Girly evening

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

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

Actually looking nice today

Lately getting going in the morning has been a lot harder than usual; again I blame the not sleeping well. But that has meant that getting dressed has taken a lot more effort, so I haven't been doing as good a job of it. My very conscious efforts to dress as stylishly as possible have been a bit too much for me, so things like experimenting and even accessorizing just haven't been happening. But today I actually managed to assemble something that looks really sharp. I'm wearing one of my favorite shirts, the fitted pink-striped one with the silver appliqued design on it, khakhi slacks, black leather belt, my anniversary necklace, matching silver earrings, and, as a fun and unusal touch, my silver dress heels. I feel like I look really good today, and that makes me feel good. Maybe I should spend the precious extra spoons in the mornings and go back dressing carefully; it might help me feel a little better about myself. Could use that lately.

Had the first read through for Love's Labor's Lost last night. It went well, if perhaps a little less professionally than I like, and I think i will enjoy working with this cast. I've had heavier rehearsal schedules than I'll have for this show, but even though rehearsals happen every other night I'll still need to be at pretty much all of them. I will be playing Longaville, one of the king's men who swears off women in order to pursue scholarship for a year, but ends up breaking his vow when he falls in love with Maria, one of the ladies attending the princess of France. Yet again I am cross-cast. :-) No matter, I enjoy the challenge, and it's a fairly decent-sized role. I'm still trying to get a handle on what I think I'll do with him, but I've got plenty of time to figure it out. There will be three weekends of performances, 7/24-25, 7/31-8/1, and 8/7-8.

Long weekend coming up. I don't have to work on Monday due to Memorial Day, but even with the extra day it will be busy. These will be my last couple of days with Jared before he goes home for the summer; Monday he'll be flying home. Also I'll be taking Bernie to the airport so he can go to a work conference in California. I don't want either of them to go; it's going to be a lonely few days. But on Sunday blendedchaitea* will be moving into Elsinore for the summer, and I'm very excited about that. I look forward to helping her get settled, and then having her for company. So I'll be trying to keep busy, which helps keep my spirits up.

Goals and tasks for the summer

Some thoughts on things I am planning on pursuing over the summertime this year.

Budgeting will need to be focused on. Though actually, one goal I actually have more or less met over the last year is keeping my finances in order. The old budget has been and will continue to be pretty tight, but I'm making it work, covering my bills and actually managing to put a little away. I'm now even closer to my in-case-of-emergency savings goal! Since our new lease is starting next month, I have been carefully getting ready for the expense of handing over first month-last month payment. I am extremely annoyed, however, by the fact that my landlord will not allow me to just roll over my security deposit from last year. Instead, he wants to give it back to me and have me pay a new one. Okay, this wouldn't be so bad if he could get it together to return it to me before the new one is due. If I remember correctly from last year, we got the old one back eventually, but not in a prompt manner, because frankly this guy doesn't really do anything in a prompt manner. I am budgeted and prepared to hand over first month-last month, but digging up an ADDITIONAL security deposit is going to pose a serious hardship. I just don't want to cause any trouble, so as unhappy as it makes me, I'm just going to go with it. I know I will get the old one back, but still, I dislike the notion of having twice what I owe in security handed over for any period of time.

I got into the play I auditioned for! I will be playing Longaville, one of the prince's men who swears off love for scholarship but finds he can't keep to it, in the Gazebo Players production of Love's Labor's Lost. Tonight is the first read through and I'm excited, though I have to miss a Labor Wars meeting to attend. :-( I will in the future carefully manage my schedule so this does not happen again. I think it will be good for me to have a show to keep me busy and creative this summer.

I must get back into the habit of working out. I'm barely working out at all these days, and the squishiness is starting to show it. My belly is turning to mush and my thighs are becoming monstrous. It's easier for me to keep to a workout schedule over the summer with my increased free time and my decreased responsibilities, so perhaps I can actually make a good habit of it. I will have to overcome the challenge of my sleeping badly makes it hard to get up to work out in the mornings, and yet I've never had much success making myself work out at any other time.

I would like to restart my Burn Notice campaign. We haven't played in a very long time, but I would enjoy getting back into it, if not on a regular basis, then at least somewhat frequently. Hell, we even still have a storyline to finish. I honestly have difficulty coming up with more and more story so quickly, but I liked running the game and had a great time spending it with the players. I'll have to go about figuring that out.

I must find a doctor. I recently got new health insurance, so I've got to find someone who accepts it, but honestly I haven't had a primary care provider since going away to college. I don't often need one, and when I was in school I just used the health center. But I've been convined to get checked out about how badly I've been sleeping lately, and my feet seem to be hurting an awful lot. To be honest I don't expect a doctor to be able to do much about any of the things that have been troubling me, since I think most of it's due to stress, but Jared and my mother are convined I'm falling apart, so I guess it can't hurt on the off-chance there's something concrete medical care can do.

So there's a starting point to begin my summer with. Let's see how it goes.

Thoughts on Iron Man II

Last night Jared and I saw Iron Man II. It was fun, and there was a lot of entertaining stuff, but about every ten minutes I saw something about which I had to declare, "I call bullshit." I enjoyed the movie, but it was not the second Iron Man that I wanted to see.

I really like the character of Tony Stark, especially as played by Robert Downey, Jr. And I hate to say it, but I love how he's an enormous dick that still manages to be hot. And see, my favorite Tony Stark antagonist is Tony Stark. I find him most interesting when he's his own worst enemy. Basically the film I was hoping to see had that same Tony be successfully protecting the world but totally destroying his personal life, descending into alcoholism and acting progressively more reckless due to his growing arrogance and his fear for his life. I wanted him to be alienating Pepper with all his difficult behavior, the breaking point of which is being seduced by Black Widow, who was actually trying to infiltrate Stark Industries and help Whiplash, and that drives her to finally leave him and go to Happy, who I expected to be in the film for this purpose. I wanted him to be screwing up his life, and I wanted there to be consequences for it. There weren't really consequences for anything he did, even using the Iron Man suit while drunk, a moment which offended me probably more than it should. But nobody on the Earth should get away with playing with a weapon while intoxicated, and that kind of pissed me off. I call bullshit.

Then there was the very Walt Disney-style presentation of Howard Stark's city of tomorrow. I didn't mind that, but I did mind the very Da Vinci Code-like hiding of the new-element theory in the park model. Now, I totally buy that a scientist could theorize the existence of a new element before he has the technology to try and synthesize it, which later generations do. I believe that's even happened in real life science. But people leave these things in notebooks, they do not hide them cryptically in models for vanity theme parks. I call bullshit.

Did not enjoy Black Widow. Or maybe I shouldn't even call her that, because she didn't have anything in common with Black Widow except her real name. Maybe I would have enjoyed her more if I liked Scarlett Johansson (as either an actress or as eye candy) but I really don't. I found her character to be totally gratuitous. Basically, "Sexy girl. Sexy girl beats people up. Sexy girl looks sexy. Sexy girl changes in backseat of car in a scene so pornographically choreographed as to be absurd." And Tony is a complete dumbass for being a man in his position and not thinking, "Huh, this woman can do CRAZY MARTIAL ARTS even though she's supposed to be from THE LEGAL DEPARTMENT. SHE CLEARLY ISN'T A SPY, NOPE, NUH HUH." God, I wanted Pepper to be like, "If all the blood hadn't abandoned your brain right now, it might occur to you that that's a little suspicious!"

I can't believe they didn't have her be villainous in any way. I kept waiting for her to betray them and help Vanko, but nope, never happened. Natasha Romanov was a Soviet double-agent in the comics. If they just wanted a sexy secret SHIELD agent, why did they use the Romanov character? Wasn't there some other character they could have had play that role? Maybe Sharon Carter, like Jared suggested? I call bullshit about pretty much every aspect of this character.

I wanted this movie to show Tony destroying everything that was really important to him. And then have the next movie be him putting it all back together. They could have even still had the last scene kept as it was, because I like the idea that Tony manages to publically save everyone while still having ruined his life. But I felt they could have made a much deeper, more believable movie if they hadn't just let the comic-book-logic run wild and let Tony get away with whatever he wanted. He's a douchebag by nature and we enjoy him that way, but douchebags usually get some sort of repercussions for their behavior. 

Summa cum laude

As of this weekend, Jared Hite now has a bachelors of arts in philosophy with a minor in legal studies from Brandeis University, graduating summa cum laude with high honors from his thesis. I'm so proud of him.

I spent most of the weekend helping him move out of his dorm. His parents came into town to see him graduate, and Friday and Saturday were spent clearing out his surprisingly large amount of stuff for the contents of one dorm room. Some of it was packed to go back to Chicago, some of it was sent to his local storage locker. It was a lot of work for a hot day, but things went smoothly enough. The next day was commencement, and a considerably less enjoyable experience. I strongly dislike graduation ceremonies for a number of reasons, so other than getting to hear Jared's fantastic status announced to everyone, the whole business was very unpleasant for me. But we went out to a fantastic dinner in the evening, so the ended well despite it all.

Jared will be staying with me for one more week. Then he is going back to Chicago for the summer, with the intent of spending it job and apartment-hunting and then coming back to Boston in September. I think this is the best thing for him, he needs time to de-stress and have few responsibilities for a while, but I will certainly miss him. There's even a part of me that is afraid he won't be able to come back. But we'll just have to be hopeful and dilligent and pray for the best. I'll be a little down about it, but I'm going to do what I can to just hope things turn out.

Elsinore status update

Last night saw some progress for getting Elsinore back into order. The chef's rack has been positioned-- it was slightly too big for the place occupied by the ugly shelf being used as a pantry, so it was moved to the opposite wall, and I think I like it there. The kitchen cart instead now occupies that place. And as anxious as I was to get the new table set up, it turned out to be unnecessary. It was exactly the same size as the old table, in fact they look extremely similar to each other, and the Daves agreed to take it instead because it would save them having to break down the other one in order to pack it into the car. More than fine by me, as I am thoroughly weary of fighting with the stuff.

So the kitchen is now set for furniture, though a significant number of our appliances and utensils disappeared as well last night. It's also looking like the big coffee table in the living room is going to go, as well as the small one down in the game room. Sigh. More stuff to replace. I am not relishing the amount of money it's going to take to cover all of that, and given financial limitations, how much time will likely go by before it's taken care of. The inconvenience in the meantime is also going to wear on me.

With help from lightgamer*, the chairs that came free with the table were moved down into the basement. Probably the best use of them is to go around the gaming table down there. I am now pondering possibilities for fixing them up. blendedchaitea* very kindly offered to help with this, and dear, I would love to have you lend a hand. So I will wait until she comes back to Waltham before I start work on them, but in the meantime I'm trying to figure out a plan of attack. I'm thinking they're going to require sanding, staining, and refinishing. That could be a pretty labor intensive-process, not to mention require buying a lot of supplies. Since I'm not sure they're going to be worth all the work and effort, we'll probably just start by doing one chair, and if I don't think it's coming out nicely enough, I'll just chuck the lot. Maybe I'll try to match the color to the gaming table, since that's what they will be accompanying.

Shaking up the guest lists

So I tend to have the same people over for my dinner parties again and again. Of course the fact that I like those people and want to have their company is a big factor. So is proximity; people I run into regularly and who are close to me are much easier to invite and have travel the distance to come to dinner. But the primary reason is for ease of social dynamics. I really dislike it when the conversation doesn't flow between dinner guests, and someone either has to drag it along or there's lots of social awkwardness. So I tend to very carefully engineer guest lists for maximum positive interaction. That very often leads to groups with similar makeup because I know they get along and I like having them. But there are still many people I'd like to have over for dinner that I for some reason do not often end up inviting.

So I think this summer I am going to make an effort to shake up my guest list and have dinners for people who I'd love to see but have not managed to have over very often. At least every other dinner party I have is going to have at least a mostly unusual guest list. I think that will make things more interesting, as well as get to share my cooking with friends I don't as frequently get to see. I'll probably still do my social engineering in hopes that everyone has things to talk to each other about, but I want to shake things up in my social circle.

Comparative gaming styles

There will be BSCF at my house tonight. That is cool, although I'm not sure I'm feeling up to that much social interaction. Depending on my ability to pretend to be a human being tonight, I may have to go hide in my room. If I can manage to behave like a real person, however, perhaps I shall try to get a game of Small World going.

I heard that at WPI, when Small World is played it is considered standard practice to make diplomatic agreements with other players. At Brandeis, we tend to be geared much more toward pure strategy when we play. If the right move is not immediately obvious, everyone around the table with discuss what the most advantageous move given the situation is, regardless of what other player it may hurt, and countless times I have heard someone advise their opponent to attack they themselves because it is objectively the best move.

I find this hilarious given WPI versus Brandeis larping style. At Brandeis we are the diplomats, the ones who sit around in a circle holding hands trying to find some way to work things out, while I have found WPI larpers to be more ruthless, oriented more towards the win-condition than finding some compromise. The reversal of that situation I find very funny.

Love's Labor Lost and HTP history

Also yesterday was my audition for Love's Labor's Lost. I wasn't totally excited about it given how tired I was from the rest of the day, but I really do want to be part of this production and work with Shelby as a director. So I climbed back in the car-- blech, more driving --and made my way there. The audition itself went well enough; it wasn't my best, but it wasn't bad either. I think the biggest problem was how low my energy level was by that point, which probably didn't work so well with the Puck monologue I'd chosen to do because I've always liked how energetic it was. There may be a callback next week, and I should hear after that.

But the other cool thing about there was I got to meet a girl named Debbie Finkelstein, who now works at Brandeis but was a founding member of Hold Thy Peace. I knew she'd been in e-mail contact with Jared a bit, but this was the first time I'd actually met her. She told me she saw Hamlet and really enjoyed it! She even was impressed by my cut of the show. She's very nice, and according to her, I can now present a full history of the club's shows! I believe the complete list is as follows:

The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) - Spring '01
Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet - Spring '02
Taming of the Shrew - Fall '02
Merry Wives of Windsor - Spring '03
Much Ado About Nothing (directed by Shelby) - Fall '03
Merchant of Venice (directed by Debbie) - Spring '04
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Fall '04
Twelfth Night - Fall '05
Macbeth - Spring '06
The Tempest - Fall '06
Dr. Faustus - Spring '07
Hamlet - Fall '07
A Comedy of Errors - Spring '08
King Lear - Fall '08
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Spring '09
Romeo and Juliet - Fall '09
To Think of Nothing - Spring '10
Julius Caesar - Spring '10
A Winter's Tale - Fall '10

Furniture accomplished

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

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

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

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