Wooo cheap costuming!

Had an extremely good rehearsal for Winter's Tale last night. I really like the character of Antigonus. It's fun playing a brave, righteous person, and getting to do courageous things and agonize over the terrible things that other characters do. Not since Cordelia have I gotten to play someone so straight-up heroic. I particularly like the physicality of the scene we did last night, with Leontes shoving Antigonus around and Antigonus takes it because he's his king. I like balancing the defiance of the mad orders with the still-unquestioned allegiance to his liege lord. This is a really good role and I am having a lot of fun with it. I hope Steph is pleased with me. I enjoyed working out the scene with her.

Got my character hint for Stars of Al-Ashtara. At this point we are not allowed to say anything about who we are, so I will say only that apparently my highly flexible casting questionnaire for some reason made me a tougher rather than easier cast, but still from what little information my hint contained I think I like the sound of it. It inspired me to go on eBay and find myself an amazingly well priced couple of costume pieces of the sort I've always wanted to wear. I agonized over what color to buy, settled on one in a panic, and then immediately regretted after purchasing it. Hopefully my frantic e-mail request to change colors will be received before shipping. If not, oh, well, most colors look good on me anyway. It may be too sexy for the role, but it's an Arabian game-- when else am I going to have an excuse to dress like that? ;-) I may end up using it as my Halloween costume as well, since at the moment I have no plan for one.

*Sigh* I'm turning into that girl who has to use any dress-up occasion as an excuse to look slutty. I hate that girl. She's so uninspired. But I really really like this costume.

The last straight girl on Earth

Sometimes I feel like the last straight girl on Earth. As more and more of my nominally straight female friends decide that they're at least a little bit bi, I am continually blown away by how few girls I know have that aversion-to-physicality-with-women that I used to think was a hallmark of feminine heterosexuality. And while if this is your genuine setting I wish you Godspeed, but I must confess a slight irritation with how it ties into a certain kind of sexual politics that has always gotten on my nerves.

I've never been a big fan of the expectation that all girls are just a couple appletinis away from a picturesque lesbian encounter. It's almost become the norm that if you go to a certain kind of party that frequently happens on college campuses, chances are you're going to see at least one instance of non-gay girls making out. And when this happens, you're going to have at least some of the guys in attendance hanging nearby enjoying the view. And I find this kind of gross, for a number of reasons.

I guess it's not like it's really my business; people have a right to be into whatever they're into, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. I don't even have a problem with guys thinking girl-on-girl is hot. Hell, I think guy-on-guy is hot, so I certainly don't see anything weird or wrong with it. The thing that does bother me is the cultural standard that girls are becoming expected to feel and express some level of bisexuality, in which men are allowed to have pornographic interest, because that's the way men want it.

I guess if the girls are willing to do this stuff and allow it to be watched, who am I to tell them they shouldn't be doing it, but are all these girls really totally okay with interacting sexually with other girls while guys look on to be titillated? The fact that so few of these girls actually ever date other girls gives me a bit of pause, but that's not necessarily an indicator of attraction. Heh, I was REALLY attracted to a certain black-haired friend of Alain's, but that didn't mean I wanted to date him, after all. And I certainly think you're still responsible for your actions-- I don't care what kind of pressure is being laid on you, you have a responsibility to yourself to refuse to do anything sexual that you don't want. Nobody can make you do anything just by encouraging you. But I have a hard time believing that no desire for validation and to be considered desirable factor into it, which is incredibly repellent to me. Are none of the things the girls want being compromised?

And worse, it's never the other way around. Guys never make out for the viewing pleasure of girls. It's just not done-- straight guys are straight, God damn it, they don't go in for that fag stuff. It doesn't matter that maybe I'd like to get the chance to watch two guys who don't look either like twinks or like Tom of Finland models. And really, that's fine, but that girls don't get the same respect for the rigidity of their sexuality is not fine. It's a double standard, one I am very much not okay with.

Apparently emerging research suggests that while men's sexuality tends to be rigidly defined, women are more inclined to blurring whatever lines they fall between. In other words, men are more likely to be inflexibly attracted to one gender and one gender only, while women are more likely to feel some level of bisexuality. Of course these are just trends, and plenty of people don't conform to them. I invite you bisexual men out there to raise your hands with me as exceptions to the rule. But this kind of pisses me off because this emerging viewpoint validates that double standard. Yeah, maybe it is true, but I feel like that people will use that to say, "Well, it's okay for me to lay that expectation on girls because that's just what girls are like. But it's totally not okay to lay that expectation on guys, because guys aren't like that."

That is such phallocentric bullshit. I'm not normally the sort of feminist who wastes a lot of time railing against the patriarchy, but here's one case where I will gladly make an exception, because basically, all the standards and expectations are set up by men, for men. Men's sexuality is consider inviolate because men want it that way, and women's sexuality is considered flexible because men want it that way. I mean, talk about being a victim of the male gaze.

What this comes down to is, as a person with a rather rigid sexuality, I dislike that fact not being respected. Since if that rigidity were compromised it would be actively damaging to me, I dislike when its existence is dismissed with "Oh, all girls are a little bit bi." I want to be like, "No, fuck you. Why don't you go stick your tongue down some other guy's throat for my amusement instead?"

People of course should do what they want. Just because the number of girls who are okay touching each other seems to be going up doesn't change what is true about myself. And of course nobody can make me do anything I don't want to do, no matter what their assumptions or expectations might be. But that double standard gets under my skin, and unfortunately even genuine things that seem to support it are going to get under there as well.

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.

Confronting No Makeup Week

There's a blogger by the name of Rabbit Write, known for exploring topics of gender and interpersonal relations. I don't often read Rabbit Write, but I have added her to my blogroll, as I am interested in those subjects as well. Recently she has put out a call to all women to stop wearing makeup for one week. Her intention in this is to challenge us to examine our relationship with cosmetics.

I don't wear makeup in my regular life. Never have, not a stitch. No powder, no shadow, no liner, no gloss. The only times I ever do are onstage and to go goth. I, then, will examine not why I wear makeup but rather why I do not wear makeup, because many of the same issues are at play.

I used to feel very virtuous and superior about it. I congratulated myself on being free of neurotic concern that I needed makeup to be attractive, that I did not succumb to society's insistence that women must falsify themselves in order to be acceptable. Like it made me more evolved and indepedent. Society has a conflicted view on makeup, and while I do think women are strongly encouraged to wear it so that they look the way they "should," at the same time there's also points awarded to the girl who looks great without it. I still can't help but roll my eyes at the "except" girls-- "Oh, I don't wear any makeup. Except foundation." "Except eyeliner." "Except lip gloss." Don't give me that. Either you get to wear makeup, or you get to claim the status of not needing it, you don't get to do both.

I have evolved in my perceptions since then. I can acknowledge that makeup has a use and a place, and is not inherently a sign of insecurity or of conforming to unfair external expectations. I will probably wear makeup to the next formal event I attend, if only as an acknowledgement of the formality. But still, I don't particularly like it, and for a number of reasons plan to continue my avoidance of it in all but the most specialized of situations.

There are practical objections to makeup, of course. That shit is expensive, especially the good stuff, and when I see the price tags firsthand I frequently am relieved that I don't need to buy the stuff more than once in a blue moon. Makeup is often very toxic, containing trace amounts of any number of unhealthy compounds like lead. And there's the whole feminist angle. Are we making women's bodies unacceptable when we decide they are better when they have a layer of paint on them that makes them conform more closely to a supposed beauty ideal? Are we telling ourselves that are faces are not good enough as they are and need to have redder lips, more defined eyes, and clearer, more even skin? And that leads to an even more basic ethical level where we come back to my age-old opponent, the temptation to place too much stock in the value of beauty. Does makeup encourage vanity and contribute to that notion that beauty is not just something nice, it's something IMPORTANT, and not just important, SO IMPORTANT that we have to do whatever it takes in order to have it, even if that means buying expensive toxic compounds to obscure your real face and make a better false one?

I consider these things. But the most personal level to me, tied up with the things I have the least personal resolution with. For me, it comes down to the fact that even now, I still cannot help but see makeup as "fake." If you find something beautiful about me, I want it to be real. Not something I had to put on, something that without I would not be as beautiful. It's the same reason I don't dye my hair or get extra piercings. I wear my hair in such a style that it looks just as good on me mussed from sleep or wind or activity as it does freshly done. I work to keep my figure in such a shape that I am just as proud of it bare as the day as I do when dressed in the most flattering clothes I own. And by that same token, I wear no makeup because I want you to know that this face is my face, no tricks, no deceptions. One of the most treasured compliments I have ever received was from Jared on one of the earliest occasions we'd slept in the same bed and woken up together. "Wow," he marveled. "You look just as good first thing in the morning as you do all the rest of the day."

And I do. I do wake up looking this good. This is me. Not my clothes, not my makeup, not anything I put on. I really am this beautiful. You could take me in front of everyone I know, strip me down, and blast me with a firehose, such that everything was taken away but me, and I would be ashamed of nothing.

In recent years I made a little joke, designed only to display my own self-confidence, but in practice carelessly cruel: "Makeup is for ugly girls." I would say it with a self-satisfied smile and an arrogant toss of my head, the intention being to say that of course someone as beautiful as me would never need such a thing. I didn't really mean it the rest of it, the implication that clearly there must be something lacking in you if you wore it. It was, like all too many of the things I do, all about me-- without considering that yes, I may be fortunate to look this good without it, but not everyone is so lucky.

And a lot of it is all accidental. Why do I like this natural beauty so much? I tend to prefer to be judged on my merits, and I must admit, my natural beauty doesn't have much to do with anything I do. Maybe I work out and take care of myself, but my good metabolism and pleasant features are things I was born with and had no control over or input upon. Do I really deserve validation for an accident of good fortune?

There is a likely evolutionary explanation. An attractive person is a person whose genes are desirable enough that you would like to combine your own with, as well as a person who is likely healthy enough to bear the offspring. If my beauty is natural, then you have a good basis off which to judge my suitability as a mate. If my beauty is not natural, then to a certain extent you have been tricked, and therefore thwarted in your biologically-driven attempt to find the most desirable genetic material.

Still, it isn't as if I can't relate to some of the things makeup is supposed to provide. Pleased as I am with my appearence, it most certainly isn't perfect. If nothing else, my skin has never been the greatest. I have had acne and blackheads to varying degrees of severity for pretty much all of college, and the tone is somewhat uneven. One of the major things I dislike about the way I appear in pictures is how greasy and blotchy my face appears, way more so than it does to me when I look in the mirror. Probably wouldn't turn out that way if I wore makeup. I certainly have admired in the past when friends more skilled in makeup wear it so well I can't tell whether or not they're wearing it all, like blendedchaitea*.

And it's not like I don't make any alterations to myself in the name of vanity. A different cosmetic choice I make is how I take something of a scorched earth approach to body hair-- get rid of it, all of it, by any means necessary. I am ruefully amused by the contrast sometimes, between my delicate, finely-shape figure and my bear-like level of body hair. So I get rid of it to suit my aesthetic. But that's not very natural, now, is it? "Taking away," I suppose, feels more real to me than "adding." Everything remains is still mine, still real. And for some reason, that matters to me.

Sometimes I do think makeup contributes to society placing too much emphasis on the importance of beauty. Sometimes I think that we'd be better off if we didn't feel like we needed it so much. But I also am fairly certain that my aversion to makeup is not me having any less of a connection to that over-valuing, it's that connection expressing itself in a different way-- perhaps in the way of the "have" versus the "have not." Maybe I should have a Makeup Week to see what the difference would be.

To England, Hamlet

Frances departs for England today. I will be taking her to the airport this evening, and we'll have dinner together before she departs. I made her a small token for her to take with her, a little gift I've had in mind for some time now. This will totally ruin the surprise is she sees this before I see her today, but whatever. It's a photo collage of her in my shows and me in hers around a shot of us together out of costume. It has her as Hamlet and Andromeda-- I love how different she looks between the two --and me as Cordelia and the Fool-- I love how different I look between the two --as well as us arm in arm in a picture taken right after Lear.

I learned so much about acting and directing from observing and working with her. Her method of acting was always so fascinating to me, and I think I learned my most valuable directing skill, that of deconstructing and quanitfying what an actor is doing onstage, in the process of trying to figure out what made her performances work and how she built them. When I directed her as Hamlet I fell in love with her physicality and wanted to use it to convey how strange, restless, and dangerous the character had become. She was so much more imposing and effective because of the way the character was invested in her body and in her every movement.

Since then I have worked to integrate her style into my own performances. She is such an expressive, wide-ranging physical actor extended by the fact that she is so strong and flexible, and by watching her I've learned a lot about how to bring my body into my acting. We were cast as twin brothers in A Comedy of Errors, so I did my best to sort of "match" her, be compatible with her portrayal if not necessarily imitate her. Since those were highly comedic characters, we just kind of went for the same sort of exaggerated, slightly spastic silliness, and I think it worked. In King Lear she cast me as the Fool, which is very clearly the Frances-type role in the show, and that time I pretty directly channeled her style. The Fool's strange body positions were directly inspired by her, and the ceaseless moving energy was extrapolated from there. This prepared me for playing Puck, easily my most physically demanding role to date, where I would have to move as inhumanly as possible and would achieve the best effect the stranger and more contorted I looked. Studying and working with her has taught me so much about physical acting, and I know I am way better at it now because I had the chance to learn from her.

Good social news

Have been very much enjoying having Frances around this week. I had a dinner for her on Friday night, which though it had some logistical issues turned out to be lovely. I served chicken in a pureed sauce of carrot, onion, cider, and heavy cream, and after dinner the conversation lasted well into the night. I do not often spend a lot of time in the company of other girls, and how much I enjoyed it this time makes me think that it is something I could stand to do more often. Also in Frances's honor I attended the Hold Thy Peace open mic night they had on Saturday. It was fun just doing some Shakespeare riffs with my fellow friends and actors-- I got to read Petrucchio to Steph's Katherine, for example, a role I've always thought would be fun. It's made me really happy to have had this time to spend with her. And hey, anything that makes me less of a hermit and keeps me from falling asleep at ten is okay in my book.

In other social news, Jared is coming in again this weekend! He had a couple of interviews arise, so on the plane he will hop. Sadly he will miss Frances by one day. :-( He plans on being at BSCF and hopes to see people, so I encourage you to come to gaming this week to hang out with us. I will have to plan other interesting things for us to do while he's here, but that's a good start.

Frances in town, and the perks of living alone

The much-missed crearespero* has graced us all with a visit this week, stopping by on her way to grad school in England. She will be staying with us at Elsinore for the next seven days. Despite the massive clamor for her company from the moment of her arrival, I was lucky enough to get to bring her to my rehearsal and then take her out to dinner afterward. I had a lovely time getting to hang out with her again, and I look forward to having this week with her around before she departs the country.

We had some really nice conversation last night. She mentioned that she will be having a flat all too herself, and after I got finished dying of jealousy, we talked a little bit about the various issues one encounters in living with other people. My living situation has been quite good lately, and let it be known how awesome I think my current roommates are. But still, in my ideal world, I think I would still choose living alone over living with roommates. Now that I live entirely with amicable people there are actually pleasant things about having others around at home, but a lot of things about my nature inclines me to desire a space which I am in complete control of where I can be totally alone.

My frequent but not constant tendency to withdraw into my own thoughts makes it so I require a lot of alone time, and I am always most comfortable in the space I call my own. I don't want to make people feel like they're ignored, uninteresting, or unwanted, but if they encounter me when I'm in introvert mode, I'm probably going to treat them like they are. It's not my intention, but that's kind of the message that "No desire to talk to or interact with you now," sends. And I really dislike being put in the position of not getting to have my introvert time just because I'm afraid of coming off as rude or of hurting feelings. Living alone means that there is always a way to be in my own space, where I am most comfortable and at ease, where there's no one else around.

Theoretically this can be dealt with by living with understanding people who get that just because you don't want to visit or hang right now doesn't mean you hate them. And in large part, at least in my current situation, it is. But even the whole "being alone together" thing is difficult for me, because I am always so acutely concerned with what the other person may observe.

See, most of the time I love having, and actively work to cultivate, a state of affairs where all eyes are frequently on me. Therein lies one of the chief reasons I keep a public, frequently updated Livejournal as opposed to a private diary, because I thrive on people's attention and interest. I'm sure even the little bug living under big rocks have noticed this. But I have a very definite idea of how I want to present myself in public, and at times that can take a lot of effort to maintain my preferred presentation. It's a bit complicated to describe exactly, but it's basically my way of appearing to and interacting with others to all the ends I find most valuable. We all have this to some degree or other, I believe, but I would think I'm a little more uncomfortable than most when mine is not what I would like it to be. I want, for example, to always be polite to people. That's something important to me. It can be tough to be polite, however, if you're tired, upset, or otherwise not feeling yourself. I have a rule that when I don't feel able to act like a person, I am not fit for the company of other people, and should therefore retreat to somewhere where I will not encounter them. There's a certain way you should act in front of company, and when you live with people, you always have some kind of company.

And of course there's some measure of vanity to it, as there is with everything in me. Though I am worlds better than about it than I was when I was in high school, I still dislike being seen when I'm sweating, bleeding, bloated, sick, or otherwise not appearing to my best. To this day, whenever I get a new zit, the first thought that crosses my mind is "Well, maybe I won't run into anyone I know today." And at any rate, I simply don't like having an audience for some of things I want to do that I worry may be perceived as weird or annoying. Having my own space means I have a place to hide when I'm not feeling up to being polite, engaging, interesting, and perfectly groomed. Again, I like to keep everything in order for when I have company.

I've had conversations with people about what it's like to feel invisible, which is something I've never really experienced and feel incredibly sorry for anyone for whom that's a common occurence. But even though I would never trade places with them, sometimes I wish invisibility was something I could turn on and off selectively. Because sometimes I don't have it in me to behave in the manner that I feel is appropriate for company. Sometimes I want to cram my hair into a squashy bun and sit around wrapped in a blanket and schlubby pajama pants. Sometimes I want to eat cake frosting with a spoon. Sometimes I want to watch endless hours of television I've seen a million times before. I have evolved enough to be comfortable talking about the fact that sometimes I do these things. But I still really don't like people being witness to when I do them.

Here go I with frivolous spending

So I've had this idea of purchasing a sideboard or a long thin side table for the living room for a while now, and last week it seemed like I had finally found something on Craigslist that fit my desires and budget. I found a very handsome dark-wood piece for just forty dollars and figured I'd lucked out. Unfortunately it turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought it would be, too big for what I wanted, and wouldn't have quite fit in my car anyway, so I regretfully passed on buying it. That left me with an extra forty dollars in my budget that I hadn't expected to have. So, of course, instead of saving it for rent or whatever, when I dropped off a couple of size-too-large sweaters at the thrift store, I allowed myself some time to browse to see if there was anything I liked.

I have to say, thrifting can be great when you're small. A lot of the time people who were small at some point don't stay small, so a lot of small clothes get donated, and of those people that used to be small, they were not usually small for long, so their small clothes tend to be less worn. An excellent example would be the really elegant pencil skirt I found. It's a dark green floral weave pattern on a black background, cut in the old-fashioned style all the way up to the true waist. Not as comfortable as hip-height, but very chic in a retro sort of way. And frankly if I were so much as an inch wider in the waist or even the hip, there would have been no chance of my fitting into it.

I've also had this bee in my bonnet about trying to incorporated dresses into my daily wardrobe, so I checked the dress racks as well. Of course I didn't find anything interesting that would be appropriate for day wear, but I did find a very sexy fancy black dress with an asymmetric hem and only one shoulder strap that fits me like a glove. I must find an excuse to wear this sometime soon. Amusingly, I chose it in part because it was a similar style and material to my beloved backless cocktail dress, and when I compared the two upon arriving home I realized it is the same brand.

The last thing I looked at were the sweaters. I'm interested in sweaters again as summer seems to have been blackbagged and kidnapped off somewhere already, and they're good for wearing to work. As I've said before, thrifting sweaters can be a tricky proposition, as they wear so badly that donated ones are often too stretched out to really look nice. But I actually got very lucky, finding an XS burgundy-purple Banana Republic v-neck made of merino wool. Merino is a lovely, maintainable material, and the cut was such that it would look equally nice worn alone, or with a collared blouse underneath it. Work-apparel score!

I had planned on the cavalcade of spending to end there, but not quite. Yesterday I went to Westborough to spend the evening hanging out with acousticshadow2*, and I got there crazy early because I misjudged how bad the traffic would be. We had a lovely time hanging out, hitting a coffee shop before having dinner at a place with the charmingly multicultural name of "Jose Murphy's," which offered a ten-cent taco night. It was a lot of fun, though I could have done without the rain driving down so hard that my windshield wipers literally could not work fast enough. But beforehand, while I waited for her to get off of work, I wandered around in some of the nearby stores in the plaza. One of which was a very interesting store filled up various kinds of unfinished pine furniture, and the second was a TJMaxx.

My mother tells me TJMaxx used to be a great place to find famous labels from last season at discounted prices, but in recent years department stores seem to mostly fill it with lower-end brands they couldn't get rid of in stores. Still, every now and then if you look carefully enough, you can find a gem. I found myself drawn to a display of lovely leather gloves in many interesting colors. I kind of wanted a bunch of the colors, because I like matching my gloves to my scarf when I'm bundled up against the cold, but I was drawn mostly, as usual, to the basic black. There was unfortunately no completely plain ones, which I would have preferred, but I did like the look of the ones with the slight gathering of material around the wrists. They were twenty dollars marked down from fifty, which for genuine leather with silk lining is not a bad deal. I really hadn't planned on buying anything else, but I've always wanted a pair of nice leather gloves, and I know I'll certainly wear them all winter. So in the end I went for it.

Though I'm not exactly thrilled at how easily the rarely-had extra cash slipped through my fingers, I am proud of myself for being able to find reasonably-priced items that please me, fit me, and will see actual use. So not a total loss, right?

"Merlin Feels At Home"

Got this picture sent to me by my dad last night, an art piece consisting of a photographic study of the sleeping family dog, which Dad has entitled "Merlin Feels At Home."



Note the dying-cockroach-esque pose, and the toy armadillo that he is apparently comfortable laying upon. :-)

Exit pursued by bear

So it seems I will be taking part in Winter's Tale after all. I had definitely decided not to audition when I saw how many people were on the sign up sheet. It would be much better for the club to try and include as many new people as possible, especially if there were a lot of new good actors. At first it seemed like Steph would have no trouble rounding out the cast with solid people, with a respectable numer of new recruits who seemed like decent people. But unfortunately one of the new guys, Dave, turned out to have a family obligation the same weekend as the performances, so he was unable to take the part. It's a real shame; the kid was talented and he seemed like a nice person too. It would have been good to have him as part of the club. At least he seems genuinely interested in taking part, which bodes well for future shows. He should be coming back out next semester, with any luck.

The upshot of this is that Steph asked me to fill in his role for him. Sorry as I am to see Dave go, I think I will enjoy being part of the show. The part I will be playing is Antigonus, the man who bravely steps up to take the rejected baby away, and meets him end by the wild things on the shores of Bohemia. I like the part too, small but interesting, with good business to do onstage and good interactions with other characters. I also get to act out the greatest stage direction in all of Shakespeare-- "exit pursued by bear." :-D