Get out of my ear already

Awesome 4th of July party this past weekend. The food was delicious, the company was great, and I very much appreciated the chance to swim in the nearby lake. My bikini doesn't get nearly enough time to come out and play; once a year is really not enough. It was one of the best social events I've attended in quite some time. Congrats to captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* for putting it on, they really knocked it out of the park.

The only problem is now I have water in my left ear that won't seem to come out. I have tried every home remedy that friends and the Internet can suggest, and nothing has helped. The pressure's a bit painful, and I can't hear so well on that side. I think it may have reduced slightly since Saturday, but it's still bugging me. This has never happened to me before and I'm quite vexed. The most annoying thing is that it's most comfortable when I lie on my back and the water shifts to the back of my head; when I'm upright it pools downward and is painful. I was extremely prone to ear infections when I was a kid, and I've read that the risk increases the longer the water stays in there, so I may end up seeing a doctor about it just so I don't have to put up with it anymore. Not the momento I was hoping to bring home with me from attending a fabulous party.

Sewing project progress: Jared's checked apron, part III, and Steph's purple toile apron, part IV

Tonight I have the good fortune have the multi-talented captainecchi* coming over for dinner, and she has agreed to give me some instruction to boost my slowly developing sewing skills. I am very excited for the company and for the crafting! Last night I finally had some time to myself with no other obligations, so I took a crack at some of my projects.

I decided last night I would attach the straps for Jared's apron. I had found some of this black cloth tape that the fabric store lady said was for stabilizing garment shoulders or binding rugs, but I thought it might be extrapolated to my purpose. So at the neck of the piece I laid the straps in place, folded the edge over twice with the straps inside in the hopes of making a neat seam, and then pinned it in place to sew. The upside of this is that I could see my seams getting straighter, as I followed Lise's advice to use the edge of the presser foot as a guide. The downside was that putting the seam line that far from the edge made it so the straps would pull away from the rest of the apron when they were hung on something. I ended up putting in two extra rows of stitches for security, which, though they came out fairly neat, having so many row at unequal distances from each other makes it look kind of sloppy. I think Tegan was right when she mentioned the other day when she was over that checks aren't a good fabric choice for newbies, as they show how all these imperfections don't line up.

Next I snipped the straps in half with the intention of sewing a pair of D-rings onto one end so that the neckline would be adjustable. This did not go as easily as I'd hoped. I tried to sew a kind of packet onto the straps holding the D-rings, but the width of the presser foot was such that I couldn't put the seam as close to the D-rings as they needed to be to make an appropriately tight channel that would hold them in place. Plus the material is just a little too floppy to really support the metal hanging off of them. I probably should have tried to find a strap material with more body than this. I ended up just tying the rings onto the end with an extra piece of the strap material, which looks okay but again, a little sloppy. I probably should have just left the straps intact, or let Jared tie them in a knot where he wanted them.

Finally I attached the belt, just straight across the front at about waist-height with a rectangle of black thread. That was fairly easy, so my stitches were straight and the black thread disappeared nicely. It's is smooth and even and neat, probably the most nicely-done part of the whole apron.
 

So I guess it's pretty much done, except I'd like to clean it up where I can, and Jared requested a large solid black pocket be added for utility's sake. That should look nice; I'll have to guy find some appropriately sturdy material in solid black. Frankly I'm not very happy with this as a finished product; this poor apron has very much been the guinea pig on which I make all my beginner's mistakes. But Jared says he likes it and wants it anyway, but somebody when I'm better at this I will make him a better one.

After that, I don't know why but I found myself wanting to go on to Steph's apron. It has been lying around pinned up for weeks now, waiting for me to have the ability to assemble it. I wondered if maybe it was a bad idea, since with as much trouble as Jared's apron had given me I figured I'd just screw up Steph's as well. But I really wanted to do more sewing that evening, so I loaded up the machine with ivory threat and thought I'd give it a shot.

It was shocking how much easier it was working on Steph's apron. I just carefully kept the edge of the material in line with the edge of the presser foot like Lise said, and I made a perfect straight row of stitching all the way around the piece that you could barely see against the material. I know this picture makes it very tough to make out the stitches, but that's kind of the point-- they are barely there and do not compromise the pretty print.

Thinking about it, I think there are a couple reasons Steph's was both easier and came out better. First I think the thread disappears against the purple toile with the ivory background better than against the bold geometric rows of the check-- with all those straight lines in the pattern, it's much easier to see how the thread wiggled off track. Second, the toile is a more delicate fabric, while the black and white is a heavy coarse cotton, tougher to manipulate when running it through the machine. And finally, I assembled Steph's with more care and proper technique. Now, I know the proper way to make a seam is to press everything into place before you sew, but after assembling Steph's apron a while back my fairly new, hardly-used steam iron DIED FOR NO REASON AT ALL (I'm still pissed about it) and I haven't had the cash to replace it. So I'm sure one of the problems I had with Jared's apron was that I wasn't able to press the seams down before I pinned them. That made for less flat, more imperfect folds to run through the machine that had more of a tendency to get out of place. Whereas Steph's had been pressed and pinned in place for ages, leaving me with perfect folded edges that totally behaved.

I only got as far as assembling the two body pieces of Steph's apron before I stopped. It looks very neat and feels very secure. But now I am resolved not to do anything more until I have an iron so that I may put everything together properly. Before this evening I am going to  go out and buy one. It's clear that I can't do this at the level I want to without having the proper tools for the job.

Propeller troupe's Richard III at the Huntington Theater

I went and saw Richard III last night at the Huntingdon Theater in a lovely trip organized by captainecchi*-- so glad she suggested it! In fact, you can read her impressions of the show here, which match up very much with mine, so much so I was tempted to just let her speak for me and agree with everything she wrote! But for posterity I am recording my own thoughts, given this show impressed me as much as any show I've ever seen.

The show was given the aesthetic of a Victorian insane asylum, and I don't need to tell you how creepy that can be, with the men in white masks, the primitive steel medial instruments, and the constant presence of sterile plastic and black body bags. It even seemed that at the imprisonment of Clarence he was given a partial lobotomy! There are many gorey murders in this play, with tons of stage blood and every onstage death committed in the most gruesome way possible-- drilling into a man's eyes, guts torn out with a hook, and a chainsaw dismemberment behind a plastic curtain that was sprayed with blood. Despite the potential over-the-topness of it, I actually liked it and thought it worked with the stark brutality and sociopathy of their Richard III.

The cut of the script was excellent, keeping the length and frequent dryness of a Shakespearean history down to a minimum and maintaining an engaging pace. The storyline was easy enough to follow, though I had read it before, and despite a handful of confusion regarding people's relationships, it kept remarkable clarity. If I ever were to put on Richard III, I would try to emulate this cut.

Interestingly, this was an all-male Shakespeare troupe. The acting was phenomenal across the board-- Richard Clothier as Richard III in particular with his powerful voice. But as one fequently cross-cast myself, I am always interested in how it's done. I thought it was notable that while the men playing women were dressed in period female costume and affected feminine carriage, they did not much attempt feminine voice, and they all had their normal masculine hair. That disconnect was a little jarring, but their acting was excellent, if representative rather than emulative. It also pleases me to see men effectively to play women, when I am so much more used to the other way around.

The tech was excellent, particularly the sound design; the effects were organic and expertly timed, plus the singing! The entire troupe sang to punctuate the drama and over the transitions, usually psalms or Victorian-sounding caroles and folk tunes. Their voices were exquisite, and it was incredibly atmospheric. I particularly enjoyed when they sang something in contrast to what was happening, like a merry folk song over somebody's brutal murder. There was even a minute when they rendered "Bloody, bloody England" as a kind of rap set to an electric guitar! Out of left field, certainly, but I kind of liked it anyway. :-)

This may have been the best Shakespearean production I've ever seen. I enjoyed it immensely, and now I want to see the Comedy of Errors this troupe is also putting on. Alas, it may be out of my price range, but I will look into it anyway.

Diving into sewing

So I have decided to dive right in and try to sew something. I am attempting to make a "full, gathered skirt" as directed here by my new hero Gertie of Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing. I am doing several silly things on this project. The first is that though I should probably wait for my mom to send me her sewing machine, which would make this worlds quicker and easier, I am too excited and feel like diving right in, so I will be doing it by hand. I like hand-stitching, so it might be fun. Secondly, it's probably too nice a fabric to waste on what will likely be a distrous early attempt, but it was so pretty, and on massive sale, so oh, well.

Here is the piece I cut for the body of the skirt, just a large rectangle that will be gathered into a waistband at the top and wide at the bottom. I'm hoping that the way the fabric holds its shape will make for a nice full silhouette.

I am mentally preparing myself for my first attempt to be a mess. Sewing, after all, is actually quite hard to get good at. I remember when I was in the Natick Mall with my parents this past weekend we looked at the display of outfits made by local fashion design students. Some of the designs were interesting, but I was struck by how amateurish the construction of the garments was. I commented to my mother, "My friends captainecchi* and electric_d_monk*'s work is way better." Shouldn't design students, I thought, be good at sewing? But it occurred to me then that they probably have only beeing sewing as long as they've been designing. They're probably only paying their dues hoping that they'll be able to get into a position where they don't have to do their own sewing. It just shows that sewing is hard to get good at, so it won't happen unless you're really working at it.

As a side note, "sew" is one of those words that I never pronounce properly in my head; the misleading spelling just really dug into me for some reason. Somehow I always manage to say it correctly, but when I read it in my head it always sounds like "soo."

Domm'd

Played in Leash this past Saturday. I must say, though I had my reservations, I ended up really enjoying it. My character had a strong BDSM element to it, and while I was not bothered by that fact, I knew it was going to take some boldness on my part to be able to act like that toward other people in public without feeling totally embarrassed. But I relished the acting challenge of contrasting that part of the character with her normal quiet, more goody-goody personality, so I figured there was no point in doing it if I didn't do it all the way. Jared helped me make a costume that would be easily hidden under my big old rust-colored suede blazer (really need to get that thing tailored), and I decided that it would be best if I arranged with someone who I was comfortable with and vice versa to have a little scene. I settled on morethings5 as a personal who fit that bill, and would make the scene interesting. So, though I had a wee bit of trepidation, in the end I just went for it.

Looks like I got over my reservations, I guess. :-) And Jonathan was an excellent scene partner. Thank you, dear, for rolling with me! I also ended up going off on bleemoo*, with whom I did NOT confer beforehand, but I think that turned out okay as well! Again, thanks for being such a good sport!

Beyond that, the game is good overall, with good plot and lots of reasons for characters to interact. I like how the powers and mechanics were just very flowy, and yet did not interfere too much with each other. I liked it very much and would recommend it, provided you're comfortable with dark and mature themes. There was more intense stuff than just my character's, and a lot of it was kind of twisted, but I enjoy that stuff so it didn't bother me. So my compliments, hazliya* and elenuial*! I am suddenly now particularly interested in Better Off Dead when it runs at Festival, but I doubt I will have time for it with all my other committments. :-(

Also, on Sunday I played in Lise's FantasyCraft game. The mystery is really starting to emerge, and I think the plot she designed is really very clever. I love being Ophelia and getting to say inappropriate things. I also am really happy about the company being who it is, which makes the game even better. Jared tagged along to the game this time and then we all went out to dinner afterward, which was lovely. All in all, this was a fantastic weekend full of lovely lovely gaming.

"It's like I speared you-- like a fish!"

Okay, so I didn't really follow my plan (such as it was) when it came to signing up for stuff at SLAW last night. I ended up going with Martha Stewart on Friday, The Sound of Drums and Clarence on Saturday, and In the Jungle on Sunday. I blame natbudin, captainecchi, and electric_d_monk as bad influences, since I did my signing up while I was at the Fantasycraft game with them last night. I went with Sound of Drums because I'd never played a game in that sort of setting before, though I am very sad to miss Two Hours in London. Costumed Henchman was full (surprisingly one of the first to do become so) so Nat suggested I sign up for Clarence, since, as he pointed out, if I hated it, storming out because I thought it sucked would not only be acceptable but totally in character. So I figured, what the hell, why not? And Lise and I made pacts to sign up for games we weren't sure we would enjoy together, because then at least we'd have a buddy with us, and maybe we could find some way to make them fun for each other in spite of everything. Like, we're not sure we're going to enjoy In The Jungle, as we both tend not to like extremely freeform games, but we figured that we could at least get some fun out of being hobos together. :-) And I am curious how many more romance plots I will be in with Matt, as this tends to be a recurring theme. So this SLAW looks to be an interesting one!

The game last night was fun as well. I really enjoy being Ophelia, yammering on about nothing in particular and making really inappropriate observations about everything like a small child. Ophelia's exploits last night include picking the pocket of an unconscious stoner, fending off the advances of a pervy pech-fancier, pegging a fleeing assasin with my throwing dagger "like a fish in a barrel" and thereafter referring to him as "Fish," getting courted for a covert op by an elf who apparently has species-dysmorphia, and telling and retelling an acnedote involving a stolen greatsword and a barrel of pickled herring. Lise, I like this game you've got going on here. :-)

After work I will be hanging out with my family. Today will probably loosely scheduled, but I really hope we nail down what we're doing tomorrow. My parents are normally rather firm and decisive planners, but they want to spend time with my brother as well and he hasn't really gotten back to them about his availability, so they're afraid of making any plan that he wouldn't be able to go along with. :-P Hopefully we'll do something fun. I just wish we could figure out what the hell it is already.

Weekend of parents

Parents will be coming into town today. The timing is good, as they will be claiming the majority of my time from now until Sunday evening, so I will be busy during the same period Jared is busy in Albany visiting Sharone. That means I will have less time to call him at the same time as he has less time to call me. He should be busy doing fun special things like one does on vacation, rather than sitting around on the phone with one's girlfriend like one does at home. I just need to confer with Mom and Dad to figure out what our plans will be. Two possibilities include visiting Salem and my taking them to Kind Richard's Faire, neither of which we are settled on. Tonight, however, I will be going to the next session of captainecchi's Fantastycraft game, which I committed to a long time before they told me they were coming up. They tend to prefer I clear my schedule when they visit, since they see me so rarely these days, so I can't tell whether or not they're annoyed with me. Ah, well. Tonight should be fun. I will enjoy getting to be Ophelia again, and must make certain to think of lots and lots of fun inappropriate things to say.

Several things

Again a lovely weekend with Jared comes to a close, and again I try to dwell on the positive-- that I'm seeing him on a regular basis, that he may be back for good soon, that we are doing well despite the distance and every time we do see each other is great. Again, I try to be happy that our time together was so nice rather than sad that now he's gone. It feels good to be doing everyday things with him like dinners and seeing friends and watching movies. Positivity and hopefulness are not natural to me, but I'm beginning to see that in this situation they may be truly necessary.

I have decided I will be attending the "open dress" night of the Boston Babydolls "Wrathskeller" performance on Tuesday, October 26th, and I hope some of you will be willing to come that night with me. Tickets to this open dress are limited, but only five dollars a pop, so if you'd care to join me I encourage you to buy early. I saw last year's version of the show and really enjoyed it, so I am excited to go again this year. I like them as a group, and they speak to the shameless showoff inside me as well. I recently bought a coupon to take one of their classes on LivingSocial, so I'll have to figure out a time to attend. One of these days I'll work up the courage to audition, especially since laurion* has assured me that not everyone has formal dance training.

Sunday I played in Lise's FantasyCraft game, which was a lot of fun and some very nice company. I am electing to continue with the sort of character I played in the sample mod, a halfling assasin-burglar-type sneak-thief whose current defining character trait is her complete lack of a mental filter, leading her to say exactly whatever weird, inappropriate thing is on her mind at the moment. Her name is Ophelia Dunning, and I think she will be very fun if the rest of the party doesn't resort to stabbing her to get her to stop talking. She doesn't have much of a backstory yet, but we've got a while before the next session, so I should be able to come up with something sufficiently quaint and amusing in that time.

Busy keeps me going

Had a lovely dinner party last night in the charming company of natbudin, captainecchi, and electric_d_monk. I settled on making Italian crusted pork chops as the main dish. I breaded them according to my mom's recipe, using a mixture of panko, parmesan, and Italian herbs, then threw them in a saute pan to brown. To my dismay, all the breading came off in the pan, probably because I forgot to flour the chops before the dipped them in the egg mixture. So when I placed the chops in the baking dish to finish in the oven, I scraped the lost breading out of the pan and sprinkled it over the meat. I then made up a new panko-cheese-herb mixture and shook it over them to create a new crust. This I finished with a drizzle of melted butter, then baked. They came out with a nice golden crust that way, and the slightly more well-done bits that browned in the saute pan complexified the flavor. I would like to try this same recipe doing it the way I'm supposed to sometime, but I liked how it came out even with my mistake. Also, the company was lovely, and did a great deal to make me feel better after the stress of the last few weeks. Must be certain to feed them well on a regular basis, to encourage them to make the long drive out this way again!

Was very productive this morning. I put the chicken for the picnic tomorrow in bags of marinade in preparation for cooking, cleaned the whole kitchen including mopping the floor, and folded and put away a load of laundry. Shortly I will be leaving for Medfield to have lunch with bronzite before opening day of my show. He sadly cannot make the picnic, so we'll spend some time together today instead. I am looking forward to putting on our first real performance, though I am quite certain I will crash afterward. My plan is to pour all my energy into a good performance, then go home and chill, doing nothing more strenuous than chopping vegetables for potato salad for tomorrow. If I can make it through those things satisfactorily, it will have been a very good day.

Wait, I know how to cook?

It occurs to me that I haven't done any cooking in weeks now. I hope I still remember how, because I've got quite a bit to do for this coming weekend. During the weekend of Labor Wars, natbudin* and I made a series of bets about what would happen during the game, with the understanding that the winner would make dinner for the loser. Nat won a fair number more of the bets than I did, so I have the happy task of hosting him this Friday evening. And, because I've been meaning to have them over for ages, I am having captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* over that night as well. I don't believe I've ever cooked for any of them before, so I am looking forward to taking this as an opportunity to show off. I haven't decided on the menu yet; I will do that today between work and rehearsal.

For the picnic on Sunday there doesn't really seem to be any kind of "main dish" being brought, so I think I'm going to step up and put one together. The guest list is around fifteen people at this point, so I need to figure out a dish I can make in large quantities that isn't excessively expensive. My first thought was chicken marbella, mostly because it is very delicious and requires nothing more complicated than marinating it in a bag the night before, laying it out in a pan, and baking it in the oven. Still, it requires some kind of fancy ingredients, which could push up the cost. Maybe if I can get someone to go in on it with me, it'll be a little bit more workable.

Awesome Independence Day

Had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend. Went to a fantastic party with Bernie, lightgamer*, and morethings5*, who are some of my favorite people to do anything with, let alone going to fun parties. I had a blast at this same party last year, and so was really really looking forward to going to this year's. My excitement grew when shortly before the day, captainecchi* sent out an e-mail saying we could swim in the lake if we brought our swimsuits! I was so happy we did; that was the first time I'd been swimming in over a year, and it was a lot of fun. My poor bikini doesn't get to come out and play often enough! We swam and canoed and explored islands and I didn't get the whole story but I'm pretty sure Kindness beat a bear into submission with his bare fists. ;-) It was cool. Then we came back to the house where electric_d_monk* grilled up some fantastic burgers, hot dogs, and corn on the cob. I had made my "inaccessible rice," as some are wont to call it, with the golden raisins, pecans, mint, and scallions and brought it along. And because the beef in the burgers was locally grown, lightgamer* actually got to eat one! I was happy for him, since they were damn good burgers, and I am sorry when anyone can't enjoy deliciousness. Then there were board games, fantastic strawberry shortcake, and morethings5* sweetly offering to learn how to brush out my hair. The party was a blast, the food was excellent, the company was great, and it was also lovely getting to spend time with captainecchi* and electric_d_monk*. Thanks to our gracious hosts for having such a fun gathering!

Marissa moved into Elsinore on the Fourth as well. Unfortunately I was at the party when she got in, and due to feeling sick and gross with the heat the next day I did not so much welcome her as spend the day hiding from all human contact like a small wild animal. I shall have to rectify that soon. I may also have to take steps to rectify the intense heat situation in my bedroom. For some reason, no matter what the weather, my room is always the mostly extremely affected in the house, making it an icebox in winter and a blast furnace in summer. Climate control is expensive, but it's getting to the point of unbearableness.

Getting stuff done

Might anyone be interested in taking a size eight teal long-sleeved button-up blouse from Banana Republic off my hands? It's really nice and I like the color so I've been trying to make it work, but it's just too big and it looks weird on me because of it. It's in good condition and free to a good home.

So the Burn Notice game will not be running tomorrow. I heard from Marissa that it turns out she has a conflict she'd forgotten about on Saturday night, and since the plan was for the episode to be Riker-centric, I really don't feel like coming up with a different plotline OR cutting her out of another game. So the group is just going to have dinner together instead, which will be easier on my brain and we'll still get to enjoy each other's company. I'm not sure when the next session will be, given that I'm going out of town next weekend, but maybe we'll be able to get together on a weeknight sometime, since we'll all be in Waltham for the month of July.

Made some small progress on line memorization; I got through one and a half scenes yesterday. If I can keep that rate up, I should definitely be off-book by the deadline. I have the next three days off, so I'd better use them. Tomorrow I'm going to a much-anticipated Fourth of July party, and I want to make some dish or other to bring. Maybe a nice side dish I can make easily in large quantities.

Also, captainecchi* recently approached me with a really cool idea. I'm not going to say anything about it yet before I've got anything substantial, but look for it soon...

So much Small World

Had an excellent, busy, friend-filled weekend. Saturday there was a gaming party at Elsinore at which I spent most of the day. I made two enormous pans of what I will call baked squash in mozzarella and tomato sauce-- it's basically eggplant parmesan, except no eggplant and no parmesan --which turned out to be fortunate, as there were many more people present for dinner than I had planned. I wanted to make dinner for Plesser, who was staying a couple of nights with us before heading out. Also, Marissa came back from her year in Greece! She got too late to have dinner with us, unfortunately, but it was nice to see her again.

The next day Jared and I went to have dinner with Matt and Lise. It was so nice. Matt made the most amazing meal, squash ravioli in sage wrappers, beets with mozzarella drizzled in balsamic, and panna cotta. It was really delicious and expertly made. We put together a cornmeal cake with a balsamic glaze to take with us, as well as a bottle of chardonnay. The company was excellent, we will have to do it again sometime. The evening ended with the dessert as well as the company of Nat, Viktoriya, Kerri, and Andrew, which was so much fun.

I played so much Small World this weekend, it was great. Played two games of it at the gaming day at my place, and another at Matt and Lise's. I love this game so much. I'm still not very good at it, but I fairly consistently come in second, so I don't totally suck at it like I do at most strategy games. I kind of wish there was a solitaire version so I could play even when nobody wanted to play with me. You guys will probably find me someday camped out around a board with four different sides set up, each one of them played by me against myself. Might be a good way to practice strategy! ;-)

So much Small World

Had an excellent, busy, friend-filled weekend. Saturday there was a gaming party at Elsinore at which I spent most of the day. I made two enormous pans of what I will call baked squash in mozzarella and tomato sauce-- it's basically eggplant parmesan, except no eggplant and no parmesan --which turned out to be fortunate, as there were many more people present for dinner than I had planned. I wanted to make dinner for Plesser, who was staying a couple of nights with us before heading out. Also, Marissa came back from her year in Greece! She got too late to have dinner with us, unfortunately, but it was nice to see her again.

The next day Jared and I went to have dinner with Matt and Lise. It was so nice. Matt made the most amazing meal, squash ravioli in sage wrappers, beets with mozzarella drizzled in balsamic, and panna cotta. It was really delicious and expertly made. We put together a cornmeal cake with a balsamic glaze to take with us, as well as a bottle of chardonnay. The company was excellent, we will have to do it again sometime. The evening ended with the dessert as well as the company of Nat, Viktoriya, Kerri, and Andrew, which was so much fun.

I played so much Small World this weekend, it was great. Played two games of it at the gaming day at my place, and another at Matt and Lise's. I love this game so much. I'm still not very good at it, but I fairly consistently come in second, so I don't totally suck at it like I do at most strategy games. I kind of wish there was a solitaire version so I could play even when nobody wanted to play with me. You guys will probably find me someday camped out around a board with four different sides set up, each one of them played by me against myself. Might be a good way to practice strategy! ;-)

Festival report

On Friday night I helped captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* run the fantastic League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students. I loved playing this game, and I only wish I'd had time to study everything more carefully. I read all the character sheets and the rules, but I still wasn't quite familiar with the inner workings of the game to be all that useful as a GM. I mostly got answers from Matt and Lise and then passed them on to players. I was particularly proud of katiescarlett29*, who stepped in as Irene Adler even though she wasn't totally confident about the improv part of larping, and of nennivian*, who I always thought was a larper waiting to happen. By and large the run went very well, with lots of activity and engaged players, but I wish I'd been intimate enough with the game to be able to give better suggestions to the couple of (usually new) players that got stuck. I wanted to talk to them after the game, but I was so blasted by gamewrap that I had to drag myself home and sleep. I have been sleeping badly lately, and I had to get up for a 9AM game the next day.

Saturday morning that 9AM game was the fifth run of Oz. It was an excellent run, one of the best, with the capable assistance of Jared and Bernie as my fellow GMs. We were a little nervous about the casting in places, but it turned out that everyone had a part they enjoyed. Standout players include the awesome natbudin*, who we initially wanted for EVERY ROLE IN THE GAME, but we finally settled into a part because he wanted to see him portray the personality-- which he did amazingly. Again, Charlotte was fantastic, showing so much talent for getting into and becoming characters. I was incredibly impressed with wired_lizard*, who played the character the way I had always imagined it to be, and gave me a few new ideas on top of that. Zachariah came up with some fantastically clever stratagies for executing his fairly difficult plotline. Hell, pretty much everyone in the game did an excellent job. I should probably stop casting bronzite* as my big bad, because I think people expect him to be the villain all the time, and so no one is inclined to trust him. In the previous run of Oz, Marc Blumberg as the villain did very well and in fact managed to achieve his goal of cataclysmic destruction, but it was more because the characters he was in opposition to made a fatal error that they could not fix. John actually pushed things farther along the doom track than anyone so far, but his opposition managed to repair it properly. I was immensely pleased with this run.

Saturday afternoon, I went home to sleep. I think it helped a little, but I was still pretty draggy for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday night was the fifth run of Alice, again assisted by Jared and Bernie. I think it went well in that players had a good time, but this was the WEIRDEST RUN EVER. Though of course there have been variations, the previous four runs tended to follow some pretty clear trends. Basically, there is a pattern of connections that is supposed to get made, and with some variance in the order in previous runs they all came together, leading to an endgame scenario where two large groups are polarized against each other. A lot of those connections did not click this time around, and I'm not sure where the broken link was. The villain was vanquished again, but not by the person who is supposed to and always has in the past. In all the previous runs, either the core villain group acted so covertly that nobody knew who they were until the end of the game, or they formed a tight-knit group so cohesive that they just overwhelmed and crushed all opposition. I feel like they were more scattered and freewheeling this time around, which made them more obvious and less able to protect themselves should someone decide they were a target. There were still some fantastic performances-- I loved Lise's analytical approach to her character and she made amazing process putting together the pieces of her challenge. And April was excellent, not to mention wearing a fantastic costume. I guess any game where the players have fun is a success, but I was really shocked at how weirdly this run went.

Then I went home to sleep. Again, my sleep has not been terribly restful these days, so still. So. Draggy. Blah.

Sunday was Diamond Geezers, the only thing I played. I had a blast. I was playing an ex-military demolitions expert whose rough, ruthless, but not terribly malicious outlook I enjoyed. It was an interestingly set-up game, basically us in a confined space with a few story hooks built in but a plot that was more or less on rails. I wasn't exactly expecting that, but it was a really fun character game, involving yelling in Cockney accents and waving guns around. We experienced an odd phenomenon that I think was troubling Brad as GM that the only ones who were talking much, at least at first, were bleemoo*, Charlotte, and myself, and everyone else was fairly quiet. I wonder if it was because the three of us were comfortable doing the accent and they felt slightly intimindated to speak if they couldn't. It's not like mine was any good at all, though Josh's and Charlotte's actually were. Josh was so much fun to play off of, and Charlotte continued to prove my theory that she has always been a larper, whether she knew it or not. Definitely recommend this game as a fun silly character experience.

Oh, as a side note, I was amused at usernamenumber pointing how at Brandeis, of course there was going to be less shooting and killing and more hand-holding and agreeing to work things out. :-) I have noticed this trend myself.

Next year I shall be con chair. I am looking forward to it. I am in the process of pondering a few thing to help optimize, which I will record when I have a better handle on my thoughts. Until then, thanks to everyone for making our very own con a fantastic experience again!

Player scarcity musing

After a pleasant Easter vacation spent at home with my family, I am now back in town and glad to be here.

This week is going to be full for me. I'm working longer hours to make up for the ones I missed to go home. And I've got to get my two games printed and packed in preparation for Festival. I'm pleased to say that even after several drops and mixups, both Alice and Oz are full. NOBODY DROP NOW. Gah. I know captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* were having similar problems, even worse than mine, but it looks like the game is good to go now. I am happy to say that Steph is going to give larping a try, which brings the number of newbies I have directly or indirectly brought to Festival up to six!

One thing that's been on my mind is how tough it's been to get games to fill. Things look like they're going to go off okay for the con as a whole, but I know a couple of games have had to drop, and a few more may yet drop still. In the course of pondering the problem, I want to point out a few facts I noticed by comparing this Festival to last year's:

- Last year's Festevil had 118 attendees. This year's Vestival has 127.
- Festevil had 26 games on the schedule. Vestival has 20. I didn't bother counting the number of players per time slot.
- Festevil was 4 weeks after Intercon I. Vestival is 5 weeks after Intercon J.
- Only 1 game at Festevil was missing more than one player. 7 games at Vestival are missing more than one player.

This year we have more attendees, fewer games, more time to prepare and solicit signups, and yet this year more games are not full? What is the problem here?

Well, several theories have been put forth. The first and probably most likely reason is that I don't think there is a single new game running this year. Most of the games on the schedule are excellent, tried-and-true larps that have been well-received, highly recommended, and already have been played by lots of the community. I know I have played a fairly large percentage already, and many of the ones that I haven't conflict with games I'm running. So I'm only available as a player in one slot, and have a number of games already discounted for me. I know a lot of us more experienced people are in the same boat.

The other thing is, I wonder if we should have started solicting people to sign up for Festival earlier than we did. It basically seemed to start just after Intercon, and although Intercon is a big deal and takes focus away from later events, it was farther away from Festival this year. Looking back through the entries of my LiveJournal, which is how I measure the progression of my life, I notice that Festival was a presence in my mind a lot farther before the date of the con last year than it was this year. It may be because I was in the process of writing two new larps for it, so I had a lot more prep work to do and therefore was planning much farther ahead. But perhaps we need to start pushing it earlier so people can block off the time on their schedules.

Something to think about in preparation for next year. I know that, as pleased as I am that Alice and Oz are both full for their fifth runs when other games have had a tough time of it, they will not be bid for next year, and probably will not be bid again at Festival for a while. I guess Intercon remains a possibility, as there are more non-local larpers, but I think they have hit, as Matt put it, market saturation. For next Festival we need to shot, I think, for more new games, to get the easy filling and high participation rate we got at last year's. Maybe I can do something to contribute to that effort.

Alice has filled!

I just noticed that Alice filled at Festival! Huzzah! We were missing one player for, like, two weeks. You don't know how pleased and proud I am by the fact that it's a large game that has had four previous runs, and it still fucking fills.

Mike Hyde gets the award for most entertaining casting questionnaires. I am also amused by how many questionnaires list that they would prefer not to have plots involving a specific despicable thing, like rape or psychological torture, but then follow up with something along the lines of "But you probably don't have anything like that in this game." Heh. To give you an idea of the nature of the story, I began my writing process by making a list of all the horrible things I could think of to see what among them I could turn into plots. ALICE IS THE GAME OF HORRIBLE THINGS.

I have also agreed to help run LXHS with captainecchi* and electric_d_monk*, about which I'm very excited. I loved playing that game and am very happy to help them. There are still a a handful of spots left for gentleman or those ladies willing to play as gentleman, so if you haven't already, I suggest you check out this excellent game!

Intercon J weekend report

Wow. What a con.

Back from Intercon now and back to the grind of regular life. I am happy, exhausted, and very thoughtful.

Friday night was Shadow Over Babylon. Not my favorite game of the weekend, but I certainly had a good time. There were lots of fun people in it to play with, which I enjoyed. One thing that occurred to me is that, having played in quite a few Cthulhu games by now, it's getting a little tougher to not metagame when playing a character who doesn't necessarily know about any of the mythos who is confronted by signs of their activity that are easily recognizable by me, the player. For example, if I see someone with clammy skin and a fishy expression, Phoebe knows right away-- Innsmouth look! There are Deep Ones around! But my character usually wouldn't have any idea, so I need to find a way to acquire that knowledge legitimately in game. I'm pretty good at waiting to use that information until I learn it in-character, but I never really thought about how, with the frequency of Cthulhu games, this is an increasingly common situation for me.

Stayed up way too late hanging with people Friday night. I think this con I felt slightly shier than normal. It may have been my imagination, but there seemed to be a fairly high number of people who I met through events like this but don't really see elsewhere whom, when I greeted them, didn't particularly seem to recognize me. Not everyone, of course, but enough. That made me feel kind of awkward about trying to talk to anyone whom I didn't have a definite preestablished relationship with, which made me kind of sad. But I enjoyed the company of those I did get to spend time with immensely.


Dragged myself out of bed early Saturday morning to play Super Villain Academy. Jared talked that game up to me after playing it last year, so I was very excited. It definitely lived up to the hype. It is a fun, silly melodrama in a comic booky context, very clever and very funny. I had kind of a tough job of trying to find people but not let on to why I wanted to know, so I had to come up with clever ways to introduce my interests for reasons unrelated to my real ends. I love plotting, so I spent a lot of time sitting in the chair thinking, then running off to try my plan, then running back to think some more, then trying my new plan. I found all of my targets, due to my clever plans, and never got caught! I was proud of myself. I also thought my costume worked out fantastically. I highly recommend this game if you ever get the chance.

After a quick lunch Saturday afternoon, I threw on my civilian clothes and ran to my gamespace to set up for Oz with Jared. I really liked the space they gave us, two small adjoining rooms with appropriate features to represent the space station. The group of players was fantastic, including a number of awesome Chicago larpers. Many plots were advanced further and many nuances came out in this run that never progressed so far before. And it's always interesting to see how people of different larp cultures approach a given material. I was surprised that many did not seem to understand the significance of character numbers-- as in, that they were something to be taken note of because they were meaningful. I use them as representative of a character's appearence; if you know a character's number, then you recognize their face. I'm including a note in the rules about that. The game ended with the galaxy blowing up. I was sorry for most of the players who did such an excellent job playing out their stories to have it all end like that, but I was impressed that the villain managed to win for once. I guess that's just Marc Blumberg for you. :-) All in all, Jared and I were quite pleased.


Saturday evening was The Last Seder. This was the game I'd been anticipating forever. I wasn't sure what I was going to think of it going in, but I knew I had to experience it. The format is unlike any I'd ever played before, alternating between a conversation game around a dinner table and a storytelling game with mini-characters you switch into the act out smaller tales. It is beautifully written and ingeniously designed. I was also impressed with the respect and reverence with which the religious material was approached, making it an interesting and enjoyable cultural experience as well. I'm not certain however that the structure really worked for me. It was really cool to have these stories inform the direction of the game, but having to march into another room and play out another character for a moment kind of broke the flow for me. The fact that I was incredibly tired by this point, which I think inclined my roleplaying to be sadder than I might have otherwise, may have contributed to my dislike of the interruption. Jared actually suggested that it might be less flow-breaking if one set of players played the main characters and another set of players made up a horde that performed the stories for them. I find that an interesting idea that I would probably prefer from a cast-character-player and presentation standpoint, but from a larp standpoint you'd probably end up with a horde that was bored during the conversation bits. Not to mention you might lose the significance of when the cast characters actually appear in the stories. Overall, an excellent, beautifully written game in an unconventional style that may not be to everyone's taste and may not even be to mine, but one I am very glad to have played and experienced at least this once.

I went to bed pretty much right after game wrap. So very, very tired. I'm sorry I missed the social time, but I was collapsing. I'm just not the sort of person who can get by without sleep, especially when I can't have my typical source of caffeine.


Sunday morning I got up as early as I could and helped Jared do some last minute prep for GM Space. I was going to play, but they turned out to have enough players after all, and I was still not terribly well-rested, so I jumped in for a sec and then left. I had to take care of getting us checked out of the hotel room anyway. Luckily I ran into our roommate oakenguy* as he was getting ready to leave, so I gave him a hug and thanked him for being so much fun to hang around with. Seriously, we were lucky to room with him. I made sure everyone was set, then got things taken care of at the front desk, which was a load off my mind. GM Space had some issues with personality conflicts and differences with player expectations, which Jared worried over, but most of them had a good silly time and none of the issues were his fault, or anything he could do anything about, so I told him not to worry about just be pleased that so many enjoyed his game.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend that I enjoyed immensely. The negatives were only very minor. I discovered when I arrived I didn't pack quite as well as I thought I did; there were a bunch of little things I forgot to take into account, like making sure I was wearing the right underwear to be able to change in front of roommates if necessary, or having at least one pair of flat shoes so my feet could have a break from heels. I'm pretty disappointed with myself for that, especially since I thought I'd been so careful. I should write myself a packing list now to use every year so I don't make those stupid mistakes again.

Also, I have concluded from this Intercon is that I cannot cram my schedule with as much as I did this weekend and maintain an acceptable level of energy. I played in three and a half games (played in GM Space until they had enough to be up and running) in addition to GMing Oz, and all that on top of how little sleep I got, I was so very, very draggy through much of the time there. Last Festival I did something in every slot, running four things and playing one, and as exhausted as I was by the end of it, it was a little easier on me because I've always found running less intense and demanding than playing, and because for that con I was allowed to have Coke with its lovely boost of caffiene. I imagine Anna Bradley at the end of this con was like, "WHY do we have so much extra Coke left over?" because it's still Lent, which means I'm still not allowed to have sugar, which means I couldn't go through the typical six liters or so that normally support my energy level over the course of Intercon. Unfortunately I can't abide the taste of coffee, so it wasn't available as a substitute. My ideal weekend schedule is playing two things and running one, I think. I can stand running more, but I can definitely play in no more than three events, and if I'm playing in three, then I'm not sure I want to add anything else by running. Does anyone else find that being the GM is easier than being a player? Or is it vice versa for you? I think for me, it's because being a player is active-- you have to take initiative and figure out what to do yourself --but being a GM is reactive-- you wait for the players to come to you, and everything else have already been figured out in advance.

Dead dog could have gone a little more smoothly, but concerning that I must say only that captainecchi*, electric_d_monk*, and laurion* are amazing and I thank them for how sweet they were. Tiredness and unnecessary struggles got to Jared and I by the end of it, but still, we loved the con, we loved the company, and we're excited, as always, for next year.

Next year in the Waltham Westin!

Bids accepted, whee!

Suddenly remembered I had a silver polishing cloth that I got with that bird brooch, and decided to see if it could do any good to my slightly tarnished silver pieces. I was shocked at how much tarnish came off into the cloth on some of them, like my infinity earrings which didn't even look very dull. I had no idea coming into contact with me could cause such corruption. ;-) The piece that really needs it is my silver-set amber necklace, though as much is coming off into the cloth the metal didn't seem to get much shinier. Maybe it just needs a lot more work than I had time to do before needing to leave this morning. Perhaps I'll give it a shot this afternoon.

In pleasing news, our wonderful bid chair (possibly all of bid comm?) bleemoo* just informed me that Alice and Oz have been accepted and will be running this April at Festival of the Larps. Now I may commence bullying everyone I know who hasn't played into signing up. Though there are certainly more than a few experienced larpers I've yet to wrangle into my worlds, my first thoughts are April, nennivian*, and blendedchaitea*, all of whom have expressed at least mild interest. I know katiescarlett29* has reservations about trying larping, but she is of course welcome and encouraged as well.

Now that bids are getting approved, I am now intensely curious as to what else is going to be running. We're probably a ways away from a schedule being put together yet, but I'm still very interested at what the list currently looks like. I remember captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* telling me they were rerunning the awesome League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students (with some additions that sound absolutely fantastic) and lightgamer* was looking in the gamebank for something to bid. If anyone else threw something out there, I'd love to know what it is.

Graces were graceful

Grace rehearsal went very well last night. I was pleased that once I even mentioned that they would need to carry themselves a particular way, they all started doing it on their own, and I didn't have much work to get them to where they needed to be. The synchronicity was a bit tougher, but they got the idea and we'll have several dress rehearsals to practice. Well done, lovely Steph, Caitlin, and Liz.

We also fitted the chitons last night. I was a lot happier with the results than I feared I'd be; they will most likely not look totally absurd. :-) The fabric did have the unfortunate tendency to obscure their shapes, which is not the most flattering of looks, but with some strategically-tied cords and draped colorful shawls, I feel they will appear with at least some measure of the necessary elegance. That means, except for some shoes that still need to be found-- ah, appropriate shoes, the tough little side note that plagues theater and larp costumes alike --To Think of Nothing is totally costumed.

Tonight I can relax a little. I am very much looking forward to going to BSCF tonight and playing Small World with captainecchi*. I love that game, and it'll be lovely to spend some time with her. I am also planning on baking these yummy-looking red velvet moon pie thingies for Jared. They're kind of a Valentine's Day treat, but since he'll be off on a ski vacating on Valentine's Day, I'm making them early. I hope he likes them; God knows I'm optimistic about anything with red velvet in it.