Lesley woes

I am now back from my mini-break at home with my parents for Thanksgiving. It was a really lovely visit and a much-needed change of pace; while my regular life is packed with activities and responsibilities, my time at home is leisurely and restful, spent mostly cooking and going out with my parents. Now that I'm in Waltham again, though, it's back to the grindstone. Unfortunately, some of the grind has been and continues to be incredibly frustrating.

Lesley finally received my immunization records, except apparently having a Tdap in '92 and a booster in '07 does not count as having "a Tdap up-to-date within the last ten years." I cannot for the life of me understand why. I may have to drive an hour there and an hour back to fucking Rhode Island to get a new shot just so I can be allowed to register for classes. I am so frustrated I could tear my hair out.

I also have to prepare my workshop manuscripts for the January Lesley residency. Can't say I'm all that excited. I didn't particularly enjoy the last one, though at least the next one could not possibly be as bad. I don't particularly like workshops, as I feel like the critique is never free of smug superiority, or people who just don't want their manuscript to have been the one most torn at, so they make sure to tear a lot at everyone else's.

I am liking being in this program, but it sure takes a lot of pain to get to the parts I like.

Feta cheese making!

So along with beer and wine, my dad has decided to branch out into home cheese making as well. During my visit home, we made a huge batch of feta, which we learned was a good place for beginners to start.

First we drove to a local dairy farm and picked up several gallons of raw milk. Unpasteurized stuff that still has all the living enzymes in it is better for cheese making, you see. It was a pretty place, with lots of pretty cows, some of which you could see through the window of the milk store.

 

Did you make our milk?

Interestingly, upon trying a glass of the raw milk, I found it to be much tastier than any processed kind I've ever had. I've never liked the taste of the stuff straight, but I enjoyed that glass more than I have any other.

Then we put four gallons into a giant double boiler my dad got at a restaurant supply store-- stainless steel, because you can't use aluminum for cheese making. Milk cooks better if you hit it with indirect heat, such as from steam from a double boiler. We heated the milk to around ninety degrees, then added a series of enzymes and chemicals to make it coagulate into a curd. Feta is typically made with goat's milk, so to make our cow's milk have the tangy flavor characteristic of that kind of cheese, one of the enzymes we added was lipase, found in goat's milk but not naturally in cow's. 

We allowed it to set and solidify into a curd. This we cut with a long knife that reached to the bottom of the pot in a grid pattern. It was really interesting-looking, all wobbly and gelatinous. I shall endeavor to embed a video that shows how it behaved when my dad wiggled the pot. 

Then we broke it all up with a spoon. You can really see how the solids have coagulated and separated from the whey.

Then the curds went into a cheese mold, to be allowed to drain of excess moisture overnight.

The next day, we had dry, firm, crumbly feta cheese, which we could then salt down and pack in olive oil for flavor.

And that is my first attempt at cheese making! The feta is fresh and delicious; I like it much better than any feta I've ever eaten before. I can't eat much of it due to lactose intolerance, but the process is so interesting and fun I don't mind not being able to have much of the result of our labors. We used it and some homemade ricotta we made from the drained-off whey in spanikopita, which came out very delicious. I brought one of the wheels up to Boston with me, so anyone would would like some is welcome to try. Just let me know if you'd like me to put some aside for you!

Happy table

Hope you all have had as happy a Thanksgiving as I have. <3

Sewing project progress: pink checked dress muslin, part II, and Jared's checked apron, part V

Last night I sewed my very first darts into my pink check dress muslin. I followed captainecchi*'s pointers on how to fix and sew them, and I would have taken hazliya*'s suggestion on pinking off the extra fabric inside, but my pinking shears were ridiculously dull. I wonder if it's possible to get them sharpened. Anyway, the process went quite smoothly. I worked according to the SEW, CLIP, PRESS method that supposedly professionial sewists use, where after ever seam you sew in, you immediately clip the threads and take it to the ironing board to press it. Well, I tied several knots in the tails before clipping like Lise suggested, but still. It did seem to slow things down a little-- my instinct would have been to do all the seams, then clip all the ends, then press everything --but it results in crisp-looking seams. I will work to get into the habit of this.

I also attached the muslin interfacing to the shoulder facings. The pattern recommends you use fusible interfacing, but I didn't have any, so I just repurposed this white muslin I had and sewed it to the pink check pieces.

I would have kept going, except the next step is to add a zipper for the back, which I still need to buy. My mom has offered to take me to a sewing supply store while I'm home for Thanksgiving, so maybe I'll take a scrap of the pink check home with me to look for a good color match.

Oh, and I also more or less finished Jared's black and white apron. I found better material for the neck and back straps-- it kind of reminds me of that woven nylon material that dog leashes are made out of, only thinner --and attached them the other day to Jared's specifications. He'd like me to put a plain black pocket on the front it, but other than that the piece is done.

Unfortunately I made a lot of mistakes with this. The biggest one I think was finishing the sides of the check before putting seam binding on them. It made for a whole bunch of layers of material in one small spot, which made the binding harder to attach and the machine have a harder time piercing through. Ah, well. At least I learned a lot, and still Jared is happy with it even if it's not the best-made thing ever.

Old-fashioned wedding gown

This is another awesome thrift store find that I wanted to show off. It's an old-fashion wedding gown that I found in the Halloween section of Global Thrift.

The material is heavy and silky with a subtle floral brocade pattern in it. It has princess seams down the bodice and a sort of sweetheart neckline. The sleeves are long, slightly puffed at the shoulder and endind with a long row of covered buttons at the cuff. The skirt is full but heavy enough that it doesn't have a lot of volume, and in the rear there is a three-foot train. It is unlined and has no tag inside of it; it doesn't look handmade but I would not be surprised if someone commissioned it or at the very least had it altered by a wedding dress retailer. It even has a great old-fashioned metal-toothed side zipper. Here is a closer shot of the front:

Note the interesting waistline. Each panel of the bodice has its own separate hem shape to form a large sort of scallop. And here is a shot of the train in back:

Very simple, very elegant. I find the whole thing to be an old-fashioned beauty. The style is dated enough that I would be shocked if this dress was less than forty years old, and probably even older. It reminds me a lot of my grandmother's wedding dress, particularly the puffed shoulders and long rows of buttons, which dates back to the 1940s. It is also petite in dimensions, made for a woman maybe just a little bit bigger than me, which suggests to me that it was from an era when the average woman was on the smaller side. I couldn't even get into Grandma's dress when I tried; she was shorter and slimmer even than me. Seems a real shame that somebody would want to get rid of something that was probably a piece of their family history, especially a piece as beautiful as this. There is some very minor staining on the lap of the skirt, but it is otherwise in good condition. I really love it, and cannot wait until the right larp or stage role comes along that I can use it for something. Even more so than any pretty but impractical thrift store dress, this has even less opportunity for applicable wear. :-)

Only the good

Yesterday I:

- read a good book

- accomplished a lot of housecleaning

- did a little work on a piece of theater I'm writing

- spent a nice chunk of the day with good friends

- said "I love you" and heard "I love you too" in return

- called my parents for a chat

- ran some errands in town by way of a long walk that was really good exercise

- bought a pretty new pashmina for six dollars

- drank a Mexican Coke and ate a small scoop of ice cream while still keeping within my daily calorie limit thanks to the exercise from the walk

- orangized the dresses in my closet

- cooked dinner for people I love

- began work on a new sewing project

If only I'd patted a nice animal and got to do a little acting or roleplaying, it would have been a perfect day.

Today I saw that phoenix_rinna* mentioned that she is going to try posting one positive thing about every day. I think this is a great idea, because focusing on that sort of thing helps keep me out of the holes I fall into. I am going to try it myself.

New sewing project: pink check dress muslin #1

I have decided that I would really like to get back to sewing as my next focused endeavor, and so in the company of Steph crocheting a hat and Rachel studying anatomy, I began work on a project to make a dress.

The very first time I ever tried to, very early on I made a cutting mistake that threw off the whole project. Pissed at myself, I kind of bulled through to keep going, and my impatience lead to more mistakes. So this time I'm taking it slowly and carefully, checking my work and making sure not to go too fast.

I have a pattern for a simple sheath dress, not too many seams and probably not too complicated a fit, that I figure is a decent place to start with dressmaking. I am making this dress out of some cotton fabric I got cheap on eBay, a pink and white check that really isn't my style but is fine for a muslin. I was originally planning on using it to make placemats, but it was the only ream of fabric I had long enough pieces of. This time I laid out the pieces very carefully, making sure to iron everything and match up fold lines and be certain of proper layers.

You'll see it has only four pattern pieces: a front that is cut on the fold, a back which is done in two pieces, and front and back facings to reinforce the neck and shoulders. The self-facings needed to be interfaced, so I ironed some plain white muslin I had in my fabric box and laid out out on top of the pink check. I checked everything carefully to match how the front facing needed to be cut on the fold, but the back facing needed separate pieces, all of which needed matching interfacing.

As I said, I want to take this very slow and carefully, so the one other thing I did last night was try to pin in the darts. that go on the sides of the bust and down the center of the dress. The instructions on the pattern were not great and I only know how darts work in a theoretical sense; while I've pinned them into the backs of costume jackets, I've never actually sewn them before. I looked up a tutorial this morning, so I may redo them, but here's what they look like for now. I will certainly check them before I sew them. At least they seem to have ended up more or less in the right place; transferring them from the pattern proved tougher than I thought.

Quick bulleted update



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

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

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

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

Now the bad:

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

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

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

Merely Players Hoot review

‘Merely Players’ more than just a side-project for HTP'

By Candice Bautista
November 18, 2011

“Merely Players” was a wholly successful side-project put on by the Shakespeare group Hold Thy Peace this past weekend. A comedy by Brandeis graduate Phoebe Roberts ’09, M.A. ’12, “Merely Players” playfully mocks theater troupes’ and actors’ constant bid for the spotlight while still glorifying them.
The play was put on in Schwartz Auditorium, a venue that I personally had never seen used for a show, having only attended lectures in there. HTP successfully utilized the space, however, by moving the desks out and moving in tables for a sort of dinner show/cabaret setting. Indeed, placed on the tables were pieces of papers that doubled as mini-playbills and menus. Proceeds from items ordered went toward HTP fundraising. HTP actresses not acting in the show were waitresses as they took my table’s orders for brownies and cider. It was a very welcoming and surprising part of the setting that helped set the jovial mood for the play beforehand.

While we ate and waited for the show to begin, the actors in the actual show appeared in character and engaged in hilarious banter. At one point, Malcolm, the pretentious lead played by Ben Federlin ’14, yells to another actor, “You fungal growth! You’re homeless! Go back to under the bridge where we found you!” before hitting her on the head with his copy of “Othello.” These conversations occurred mostly along the sides of the stage portion of the auditorium, but occasionally the characters would venture into the audience along the side rows of the theater to great effect.

The humor only continued to flourish when the show began with the introduction of Cornelia (Stephanie Karol ’12) as the reluctant leader of the Shakespeare group. She discussed the difficulties of the burden of leading and how repulsed she was by actors. Karol, dressed in all black and donning white gloves, was hilarious and simultaneously terrifying. Having spent much of the pre-show act rolling around on various surfaces in Schwartz Auditorium, her entrance was doubly funny.

After her introduction of the theater troupe, the group breaks into a well-choreographed scene depicting the different aspects of acting, from applying make-up, to practicing lines, to struggling to get so much done in such a short period of time. From then on, the play depicts the actors rehearsing for Shakespeare plays that are clearly noted by a sign on the side of the stage. This works incredibly well as it gives the actors something with which to pretend to be preoccupied while also having source material at which to poke fun. For example, at one point in the play, Malcolm and Orlando (Andrew Prentice ’13) fight for the attention of newcomer Sylvia (Gabrielle Geller ’12) and end up pulling her back and forth during the “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” rehearsal. Other plays mentioned include “Hamlet,” “The Tempest,” “Henry V” and “King Lear,” which features a particularly hilarious bit with Malcolm tearing his shirt open, ripping off one of his buttons. Whether or not that was intentional will never truly be known by this audience member.

“Merely Players” differs greatly from the main shows that HTP puts on due to the fact that it is not written by Shakespeare, but the underlying emotions and passions the group has for Shakespeare carries through to put together a great show. Arcite the fool was played by Lenny Somervell ’12, well-known for her comedic roles in previous HTP shows, and this translates extraordinarily well in the small Schwartz venue. She showed no restraint when it came to breaking down the fourth wall and walking into the audience, petting one of my tablemates, and going around to give someone else her phone number. Truly Karol’s and Somervell’s performances were the highlights of the play, their acting pulling the various pieces of the show together into a clever whole. The show ended with just the two on the stage, concluding the show with Arcite’s line, “Better to be a witty fool than a foolish wit,” a reference to “Twelfth Night.”

The exact allure of “Merely Players” is hard to pinpoint because of the various phenomenal parts of the show, but a great contributing factor is the DIY nature of the show. Every part of the performance from the food, to the wait staff, even to the script was all made for and provided by the HTP members. At some points, it felt as though I was just in my friends’ basement on a Friday night, finally seeing the show my friends had been preparing. In fact, since HTP’s fall show “Margaret: A Tiger’s Heart” was put on about a month ago, the members must not have had that much time to put this together. All in all, “Merely Players” was a very good show with a homey feel that showcased not only HTP’s talent but also their dedication and affection for Shakespeare.

Just when I thought I was out...



...they pull me back in.

Due to mentions on the LJs of hazliya* and laura47*, I have been alerted to the existence of An Archive of Our Own, or AO3, a large, well-maintained fan fiction site that welcomes fics of all types and displays them in a stable, easily navigable structure. And I was surprised to find that even though it has been years since I followed fan fiction, I was inexorably drawn to a brand-new archive that I hadn't yet had a chance to dig through.

As a kid I was, of course, exactly the sort of personality that fan fiction appeals to. The ostensible reason for fanfic to exist is to give people more material with the characters and the world that they have come to enjoy. I have an obsessive personality, which I believe is the only real thing that separates nerds from normal people. So naturally whenever I would get into a media source, I would get waaaaaay into it as nerds often do, and unfailing whatever existed in the canon of that universe would not be enough, leading me to turn to fan fiction.

But anyone who's even been passingly interested in fan fiction knows what it's like-- the signal-to-noise ratio, as laurion* put it, is ridiculously skewed in favor of the absolute dreck. Any stupid slobbering fankid who can string two words together can and probably will write fic, so the chances of finding anything that really satisfy the craving for new material set in that world are slim. Still, every now and then you can find gems, and every small success only feeds the fire. When I rediscovered Gargoyles in high school I came upon the mammoth oeuvre of Christine Morgan, which was so unbelievably good it started an addiction that it seemed like no amount of later crap could end. (A must-read, by the way, for any Gargoyles fanatic. She changes the canon slightly because she started writing before certain things were determined in the series, but still, her writing is phenomenal and her storytelling is awesome. Even more amazing, her original character end up feeling like so much a part of the world that you end up caring about them just as much as the ones you came to see. Mindblowing.)

I also made more than a few forays into writing my own. Often out of frustration of not seeing the things I wanted to see, I would conceive of my own stories that suited someone of my tastes. Unfortunately I finished very few, for a number of reasons. I was very much a perfectionist, never being quite satisfied that I'd nailed the feeling of the original story so I was continuously tweaking and rewriting, and there was always some new project that excited me. And yeah, without some external deadline or whatever I often have a tough time making myself buckle down. But damn, did I have ideas, and damn, did I spend a lot of hours working on these things that probably would have been well-received by the fan communities if I ever finished them.

But after several years of wading through the nonsense, once I got into college, I found my devoted interest in fanfic waning. I figured I was growing out of it, moving on from it. I confess that notion pleased me on some level, if only because it drove me to spend so much time working on fan stories I never finished, time I could have spent on original writing I could have actually done something with.

As I mentioned, there is so little out there that is actually good. Bad writing, absurd premises, you name it, fan fiction is afflicted with it. I also have a pretty narrow interests in what fan fiction appeals to me. Basically, I want more in the same world-- I dislike radical changes to the nature of the source material. I want fan fiction to be an extension of the thing I enjoy, as close to qualitatively the same possible; if I wanted something different, I wouldn't be going to fan fic for it.  I mean, you can have radically different events happen, and of course force the characters to grow and change, but keep the milieu, keep the characters true to their natures, and perhaps above all else, keep the tone. Tone is in this writer's opinion one of the most important aspects to keep in mind when crafting a piece. Choose it carefully for the effect you want, and stick to it.

I think one of my stumbling blocks is that I'm not really interested in slash, except occasionally as porn. Apparently there is an enormous chunk of fan fiction writers who see the medium primarily as a vehicle for pairing off whatever characters they want to see get together or have sex, regardless of the plausibility in the original. I hear there's a lot of well-written slash out there, but I'm afraid I just can't get into it. Very frequently the desire for squishy romance seems to express in characters suddenly discovering they're gay for each other and having squishy sex. I feel like that's too much of a deviation from the original; I like characters to demonstrate the sexual orientation they had in the source, rather than one bent for the pleasure of the author.

I have a handful of finished pieces, written many years ago. One was a story I submitted to a writing contest hosted by The Gathering, the Gargoyles fan convention, when I was thirteen years old. I was up against all adult writers and I won in my category. :-) It's a little mannered now, but holds up relatively well. Another was written when I was sixteen for a Latin assignment and probably only barely qualifies as fan fiction; it was meant to transpose a story from mythology into a modern setting, and it came out kind of cute. The last was from an embarrassing interest in that LXG movie that came out several years ago; I've always been a fan of the Henry Jekyll character and because it was the first sort of dark, "mature" story I'd ever written I think the sheer, "oo, I'm being naughty!" thrill drove me to finish it. *eye roll*

Just for the hell of it I posted them on AO3. My username is breakinglight11, in case you're interested in viewing my shame. ;-) The real shame here is that now I'm getting interested in fanfic again, wanting to put in the time to finding the good stuff, and... God save me... dig out my old stuff and see if anything is worth salvaging. *sigh* The old poison, it heats my blood again.

Sometimes it really sucks being a nerd.