Doubleheader day of larp-- Dia de los Sobres!

Everybody knows that summertime is the dead season for larp. But it’s tough to go through all those months without a single packet to open. That, friends, is why Alleged Entertainment and Paranoid and Crotchety are teaming up to bring you Dia de los Sobres, or the Day of the Envelopes, a doubleheader production offering you two great packet-packed larps on the same day! Alleged’s RESONANCE and P&C’s STARS OVER ATLANTIS will run one after the other on Saturday, July 23rd in Fitchburg, MA.

If you’d like to sign up for one or both of these great larps, click on over to sign up at:
http://journeysurveys.com/answer/312

RESONANCE
By Nat Budin, Susan Weiner, Vito D’Agosta, and Phoebe Roberts
An amnesia and storytelling larp about tragedy, desperation, and the apocalypse.
11AM to 4PM

STARS OVER ATLANTIS
By Liliya Benderskaya and Tory Root
An amnesia LARP about tragedy, sacrifice, death, guilt, karma, love, sex, gender, and forgiveness.
5PM to 10PM

Things in my head right now

Lise once described to me the condition she refers to as being "haunted by ideas," her brain filled up ideas for all the cool things she could do and make. I think that's a perfect way to describe it, and upon reflection I think I often feel that way myself. Here are some of the things currently haunting my brain.

I want to restart my Burn Notice campaign. I want to keep it an intermittent thing, maybe around once a month at the most, but it hasn't happened in quite some time now and I miss running it. I like my player group a lot (no surprise given it's made up of some of my favorite roleplayers/people) and since it's the dead season for larps right now, a chance to roleplay would be very welcome right now. Taking steps now to see if I can get things organized.

I have an idea for another larp, this one set in ancient Rome. I've always loved that period, and always thought that my favorite book I, Claudius would provide an excellent setting for a game. I wouldn't actually want to make a Claudius larp, though, as history and the book itself would make it thoroughly spoilered. So I find myself dreaming up original Romans in the style of the characters in the novel with new family drama and politics and conflicts and secrets to populate the story. I think it could be a lot of fun. Not sure if it's what I should be concentrating on right now, but this is definitely an idea I'll pursue at some point. It might be nice to have a new thing to debut at next year's Festival.

And of course, school starts in three days. Excited for that, but also nervous. That means that soon I will have to begin playwrighting in earnest. I have, as I've mentioned, several ideas, and I wonder which to begin with. Maybe I should start setting aside time in my weekly schedule as "play writing time" and get in the habit of making serious progress.

Responsibility is always a two-edged sword

I was just entrusted with the master key to the whole office. That means I can go anywhere I like and get in anytime I want under my own power, so it feels pretty good that they trust me enough to let me be the keeper of it. I like being deemed worthy to handle things.

On the downside, however, since I'm to keep it with me at all times, I just know that this means that someday the president of the company is going to call me on a Saturday and ask me to come let him in, and it will be in the middle of a larp where I'm playing a cat or a fairy or a swamp monster or something, and I will have to go down there and he'll see me in my weird-ass costume and I can kiss whatever professional image I've built up goodbye. :-P ;-)

Brad as hippie Lysander

Despite missing Jared, this was a pleasant, low-key weekend. Saturday I went with Bernie to see usernamenumber* in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and that was a lot of fun. The show was set in the sixties, complete with a conflict by ultra-hippie Lysander (brilliantly and hilariously played by Brad) and the square Demetrius and Egeus, and all the fairy magic seemingly boiled down to the effects of various psychedelic drugs. It actually worked quite well, particularly skewing Lysander that way, and made for a really funny setup with lots of fun performances. Brad was amazing as always, taking on his first Shakespeare role with energy and great physical embodiment of the role. I also was pleasantly surprised to see that the director and the portrayer of Theseus and Oberon was Ron Lacey, the gentleman who played Ferdinand in the production of Love's Labor's Lost I was in last summer, an actor I admire and who apparently is quite clever behind the scenes as well. While occasionally I found the blocking a bit frenetic, making it a bit tough for the dialogue to come through clearly and with nuance, I thought they did a great job transplanting the play into their new context and a great job making a fun show of it. I gather this is a new troupe, and if they continue to put on Shakespeare, I would love to audition for them myself. Brad has kindly agreed to keep me informed, so that could be a fun possible theater opportunity in the coming days.

Sewing project progress: Steph's purple toile apron part III

Or, "The point at which Phoebe decides to pretty much throw out the pattern instructions and do what she thinks is best!"

First Shana commented on my last progress report to suggest a double layer of fabric over the top part of the apron to make it stronger and more protective. That was a good suggestion, as I noticed that my apron is made that way as well. Thanks, Shana! I didn't have enough of the purple toile to make that second layer, but I did have a decent-sized scrap of white linen left over from morethings5*'s chitin costume that he wore for hazliya* 's fabulous deer spirit photo shoot. Waste not, want not, right? So, with Bernie's help measuring, cutting, and putting things in place, I cut that to match the trapezoidal top part of my apron piece, unpinned the folded-over edge, slid the linen underneath that edge, and then repinned it all around.

But I have noticed a problem with my pattern piece-- as Bernie pointed out, it's really short. An apron should come about from the chest to just around the knees. This one, despite my double-checking that I got the measurements right, only would hit at about the thighs. So we decided it needed to be extended. We took the largest piece of purple toile I had left, made sure it would match up across the top of that trapezoid, and cut another rectangle to make for a chest piece to go on the top. That we also lined with the linen, tucking it beneath the folded-under edges all around.

This piece plus the main piece makes for a long enough apron. The ties will then go across the place where they meet. I know with the original design the slanted lines of the trapezoid were supposed to be to allow space for the arms, and I was worried that if the piece had extensions of fabric that weren't cinched in by the ties they would flap around while the wearer was trying to work, but I experimented with tying the piece on myself and walking around, and both Bernie and blendedchaitea* agreed that it seemed fine. So that's what I am going to go with.

To further reinforce things, and also to make the back look a little more polished, I took a long strip of the remaining scrap of purple toile, folded it in on itself to make it an inch wide, and laid it across the bottom of the linen. I folded the loose edge of the linen under, then pinned the strip across it. I figure I will sew that down just to the linen so it doesn't show through on the other side, but kind of finishes things up cleanly on the back side.

 

I am pretty much completely out of the purple toile now, so I hope I don't need it for anything else. With all of these changes, I don't know how useful the remaining sewing instructions on the pattern will be. I know I definitely have to move the ties, and since I'll have to attach the newly-improvised chest piece to the larger apron piece, I will want the ties to cover up that seam. So I may have to make up my own way of doing it there. But I think the piece will be better for these changes, and more useful to Steph.

My room at Illyria, now blue

My room is blue at last! Two days ago the wonderful acousticshadow2* came to help me finish painting, and brought the also lovely Josh Marcus along with her. EB is a really capable person, it turns out, when it comes to getting home maintenance chores done, as I learned when she was on the team helping me move as well as today. I'm impressed. She taught me a few things about painting a room that were really helpful, such as starting by painting up along the taped-off areas with a brush so you can follow up with the roller in the larger areas without fear of going outside the appropriate area. Josh was really helpful but going ahead of us as we painted, finishing up taping off all the trim that I hadn't gotten to yet. It took about four hours, but we got the entire room done by the end of the day. I am extremely grateful to both EB and Josh, for being so kind as to do all this work to help me out. Thanks, guys, I owe you one!

As I mentioned, the orange coat from before was not well-applied, so there was lots of orange bleed-over onto the trim, which I will eventually have to touch up with white. But I am pleased with how things look even now, so I think I will take a bit of a break and enjoy my nicer room for a while. Now I finally have the place cleaned up and back in order, which means all of you finally get to see what it looks like!

Here is my bed and nightstand in the corner. I like how the blue walls go with the blue in my bedspread, which is one of the reasons I chose it. It also looks nice against the dark wood of my bedroom set. Note the sloping ceiling, one of the more unfortunate features of the room, but that's to be expected on the top floor of a New England house of a certain age. The skylight is nice in that it provide a lot of light in a room that is otherwise a bit dark, though it also makes things quite hot if left with the shade up too long. (I had to brighten all of these photos to make them acceptably clear.) You can also see the neat low closet on that side with its shuttered accordian doors. It has a shelf and a piece of thick carpet along the bottom, and I actually haven't used much of it yet, but I expect I will as time goes on. My moose Romeo, more often called Moosey, who was a gift from Jared can be seen sitting in the place of honor on the bed.

Here is the view more or less from the door on the right side of the bed. Across from it is the smaller of the room's two full-sized closets, which I love because I have many, many clothes. That corner next to the closet was a perfect size to fit my small bookshelf, packed to the gills with show programs, English-major literature, cookbooks, and old notebooks. of mine. Horatio the beanbag mallard, affectionately known as Ducky (notice a pattern with me?), sits atop several decorative cigar boxes. I have decided to keep them there, though in general I have a preference to keeping my surfaces clear. I'm not sure the rug is necessary now that my room has a carpet, but it was in my old room and keeps with the theme of blue. You will also notice my mirror on the floor against the wall there. Now that I've painted I want to hang it there, but it is a very nice, heavy mirror that I don't want to risk breaking, so I may enlist the expertise of someone who knows more about wall hanging than I do. I am amused to notice that you can see Moosey's reflection in it from this angle.

This is what the side across from the bed looks like. This is what I mean about how the room has lots of bites and chunks taken out of it by the weird shape of the walls and ceiling. Now you can see both closets, including the larger one off in nook back there. That is also the room's only window other than the skylight, currently occupied by an air conditioner I almost never run due to the expense. You can also see the room's only real light, a tall lamp that used to be in the similarly fixture-less living room at Elsinore. It works well enough but is not bright enough for my tastes, and I am not fond of having to walk across the dark room to turn it on at night. I suppose I could move it next to the bed, but the door opens into that space and I'm worried about whacking it every time I come in. The wreath on the smaller closet's knob I idly made out of odds and ends of morethings5*'s costume while the talented hazliya* made him up a deer spirit in my kitchen for a photo shoot in the local woods. (I love how much art is in my life.)

On the only side we haven't looked at yet is probably my favorite feature of the place, the little adjoining room I have turned into an office. Here we look through the door to see the far wall and a little of how I have the place set up. Also notice that between the door to the office and the bedroom entrance is a weird little corner with a low-sloping ceiling that comes to a sharp little point. I am currently at a loss at what to do with this seemingly useless wasted space, so if anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them. Maybe a little end table? One of those corner-shaped bookshelves? I wish it had an electrical outlet back there at least, to give me more options for what I could use it for.

Now we go into the office. On the far wall is this room's window, under which I have my computer desk. My primary computer is a desktop, all containing within the frame of that screen. I also dock my iPad on this desk, which also holds a box of odds and ends, my personal cable box, an external hard drive, the land line my dad insisted I have just in case, and Jared's high school senior photo (which incidentally I hate.) To the left of the desk is a table that holds my printer, with paper and important documents kept on the bottom shelf and various office supplies in the drawer. The chair doesn't roll very well on the carpet, so I am considering getting one of those plastic mats to put under it. I like working here, as the light and breeze from the window is very pleasant.

To the right of the desk is the old white leather armchair that used to be in the living room at Elsinore. When it didn't fit in the living room here, several people suggested I move it and the matching ottoman into my room. I am finding I quite enjoy having it to lounge in, so I am grateful for the suggestion. Next to it you will see another low closet with accordian shutters; this one is much fuller than the other one, as I use it to store my shoes and boxes of things I want to hang on to but don't necessarily use all the time. Again note the sloping ceiling, which can be a pain even for a short person like me. You can also see here the dark teal color of this room, which I can't say I love, but I don't really mind, so I am saving myself the work and not bothering to paint in here.

Here is the corner between the office door and the accordian-shuttered closet. It's a bit of a random mess right now. I decided to stick my mini-fridge right here, with its crate of random personal snack or kitchen items on top of it. You can also see that I've turned this into my "sewing corner" with my mini-ironing board, iron, sewing kit, fabric basket, and katiescarlett29*'s apron draped over my self-healing cutting mat. I'd like to have a little work table here on which to do projects like sewing or packing larps. Just need to find one I like that fits here. Maybe it would have its own chair too; I wouldn't mind having another little chair in here in case a guest needs to sit at the desk or table.

The last thing I want to show you is the space on the other side of the office door. This is my long dresser, where I keep the clothes that I don't want to hang up. Ideally this would be in the bedroom area rather than the office, but it's so long and the walls are so oddly shaped that this is the only place it would fit. I don't love having it partially under that really low part of the sloped ceiling, but again, I didn't really have a choice for where it was going to go. It just makes it a wee bit tough to use without kneeling, and the mirror in the other room used to live on top of it but now it won't fit. It's a shame, I liked it there. On top of it you will see my jewelry box, my perfume box made out of neat old cigar box that has little drawers in it, the beautiful bone china teaset Jared gave me as a housewarming present when I moved into Elsinore, and a silver tray with some frequently used beauty products on it. Again, I tend to prefer my surfaces clear, but I like having that stuff out because it's either pretty or I like the convenient access. Next to the dresser is another large lamp that used to be in the living room-- it's not great, worse than the other one in fact, but in the meantime I'm just glad for a little extra light.

And that is my room! I love having the space for living and doing things. I am really happy with the color of the blue paint. It's still technically unfinished, as things will need touched up. But now I can start putting things in their permament homes, and hanging my pictures on the walls. I will be very happy when I'm totally settled in, and I think I've made a good chunk of progress with the help of some lovely friends.

Rubber... dalek?

What in the hell do you think this thing is?

I found this near the printer in my office today. It's a little hollow, cup-like thing made of rubber and covered with little nubbly bumps all over it. It fits over your finger. It's like a big rubber thimble, or a tiny rubber... dalek.

What the hell?

Current status of Illyria

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

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

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

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

Sewing project progress: Steph's purple toile apron part II

So last week my mother made a little package for me-- not the sewing machine, unfortunately, she hadn't yet figured out what was the best way to get it and all its little pieces to me, but another really cool set of sewing tools, a rotary cutter and a mat. These are fabulous tools; the rotary cutter is an incredibly sharp bladed wheel that makes cutting fabric, especially at tricky angles, fast and easy. The mat is "self-healing," which makes it an excellent work surface that won't allow anything to be damaged by the cutter. The ease of motion does make the lines a little bit wiggly, but I will just have to work on steadying my hand.

I used these tools to cut out the pieces for katiescarlett29*'s purple toile apron. The fabric also arrived in the mail last week, and not only is it beautiful, the piece actually is big enough to make the entire project, so no need to make anything in another material. I pinned the pattern pieces I made out of paper to the fabric, laid it out on the mat, and, holding the blade as close to the edge of the paper as I could, saw just what a fun and effective tool this rotary cutter is. I cut out pieces for the main body, the straps, and the pockets all like this.

I want to do the actual sewing with a machine, so I'm waiting on that, but I did prepare the pieces. I folded the edge of the main body of the apron in one half-inch, ironed it, and then one more half-inch, ironed it again, and finally pinned that edge down with straight pins. I am pleased that the piece maintained its symmetry even after having the edges folded under like that. Here is how it looked after all that.

Reading through the instructions, I am having a bit of difficulty understanding how the pockets are supposed to attach. I might make a paper version, or maybe a miniature out of scraps like my mom suggested, to see if I can grasp the theory. I was tempted to just try to use logic to figure out how they're supposed to go on, but I think I should at least try to parse the instructions and do it the right way before I start doing stuff my own way.

Things to do this week

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

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

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

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

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