eat and hang out together in the park for a while before we watch. Please let me know if you can come that day, and if you would like to make anything for the picnic, that would be very welcome! And feel free to bring anyone else you know you might like to come.

I am looking forward to your company, so I hope you all can join me there! Remember, the show is FREE. And if you can't come on Saturday but can come to another night, let me know that too, as I'll be going to all four shows and would be glad to make separate plans with you as well. :-

Back to sewing machine and lovely friends

Got back this morning from my trip home to visit my parents. It was a lovely visit, full of fun activities and lots of tasty food. I now have my long-awaited sewing machine up with me too! My mom gave me a crash course in how to use it, then we packed it up in an old hard-shelled suitcase and I checked it on my flight in. Hope it survived the baggage hold . I would love to spend some quality time with it right away after waiting so long, and i have several projects cut up and ready to be assembled that I'm excited to tackle.

Unfortunately, this is the week leading up to my first deadline for school. Therefore my first priority will be finishing up all my assignments. I've made good progress, and I've at least started pretty every piece of it, but to get things done I will need to buckle down. I must finish my craft essays, my reflection on the month's work, I need to dramatize a conversation I overheard, and I want to polish up that last scene I wrote according to the prompt.

Also happening this week is the crew of Albion, the house that will be full of HTPers just a block or two away from me, is moving in this week. That means I will have Steph, Plesser, April, Lenny, and Jenna just a short walk away to see whenever I want. As soon as I get out of work I will be heading over that way to help out with the move in any way I can. Bernie and I went and picked up a beautiful maple bedroom set for Steph off of Craigslist a few weeks ago, and I look forward to seeing it set up in the new place.

Pathological fear of awkwardness

I have an excessive fear of awkwardness. I don't know why, but I absolutely can't stand it. It makes me uncomfortable to the point where I will go to enormous, often massively inconvenient lengths to avoid it. Generally, this just means I don't like being around constantly awkward people. But other times it means that I will not risk dealing with any situation with which I'm not totally comfortable for fear of things becoming awkward.

The thing that bothers me is that my tolerance for it is so low is that sometimes it even keeps me from seeking out my friends if there strikes me as the slightest possibility of it. There are a fair number of people I like who I am sometimes afraid to contact for fear of having an awkward interaction. Unless I am absolutely assured that they will be a person I can socialize with without having to stress over what to talk about and how to keep things going smoothly, often I can't make myself reach out at all, even if I want to. I can't even initiate an IM conversation, no matter how much I want to talk to a person just to enjoy their company, if I'm worried I won't have enough to say. Sometimes I can only see certain people in groups, not because I don't want to be with them one-on-one, but I'm afraid that without more people contributing I won't be engaging enough.

You know how more and more I hold dinner parties as my preferred form of social interaction. It's in part because I have the control in that situation to keep them working the way that makes me most comfortable. The guest list is chosen by me, the activity and setting and context is all acceptable to me, and it can be managed to minimize the potential for awkwardness.

There's other things tied into this, like how I sometimes half-expect people to find my asking for their contact a bother, like I'm nagging them for their attention. Though I do in fact actually know that my friends wouldn't be my friends if they didn't like spending time with me, it can be hard to shake the paranoia sometimes that people who don't contact me very often are only just being friendly when I am around to be polite. But it's a two-way street, maybe they're feeling the same way as I do about me. Maybe they're just as afraid of awkwardness as I am, or that they might be bothering me if they do contact me. (I couldn't say I'd blame them for that, given what a grumpy person I am.)

I think this goes back to the fact that I rely a lot on etiquette and nonverbal communication to interact with people. I was brought up to believe the height of good manners was the ability to take a hint. Do not, for example, force someone to SAY they are uncomfortable with something you're doing, but rather, be able to SEE that they are uncomfortable and then act accordingly to relieve it. It is awkward to have to say something like, "I need to be alone right now, so go away," or "I don't want to go out because I can't spend the money," so the well-mannered person tries to be sensitive to the projected feelings of others to not force them into having to articulate things that make them embarrassed. And accordingly, I would like people to be able to be just as sensitive to me. But unfortunately there are plenty of things that there is no real reason to feel uncomfortable about saying and therefore would be better to just SAY. But those things can be really hard for me because of this sensibility. Like, this situation wouldn't be awkward if I just have the savvy to keep it from becoming awkward. I was in a situation recently where just throwing out the things I was feeling verbally was the best way to handle it, but even though I was speaking to a good friend I trust, and managed it and I'm ultimately glad I did it, I really wish I could have found a less awkward way to make myself understood.

Since my depression really set in there are a handful of people who are truly important to me that I kind of slipped out of contact with. Not completely, fortunately, but spending as much time as I did shut away moping did not do anything positive for those relationships. I feel so bad about losing touch that I feel awkward about getting back into touch because it will highlight how long I've ignored them. Which just leads to staying even longer out of touch. And then I am further distanced from those important people.

What I need to do is just get over it. Trying calling, IMing, even hanging out with people I want to have in my life. And if things are awkward well... I'll just have to deal. And if I can't, nobody has more "escape in case of awkward" plans than I do. It's not going to kill me if I try. And things might just get less awkward in the future because of it.

So many friends!

This has been a nice week for seeing people I have been missing. The early part of it saw lovely friends crearespero* and aurora_knight* coming to Waltham to visit, which involved playing on playgrounds and nice dinners and a trip to go swimming and a lovely long walk. I've missed both of them terribly, so this visit was really lovely. Jane could only stay for one night, but Frances only just leaves today. She is going to spend a little extra time with katiescarlett29* before the whole gang of us goes up to her place this weekend. On Friday I will get to see nennivian* when she joins Jared, Bernie, and I to drive up to Long Island together. Steph is finally back from Argentina and has invited us all to visit her and see a Shakespeare in the Park performance of Measure for Measure. And that means that not only will I be reunited with Steph, who I have been missing painfully since she shipped off for Argentina, I will get to see Plesser and thefarowl* as well! So a good chunk of all the people whom I haven't been able to spend time with in a while will all be in one place. I'm really grateful to Steph for inviting us, because it will be so wonderful for us all to get together again.

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 plan!

I thought I'd post my moving plan here well in advance of things, in case anyone is interested in showing up to help, or provide moral support in the form of cooling beverages or delicious snacks.

The date of the move is Tuesday, May 31st. Because the only time I was able to secure a moving truck rental was 2PM, things will be beginning early. Let's say 3PM is the official start time, and I plan on working until it's finished, hopefully before the 9PM deadline when I need to return the truck. I know that some of you will be unavailable during the day, but any time you can come is very much appreciated. If you could let me know when you expect to show up, that could be useful for planning. Like, I can plan on moving the heavy furniture pieces when I'm looking to have the most people present.

We will be moving the furniture contents of a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a small mountain of boxes. My goal is to have everything ready to be picked up by you lovely folks and placed directly onto the truck or the appropriate car, so hopefully there will be minimal need for you to help with packing or anything like that. I may need some minor help with furniture disassembly, though, and I may assign people to some light cleaning tasks if no one minds.

I will be providing dinner in the form of some kind of takeout on the day of, and then everyone who shows up to help is then invited to a real, home-cooked "Thank You for Hauling My Stuff Around" dinner at my new place (Illyria, 51 Morton Street, Waltham) at 7PM on Saturday, June 4th.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask. And please let me know when you think you might be coming so I can make a plan. (I do so love making plans.) If things have changed for you and you don't think you can make it, no worries, I appreciate the thought anyway.

Thanks so much, everyone. Your help is very much appreciated, and I will repay you with deliciousness the weekend after.