State of the body

I am still sick, and getting really tired of it. I can't remember ever having a cold that lasted longer than four or five days, but this one's been lingering for over a week now. Tenacious little bastard of a bug. I guess one long cold is preferable to the five or so little colds I got last winter, but still, I'd like to not be packed up with green slime anymore. Even Jared's pre-discontinue psuedoephedrine Sudafed has not brought much relief. In fact, I felt so lousy last night I went to bed at ten and didn't get anything done. I am kicking myself for that, I have too much writing left to waste time even when I'm not feeling so great.

On the plus side, my sore legs seem to have recovered. This pleases me, not only because I feel better moving again, but also because I wanted to practice the dance steps that put me there in the first place. They are fun to do, and I want to get good at them. I even believe I have lost a little bit of weight. I pulled on a pair of jeans that was growing uncomfortably tight just a month or two ago, and now they fit properly again. Hooray! I guess getting exercise like shoveling snow and dancing on top of cutting out junk food was a good plan. The difference is very small and not at all visible, but it means a lot to me that my clothes don't fit me like sausage casings.

Current status regarding Intercon things

The drop in The Stand was filled! Yay, that's a weight off my mind. I am pleased to report that this new player even likes the character she will be stepping into. So the game is full again, and I can only hope there will be no more drops between now and the time of the con.

Writing is coming well to varying degrees on both games I will be running. We are in the last round of writing assignments for Resonance, which means by the next meeting all written content for the game should be generated. Yay us! I am so excited to see how that game, with is highly unusual structure, will play out. As for The Stand, writing is coming a little more slowly. The character sheets are not short, there are a lot of them, and I am the only writer for the game. I have put myself on a strict schedule that I am confident will allow me to get things done in reasonable time, it's going to be a lot of work and ask a lot of discipline of me. I will be very, very pleased with myself when it's finished.

Of the two games I am playing, I still have only my character for Clockwork Cafe. Unfortunately upon getting my costume hint my entire plan for costuming was forced to change; apparently the color I am wearing is extremely important, and what I had planned wasn't it. Fortunately I have already found something nice and not terribly expensive to use instead. I bought it off of eBay yesterday and it should be in within the next week or two. Haven't gotten my Snaf U character yet, but I know and trust the GMs so I'm not bothered. I also don't think I'll need a ton of time to figure out costuming for that one, since I believe it takes place in the modern era.

So, lot of work ahead, but I'm not in a bad place. Wish me luck getting this writing for The Stand done so the game is as good as I know it has the potential to be!

The Stand at Intercon K drop!

To my frustration, I have just been informed that a player will be dropping The Stand at Intercon. That means I will need a female player to replace her that doesn't mind accepting a character without a questionnaire because the game has already been cast. The game really needs everyone in order to run properly, so I would really appreciate if some fine lady might step up.

EDIT: The player has dropped, the spot is officially open.

Go here if you'd like to do me this favor and take this role in my game. Please and thank you!

EDIT 2: The spot has filled! Hooray!

First dance rehearsal

Saturday was the first rehearsal for nennivian*'s Magic at Midsummer piece. I'd been excited to get going for a while, and on Saturday I had a blast. I was a bit nervous for my own performance; I'm not a bad dancer once I memorize my steps, but it takes me a while to learn the choreography to get to the point where I can go through it smoothly and fast enough. But I feel like I followed along really well, and I didn't even confuse right and left that often (which has been a lifelong problem of mine.) Charlotte's choreography is really great-- it's fun to do, it tells the story really well, and it has neat moments where one phrase will have similar but not the same elements of a different phrase that connect them and contrast them at the same time. It's very clever. She also did a great job of teaching it to us; I think the clear way she could describe it and then demonstrate it really helped me get through my typical difficulties absorbing the movements for the first time.

There are several cast members from HTP's Midsummer in this show, and I like the fact that all of us are playing different roles in this show than we did in the other one. I am Titania where I used to be Puck, Plesser is Bottom where he used to be Lysander, and Zanna is Puck when she used to be Hermia. Heck, we even have some Midsummer crew members who now took on roles-- Marissa the costume designer is Hermia, and Jenna helped with makeup and now is Helena.

It felt like a great workout, fun to do and actually physically demanding. I am lucky, I think, that my partner for a lot of the movements will be Plesser, who is strong enough to help me out with some of the paired ones like the dips. The only downside is that I am now very sore. Scratch that-- most of my body is just fine, but my thighs are pretty ripped up. Charlotte incorporated this one move that I was flattered to hear was inspired by my performance as Puck, the movement that was kind of Puck's signature, crouched down on the ground with one leg bent and one leg fully extended.

Once we started doing that, it came back to me just how rough moving like that was on a body that isn't used to it. I'm walking kind of gingerly now, and getting up and down stairs is a real pain. I had lofty ideas of practicing the steps a little every night between rehearsals, to get them more solidly in my mind, but I think I'll have to just stick to spending some time visualizing them until I'm moving better. But I think I'll be okay soon. As it was during Midsummer, I expect I will be uncomfy at the very beginning of the process while it's new to me and at the very end of the process when I'm doing it every night for the week leading up to the performance. :-)

Five sheets plus bluesheet

Five sheet done for The Stand, wheeeee! I even managed to write the bluesheet. That I want to get out very soon to the lovely players, but it still needs a little tweaking, so I will hold off a bit longer yet. I have a litte bit of a space in some of the character sheets referring to THAT THING WHAT THIS GUY DID WHAT I AIN'T FIGURED OUT YET that I need to figure out and fill in, and the bluesheet has a spot like that as well. I think that will be my focus for now-- not move on until I crack an angle for that.

Still sick, but surviving. Only real problem is I have a sinus headache. It's making it tough for me to concentrate. I also have a bunch of things to get done this afternoon-- grocery shopping, showering, helping Jared dig out his car, and writing another characte sheet --before he and I go out to have dinner with acousticshadow2* this evening, so I can't afford to screw around.

Congratulations to Jared!

Jared had some excellent news the other day when he was offered a job with a mediation firm in Watertown! It's a small operation that he noticed a few weeks ago and decided to stop by and give them his resume in hopes that they'd think of him if they needed any help. Lo and behold, they gave him a call! He's going to be assisting there a few days a week. It's only part-time, and he doesn't know how long it will last, but it's exactly in the field he wants to get into and learn more about, not to mention a great resume-builder. And it's only a few blocks away from his house, so he can walk in even on snowy days like this. So congratulations to him! I am incredibly proud.

No work for me today due to the snow. I'm glad, I'm not feeling well and I want to get things done around here. I have already shoveled out half of the driveway, even that accursed bump churned up by the snow plow pushing aside the snow on the road. I hate that stuff, it's slushy and grimey and much heavier than regular snow. The one thing I'm pleased about is that it forces me to get some exercise, I can really feel it in my abs. I'm not that sore afterward from it, though, which I guess means I'm not as out of shape as I thought, and it's probably not going to have a huge effect. But whatever, at least I'm working my abs.

Finished my third character sheet last night. Today I aim to get another one done, and either a second one or the bluesheet. The bluesheet actually might be a good idea, so that I can get it out to everyone sooner rather than later.

Sick and snowed in

Bah. More goddamn snow. I am so tired of being cold, sliding on the roads, and shoveling. There's no where left to put the damn stuff. I don't know why I bothered coming in to work today; there's nobody here and I probably could have done everything I needed to today over e-mail from home. :-P To top it all off, last night my throat abrubtly started to hurt, as suddenly as if someone flipped a switch from fine to sore. I don't recall that ever happening before; usually my throat will just gradually start to feel a little dry beforehand, then the next day I'll wake up with it sore. Very strange. I also feel like I have a slight fever, but two turns of the thermometer say I'm not only not feverish, but a little on the cold side at 97.1. Wonder if the thing's not working right.

Being sick and snowed in was not part of my plan. I need to focus on writing, which will be tougher if I'm not feeling well, and I really didn't want to have to waste a ton of time shoveling that I should be using to work on character sheets. I got one more done last night, bringing my total of completed sheets up to a staggering two. *Sigh* I need some discipline on this. Only about a month remaining.

Work so far for Intercon

Cast The Stand run at Intercon today, and just sent out casting and costuming hints. It was a tougher cast than I was expecting, and I ended up with a lot of final choices that I wasn't thinking of when I first read through the casting questionnaires, but I think it came out mostly okay. Still, I am worried about one or two choices; I did the best I could, so I hope everyone is okay with their roles.

Have begun writing character sheets in earnest now. I have finished my first and have several others started, but I want to pick up the pace. My goal is to have all twenty-five of them finished no later than a week before the con. I don't want anyone to have to get theirs at the last minute, so I'd better buckle down. I'd like to finish two or so by the end of the day.

Jared and I elected not to get a hotel room this year after being reminded how close the con is to home; it is more economical that way. We also don't want to have to rely on food bought at the hotel for meals that weekend. I plan to pack a picnic basket with lunches and dinners for the appropriate days and try to eat only from that as much as we can. If anyone cares to go in on this with me, they are welcome; just help me buy supplies and I am happy to doing the prep and cooking.

Beef brisket

So I made the brisket last night, the first one I've ever attempted. I used my mom's recipe that she got from a Tyler Florence cookbook. It's a braise in red wine at a low temperature for several hours. My first thought was to put a meat thermometer into it and cook it to temperature, since recently I've had a lot better results with red meat that way. But the alarm went off within less than an hour, so it must have been measuring the cooking liquid more than the meat, and I just put on the timer for the amount of time the recipe suggested. I think I should have cut the three-and-a-half hour time down to three hours, as the brisket came out just a wee bit drier than I like. My oven runs a little hot, and the two briskets I cooked were more like three and a half pounds each rather than four as was called for. Also, I would have thought seven pounds would be enough for eleven people, but I wish I'd bought more. Still, it wasn't bad. It's a good recipe-- fabulous when my mom makes it --and I definitely think I will make it again.

Grownup corner 2.0

I have recently upgraded my grownup corner.

The flowers in the blue vase died, as all flowers eventually do, so they had to be removed. There is also now a little blue urn on the corner there, a nice little touch added, I believe, by Charlotte. But you will notice the new copper pot hanging up next to my lucky-find skillet. I bought it off of eBay the other day, and it came in the mail yesterday. I wasted no time in hanging it up beside its fellow.

I find few things so beautiful in the world as copper cookware. It is lovely, it is functional, and it is incredibly cheerful-looking. I can think of no more perfect way to decorate a kitchen than with beautiful specimens of the tools you use in it. I shouldn't be spending money on silly things right now, but this was only twelve dollars, which is a steal for copper. (For reference, even a piece of lower-end new stuff can cost a hundred dollars or more. And let us not speak of the price of the breathtaking Mauviel, the highest quality on the market today.) It makes me a little happier just looking at it, so especially right now when I could do with small joys, perhaps this wasn't so silly a purchase after all.