An opening, a big move, and life goes on.

Oi. What a summer! Okay, the quick lowdown:

I'm in a show! Come see it, please.

I'm makin' a movie! Well, a short, with Gina Robertson, who is a former teacher of mine and also a lovely friend. A whole bunch of folks from the old Northwest Actors Studio days are involved (Tim Brandt*, for one, who is like family), so it feels like a reunion. We are planning a fundraiser during October with a screening, hopefully, this December. More details on both to come.

I moved into Cooper Artist Housing! I live by myself (James and I are still together, but not living together for the moment) in a live/work artist studio above the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. I'm a Delridge Girl once again. My cat loves it, I loves it...what a beautiful decision. It was one of the other things that fell together for me this year. Not living in the basement of a Capitol Hill tenement can only be a good for my health.

I also have some (theater, feminist, experimental) stuff in the works with some girlfriends...watch this space. I'm so excited about it that I can barely breathe when I think on it.

I'm pregnant with a play. I can feel it kicking.

30 is a good year so far.


*Tim has become a really lovely actor. He was before, but he is coming into his own now.

And even more #theaterfail.

The Producing AD of American Stage Theater Company, Todd Olson, has issued a challenge to Mike Daisey: we broke it? You fix it.

How did he issue this challenge? In the most recent American Theatre.

Olson: You say the “dream” of theatre “is not quantifiable on any spreadsheet.” I say, “the hell it isn’t.” Artistic Directors have to do it every year.

Daisey: I know it is hard to hear, but if an artistic director has quantified the dream of theatre on a spreadsheet, they are dead already. I am sorry to tell you this, but it is true.

I've written about this a bit before. I've been on both sides here: Administrator and Artist. Olson really is brutal in this letter; according to his bio on the website he directs. Can you imagine being in a show with him? Ew. Well, I'm looking forward to Olson's response, if any is forthcoming. I doubt he expected Daisey to take the bait.

I'd like to point out that American Stage's website and promotional images are, in my professional opinion, terrible. The season's "posters" smack of the awful stereotype of tech-blind theater artists: they look as though someone gave a cheap (free) copy of a Photoshop-like program to an unpaid volunteer* who took a few pictures of actors that may or may not appear in the play (or, more likely, found open-source digital images) and made what any respectable marketing person would call a mock-up but in a "poor theater" is actually a real poster. God, I hope those aren't what go to the printers. And I could go on about the site itself. I want to throw Web Design for Dummies at it. It's ugly, inefficient, and boring: the Trifecta of Suck. One could theoretically find an intern that you don't pay in anything but theater tickets and beer who could do a better job, but I think that's not the point.

Everyone's got an idea on how to make theater better these days and no one agrees with anyone else. Right now I'm thinking of a conversation I had this week of one of the only friends I retained from the Stupid Theater Incident of my life. I told her about getting cast in a show** and her response was excited for me, but also boiled down to, "I'm not knocking it but I'm way too burnt out to even think about theater because theater is right now full of suck for me". And this was from a tough, smart woman who started her own darn theater because she was tired of how it was done. Ironically, the institution that we both survived -- were summarily drummed out of because we did not conform -- suffers from a radical case of just about everything Daisey claims is wrong with theater. The lovely lady in question has since moved to L.A. She is not the only refugee who left the state. Trust me, I've considered it.

For more fun, check out some of the responses on Daisey's blog and elsewhere:

I am becoming increasingly convinced that people in the theatre are not only completely lacking in critical thinking skills, but are barely literate at all.

That's completely true for me as well; said Stupid Theater currently features an AD who, literally, does not read the scripts he directs more than once. In fact, he doesn't always read them before including them in his seasons. The disrespect of that took my breath away. But I think this is an extreme example, though it's indicative of the kind of lazy behavior that certain theater professionals exhibit: to some, even when they work in theater, it's still seen as an "easy A", just like back in high school.*** The cognitive dissonance that this produces in the rest of us is mind-blowing and is the reason why I've been not working, not writing, not producing anything of artistic value for a year. I admit it: I can't handle working so hard as to literally break my health only to see ignorant asshats breezily producing 15-year-old plays that are already startlingly out-of-date to anyone paying attention (and therefore in my mind -- YMMV -- not currently worthy of reviving) because their wealthy, white, septuagenarian benefactors are comfortable with them. And will give them money if sufficiently impressed. And the cycle continues.

And this from a company that made its initial reputation not so long ago as an edgy, fringe-y, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants company plop in the middle of a major gay/counterculture-ish community. Three years to cultural irrelevance. I don't want to die that way.

I'm going to bed and pulling the covers over my head. Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day.


(Via.)

*Yes, Olson says that his admin staff are paid and I believe him. But obviously he needs to pay them less (or more) if this is the quality he's getting. You can have simple and inexpensive that looks classy, not cheap.

**Oh, yeah, and I'll be in that weird Macbeth. I'm a witch and I sing. Yeah. Don't ask.

***But not, right? Because they spend long hours building stuff and making money! They are above Reading for Comprehension, no matter how much time we spent studying for it in the WASL.

I don't know yet if this qualifies as FAIL or not...

So, there is a knit-centric superhero comic book now. I haven't read it yet.

I'm...not sure yet how I feel about this concept. There's a certain knitting sub-community that is heavy into, shall we say, classic geekery: sci-fi, comics, gaming, and the ilk. This makes sense to me: there is a substantial overlap in personality types and interests in both groups, characterized in particular by an interest in maths, upon which knitting relies heavily. Yet, unlike at least the surface of the geek community, the knit community is populated primarily by women.

I have, shall we say, a history with the geek community that's not always positive, although that's a story for another time. So it's safe to say that I'm ambivalent when I run across the ubiquitous knit and crochet patterns for dice bags and Cthulhu amigurumi. But knitting (and crochet, and spinning, and other "distaff arts") and the reclaimation thereof are a significant component of the Third Wave feminist movement*, so even if I don't flip over your felted 20-sider I'm glad that something that's still mostly for us girls is getting it's own geeky life independant of the boy's club that is geekdom.

Yet...knitting, as a comic?

From the website's FAQ:

There isn’t enough knitting!
There will be. Not everything gets into every issue of a comic book. Jen owns a yarn shop. Ana and Alex both knit.

But...see...one of the first thing you learn as a writer is that, to make a good story, you need some kind of conflict. And there's just not really conflict in knitting. Okay, yeah, Continental vs. English**, the drama of the dropped stitch, wool allergies...wait, no, still no conflict. I cheer when I see people on TV shows that I like knitting, but if they were just knitting that wouldn't be so fun to watch. Hell, James complains if I knit too much and don't spend time with him. And yarn shops? Some of them rival libraries for their quiet, contemplative atmosphere.

So I'm wondering how there could be "not enough knitting"? When I'm not sure that it's even going to work as an active force in a comic in the first place?

Well, when I can afford it, I think I have to check this out just to see how tricky these writers are. It's an interesting experiment, and I need to experience this Handknit Heroes*** thing before I can decide how I feel about it.


*This a subject that we're looking to explore on the podcast as part of geekery and women.

**My Pennsylvania Dutch granny knit Continental, and that floated down in our family to my mother and me, but not my un-ambidextrous, poorly-socialized, math-loving programmer sister who didn't learn as a kid and now knits English. Cause I know you were wondering.
***I am pretty sure already that I hate that name.

More on How Theater Failed America.

Remember this post?

Check this shit out.

Via.

Um...

...yeah, so, super-viruses. We has them.

Looking at my blog, I just realized that I was sick for over a month.

#healthfail

Long time no blog.

I know, I've been derelict: mea culpa.

First of all, James is fine. We were both pretty shook by the whole ordeal, but no one is dead, only two parts fell off the bike (which we retrieved, one from a nice homeless guy that James gave all his money* to) which starts. James himself had a badly-sprained hand and some scrapes and a rude** awakening. I had awful anxiety for the next few days and James had his first-ever panic attack. I should bake him a cake or something.

I actually got so anxious that my neck, shoulders, and upper back broke out in hives. No shit. They're fading now. Also, I've been fighting an eye infection. I'm not too worried; I used to get them all the time (stress! graduation!), so I can deal fine.

Since then, I have had a streak of good luck. Who knew?

Go Team Me:

I felt able to audition for the first time since That Whole Thing Where I Got Screwed Over by My Theater***. It was for a Macbeth and I have a callback tomorrow.

I got a commission through Etsy. The client is awesome and will give me dollars. In return I will give her hours of my time spent poring over yarn and button samples. Oh, and knitting. Can't forget the knitting.

I got blogged about re: Etsy and how awesome I am and why haven't you bought something from me? Just kidding. I know that only dudes read my blog. Not that I couldn't make you something nice too, you know.

Kidding!

I actually got a freakin' interview for a day gig. An e-mail interview, but "there's a good chance for a fit". And they wanted writing samples (copy and client communication stuff). This was my first interview, literally, since the last time that I needed to interview for a job that I got, which was...oh...three years ago? And since December I've sent out my resume out dozens of times. Lordy, lordy.

In other creative news that may or may not happen:

I'm thinking of writing a novel. Hm.

[Male friend's name redacted] and I are seriously considering a podcast. Hey, we're both smart, we're both wonks/geeks, we're both kind of cranks (him more than me), and we both think that we could do it better. Some of the topics we're considering: geekery& women (so...much...material...), geekery and knitters (I'm also forming a blog on this!), Israel and the Middle East in general (yeah, we'll narrow that down for you), and fact that BSG is clearly a product of the Bush era while Babylon 5 is clearly a product of the Clinton era****. Oh, and [redacted]'s name is redacted because he doesn't want to use his real name, for various reasons. If you know me well, you probably know him, too, or could at least hazard a guess. He does not, for some reason, read my blog (and/or keeps forgetting that it exists), so it's probably not you.


*A dollar.

**Read: terrifying.

***There may be an satisfying coda to this in the next year or so. That's all I can really say right now. No, I am not going to blow up the theater, even though I have thought about it. Repeatedly.

****This is a real coversation that [redacted] and I have had, which may, in fact, count as the nerdiest thing I have ever in my life considered in this here my brain. Additionally, please do not talk to me about the series finale of BSG. I have not yet seen it for reasons and reasons and don't want it ruined for me any more than it already has been by virtue of spoiler-ish posting on Facebook. Curse you all.

"A man is like a deck of cards..."

"...sometimes you get a King, but most of the time they're all Jacks."

James crashed his bike about two hours ago.

Let's start with this: he's fine. Mostly. There's probably nothing broken.

It's his own fault, but that doesn't make me feel any better. He was drinking at his usual, the Twilight, and he rode home, not following the adage "two wheels, two drinks". At some point on Westlake (not far from our place, about a five minute drive away) he got confused by a car driving too close to him, took a turn wrong, and hit a road divider going about 40-50 mph. He flew about 25 feet, so we're lucky that he just had a sprained wrist and a few scrapes. And then he rode home. I got out of a late-night bath to find him wandering around our kitchen with fat, bleeding lips, so I cleaned him up and put him to bed, over his protests that he wasn't good enough for me -- which are usual when he's drunk, now even more so. He's just in a lot of pain* (and minor shock) now but resting.

I'm surprised by how freaked out I am. Also tired and hungry.

Probably more later.


*And he's in bed moaning, so I'm trying to decide if I go to bed or sleep out here on the couch. Both have tactical advantages.

Fun with dressing warmly.

So, James' bike (casually called Motopsychobaik, a name coined by my lisping toddler nephew) is up and running again, so we took it to Ballard to grab pho at Than Bros. Wheeee! ...it's still pretty cold out.

Also, my plans to get more items up on Etsy have failed, possibly for this weekend. I forgot to turn off James' camera last time I uploaded anything, so the battery ran down. Poop. And I have so much to do!

Death Virus 2009 (Spring Edition)

So...I still suffer from the death virus, which means nothing much has been happening. I'm stuck at home and I'm even beginning to be bored by the internet. It palls after, say, two weeks. Or less.

In good, non-sicky related news, I made some more stuff for Etsy and I'm hoping to get out and do a photo shoot this weekend, if the lovely, lovely sun holds and doesn't turn back into the freak snow we got night before last. Seriously, Winter, what the crap? Anyway, it's not knitted. And I love it so much that I wanna keep one or two pieces for me! Which I think is a good sign. :) Oh, and I wanna get my men's vintage pieces up, too.

James is wanting to get in on the Etsy action with his art pics now. I think we're going to put our heads together over that tomorrow. Oh! And I bought seeds (40% off Lilly Miller Organic seed packets at Fred Meyer yesterday!) and starters so that we can start our garden! I love spending time with this man. Plus he's getting me back into playing music, which has been really good for me since I'm so disgusted with Seattle theater politics anymore.

I may also be doing this awesome project. It looks pretty exciting, and I can see how it will be good preparation for the extended version of Hungry Ghosts (which I've given myself a two-year timeline on). I think it'll be a great way for me to stretch my wings and stuff. And I miss collaborating.

Oh, and...

...James takes all my Etsy pictures. It's handy having an art photographer in the house!

Sicky.

All quiet on my front...because James gave me some flu-like disease. Possibly the flu.

I have major cabin fever to go with my high-temperature-type fever, so I've been on the internetz a bunch, pimping my Etsy page. In the last two days I've been featured in two "Treasuries", which are a big way that you get noticed by other sellers and buyers on Etsy.

The links only stay up for a few days, but the first one is about natural, green items and the second is because I'm a good writer (no, really!). Anyway, that's been the highlight of my week on the couch.

Stupid Courage Campaign made me smear my eyeliner.

This made me cry, just like Kate Harding and all the other trendy feminist bloggers.


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Out of pills!

Well, I ran out of bupropion and don't immediately have the cash dollars to refill it my prescription...so if I'm not so communicative over the next few days, or refuse to get out of bed no matter what...well, it's just the faulty neurotransmitters talking.

CPSIA Update: someone out there paid attention!

So! A little while ago I posted about the CPSIA. Just thought that you'd all like to know what's the what on that one:

As you may be aware, beginning next month many of America’s small and home businesses will be forced to radically alter their practices and products as prescribed by the burdensome Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). This bill mandates stringent and overreaching federal standards, under the guise of safety requirements that will unfortunately threaten the well-being and further livelihood of thousands of America’s workers and their families. It was my position when the bill was being debated on the Senate floor, as it remains today, that this bill could have -- and should have -- better balanced the need for safety with a common-sense business approach.

You can read the rest on Senator DeMint's blog.

Via The Storque.

My tummy feels funny.

So I joined Facebook after meaning to for pretty much ever. I mean, MySpace's code is awful, it's ugly and distracting, and all my "grown-up friends" are on FB. Anyway, Jinny "invited" me so I did.

Now it's setting off some disturbing social anxiety. Usually the only people who know where I am and what's up with me are James, Ian, and maybe my sister. Those are the only people that I've been communicating with on a regular basis.

Now I have coffee dates with a few dear friends who I haven't seen in a long time, so, no regrets. Just tummy rumblins and adrenal surges.

Much better!

The heat is back on now. I am warm except for my feet.

I. Hate. Being. Cold.

There is no heat at our house right now.

I want to go take a walk, but I can't, because I'm waiting for the guy to come make heat happen again. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on a heating pad and my fingers are seizing up from the cold and trying to knit, embroider, or write in the cold.

Me = miserable.

Oh, the cognitive dissonance of it all.

Anyway, I've been trying to lose weight lately. It seems that I've been successful: I've lost about 6 pounds in a month (plus a little more before I actually decided to start losing weight), which is a healthy rate. Now, I knew that BMI (Body Mass Index) was dumb: I have been in my life very muscular (though less so now), so it's never applied to me. I've mostly ignored it. I'm at just over BMI 27 at the moment (5'4"+ and about 158 lbs) ; the cutoff for women going from "normal" to "overweight" is 24 or 25, I think. So, I'm overweight.

The current thinking in the health community has more to do with hip-to-waist ratio for health. Mine is 0.73, as my waist is 30" and my hips are (dear me, it sounds awful, but I know that it's just my bone structure, I've never been less than 39"-40") is 41". Normal for women is under 0.86. So, I'm quite healthy. Um...

My hips (41") measure an American size* 12/14, my waist (30") a size 8/10, and my bust (36") a size 6/8. Huh?

I'm taller than average (though just barely) but "petite" dresses fit me better, because they're short in the waist, like me. Hmm.

And now I just read that the average American woman is something like 163 lbs. (more than me? but just barely...) with a waist of over 33" (also more than me? by kind of a bit!). What?

Add to all this my extreme body dysmorphia: to myself, I look exactly the same when I'm 115 lbs and 190 lbs. I can only tell when I gain/lose weight by how my clothing fits, but I always look chubby to me, whether I am or not. Sigh.

I have no idea what's going on anymore.



*Or more, or less, depending on the designer/brand.

Kntting stuff.

I kind of hate knitting blogs. There are so many of them and those who follow them, while typically very nice people, can be utterly rabid about collecting each and every one of them. That being said, I do sometimes post stuff about knitting here.




...aaaaand if anyone wants to get me a birthday present, try this.

Dept. of Inconvenience.

My hard drive died a horrible death yesterday morning, making a sound no hard drive should ever make. I woke up, tried to boot up my machine, and waited. And waited. And finally got an error message: one of the .sys files (which turned out to be a HD driver) was "damaged" and needed to be repaired with the XP setup disc. Fine, except my computer is a custom box that Devon built me for a Christmas present a year ago or so, which means that I don't have a copy of XP. My brother-in-law does, and Ian has a ghetto hacked XP disc (for instance, one can install Windows sans IE if one so chooses...), so my sister and Ian came over and we (mostly Ian) fiddled with the machine for a bit.

After several hours of inspection by Ian, my sister, and myself, we pronounced it DOA. I had feared that James, mystifyed by techmology, had accidentally given my computer the flu...but, actually, my hard drive is just dead of a hardware issue. Kaput. Oh well.

So now I'm on a backup machine; being my father's daughter (and the only one in the family besides my mom that doesn't code) I have three other working computers in the house. This is the one that my bro-in-law gave me that I was going to set up as James' school computer...for now, it will have to be the house CPU.

What this ultimately means is that I may have lost ALL of my notes for the new project for which I am writing a grant. Shit. Ian is going to perform some rudimentary forensics to attempt to recover the files, but they are very likely lost.

Again, blerg.

At least this time it's not about me.

Today I didn't leave the house because:

Climate change is irreversible.

Jobs are dying.

Arts funding is dying.*

...and I think I might have caught a cold from James' mom.


*Sorry; I'm too depressed to link anything. You can use Google. Do it yourself.

My work space.

James pointed out that the area surrounding my computer contained, at some point the other night, rice cakes, Midol, and Hennessy VSOP.

This is a fairly accurate assessment of my current mental state.

Update: for the record, it is a (nearly) full bottle of Hennessy and the rice cakes are caramel flavored.

Speaking of arts funding...

...I'm applying for a grant.

I've been a collaborator on grant proposals and non-profit business plans before, but never one for just me. And I've never written a budget all by myself before. I'm feeling a little conflicted about it.

On the one hand, I need just this kind of kick in the pants to get me rolling again, so I see this is an excellent opportunity, even if I do not get awarded.

On the other hand, if I were on a grant panel and I read my biography and resume, I'm not sure that I would think that I could be trusted with the on-average award of 6,000+ American dollars*. But that's probably the currently less-than-stellar self-esteem talking.

Blerg.

*At the moment, this seems like a legendary and unheard of sum to be in my possession. Do these people run a credit check or something? After all, I might foollishly spend it on overdue hospital bills. And it still would not be enough to cover them all.

Depts. of Awesome, Arts.

Two notes here.

First, lets play with dolls!

Second, Quincy Jones and others are lobbying (apparently Mr. Jones is "begging") for the instatement of a cabinet position for the arts. There's a petition that you can sign here.

*drags over soapbox, stands upon it*

Ahem.

Arts funding is good for the economy, period. It reflects and improves upon the fields of education and health, and the arts are the ultimate expression of any culture. The majority of other developed, first-world nations (EU, I'm lookin' in your direction...) have Ministers of Culture, etc. to advise their leaders. Therefore, it stands to reason that if we want, as a nation, to be taken seriously as having anything other than a culture of warmongering and conspicuous consumption, this is a critical post.

Art is not a luxury. It is an imperitive. In the deadliest of wars, the most oppressive of regimes, during times of the greatest peril, there is art. If we are truly a world leader, how could we ignore this very human need, perhaps the most basic non-biological imperitive we endure?

*decend, remove soapbox*

Via Slog.

PS: In other Obama news, check out the new link: Obameter! Not so shabby for your first couple days, Sir...

Mood.

This post pretty much summed up my feelings re: the Obama Administration:

Things will piss me off about Obama, I'm sure, and some things will elate me: but the baseline is changed from pissed off to happy, and that's a huge shift.

Via Slog.

"Pop".

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I'm sure he's unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he's still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He's so unhappy, to which he replies . . .
But I don't care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I've been saving; I'm laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I've got on mine and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; 'cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop's black-framed glasses
And know he's laughing too.


By Barack Obama, age 19.

*****

Oh, but he's not really the president.

Who the hell is Barry Soetoro anyway?

Oh, well.

Via Slog, HuffPost.

Obama is beautiful world.

That was satisfying. I wish Lowery could have given the invocation as well...but, no matter. It's done. Let's all hug and get along.

In that spirit, I now present the yellow getting mellow:

Most relaxing game ever.

Wow. This has gotten about a million good reviews. And I could listen to the soundtrack for pretty much ever.

You should download it. If I had the money, I would buy the full version right now.

Enjoy the video. Check out the blog for a Wall-E solution!



Update: Take a look at the other games this guy does, too. The names alone are worth it.

Tomorrow belongs to them.

Okay, I'm a bleeding heart. Everyone should love one another. So I was on the hand-holding bandwagon of Inaugural speakers until this:



The sun on the meadow is summery warm
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me

The branch on the linden is leafy and green
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea (Gold to the sea)
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen
Tomorrow belongs to me

Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee
But soon says the whisper, arise, arise
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

Via Huffington Post.

January is Personal Insomnia Month.

Although I find that I can't get enough sleep in December no matter what I do, as soon as it hits January (or perhaps the solstice? do I register the light change that much?) I become nearly incapable of sleep. I haven't been able to fall asleep before 4am for a few days, even when I get lots of exercise.

Speaking of which, I'm on a diet. Not just the thing where I avoid gluten and soy because I have to, but an actual count-yer-calories diet. I have gained 30+ pounds since spring. Sometime in fall I lost maybe 5 or so...but since I can't fit into most of my clothes, it is high time I did something about it!

Counting things brings out my lighter OCD tendancies anyway. James told me that I was being "manic", writing down every single thing. Whatever. He's gained weight, too, but since he's more of a gym guy, he doesn't quite get it.

I don't understand why one would need a gym in Seattle when we have all these incredibly steep hills. That's been my exercise: walking up and down the backside of Queen Anne hill, which hits aerobic and anaerobic exercise. The image above is one of the conservative grades up to QA. I live on the back side from downtown, which is really steep.

I'm a little too tired to report much else, maybe later in the day.

Drunk James and the tree.

Here's the "after" picture of the ritually-sacrificed Xmas tree.

Yeah, but still.

Not much going on today. I am too lazy or too depressed or too unfocused to upload the picture of the gloves, although I did discover the difficulty inherent in a right-hand-dominant person taking a picture of a glove that in on one's own right hand.

My insomnia seems to peak during one of two times of the year. I think we're in that time now. Twice this week I have laid down to sleep and gotten up 45 minutes or so later. Last night I got to sleep on my second try, around 4:30am.

I have been writing some during these times, though. I've barely been able to put a sentence together in the last year but I've written a few pages of dialogue and notes and such. I have a couple things gestating; it's been too full of a year to be able to process much until now.

I think that I also, for the most part, hate theater people. This might be (probably is) nasty emotional detritus left over from this spring, but still*. Mr. ARS once told me that, in his opinion, I wasn't an actor at all, but a writer. Keep in mind that he never saw me act, although he had a great deal of respect for me as a writer if not as an actor (or a person). Anyway, I have an awful fear that, ultimately, this will prove true, and I am sick with the notion that I will never perform again. However, I have been toying with the idea that, maybe, I'm a solo artist, and that's all it is. I don't play well with others**. Not that I'm an utter social maladroit. Merely a partial one.

Or I could just be in a complete funk (read: depressed) on account of the recent bout with not leaving the house, which in turn is on account of the high winds and flooding rains of the past two days. It's dark all the time.

But I did get paid! I did a nice custom order for a lady in Chicago: an over-elbow pair of fingerless gauntlets (hand-dyed, fair-trade Suri alpaca, vintage buttons and ribbon) for her 22-year-old daughter's Hanukkah and received her check and thank-you note today. She purposefully overpaid me, as well. That made me feel a hell of a lot better; apparently I am not yet completely worthless in the eyes of American capitalism!

Man, I gotta ease up on myself.


*James maintains that "yeah, but still" is the ultimate end to an unwinnable argument, the final, desperate gambit when you know you have been proved wrong but are just too contrary to admit it. It is a common phrase in our household.

**This is an awful pun. I'm sorry. Completely unintentional.

Oh, fiddlesticks.

I have no idea what some of the links on this blog go to.

Has it been so long?

Can't remember a thing.

I need some...ginkgo...or something...

Arson, gussets, and my boyfriend, the Luddite.

James and I had our first Xmas tree. Naturally, since it was our first Xmas together! Yay team us!



We got it at the Market; tiny, tiny tree! About 4 ft. tall, and we carried it home on the bus.

And, in what is sure to be an annual tradition, we burnt it after New Year's Day.

I wish that I had been less panicked when it went up because I would have loved to capture on film the twelve-foot flames that shot up when James lit a Lysol plume into the dry branches. However, panic we both did; I screamed, "Put it out! Use this!"

Fifteen minutes before the ceremonial burning commenced James had found an old fire extinguisher under the kitchen sink. I assumed that it wasn't good any more (they go bad, right?) and discounted it. But James, investigating it for the (missing, as we will discover presently) safety pin, accidentally shot the extinguisher off straight at the window. Our kitchen suddenly exploded in sweet and slightly carcinogenic-smelling white powder.

I mentioned he was drunk, yes? No?

So it was the (now confirmed) fire extinguisher that I rushed out the kitchen door to James, which he used with drunken gusto. Darby, our next-door neighbor, walked by on the street, twenty feet away.

"You guys need some help there?"

"Uh, no...we're good. We're fine."

Humans fear fire. I don't know if he and his girlfriend will come over to drink with us again.

Anticipating calamity (and rightly so), James and I had prepared a couple pots of water on the kitchen counter. We doused the remaining flames and vowed to do this stupid, not smart, very bad thing again next year. A new tradition born!

James cleaned the kitchen, too, apologizing profusely. He then told me that the same thing had happened years ago with his father (who looks and sounds like Fat Elvis), right in front of him. But with a gun.

I told him that I didn't want guns in my house. Funny, I never had a problem with them before.

So that was my Monday.

In less flammable news, today (Wednesday!) I taught myself how to knit thumb gussets! For non-sartorialists, that's the fancy term for the widening of a glove in preparation for the thumb part. It was so easy that I don't know why I never did it before. Anyway, I now can make actual fingerless gloves instead of just tubes with holes in them for your thumbs, which are dumb and don't keep you warm. For some reason when I wear "gloves" like that, it seems like 99% of the heat I lose through my hands is through my thumbs. Anyways, this first pair is blocking right now; I'll post a picture of them tomorrow as long as I remember to.

Finally, this evening (while sitting on the couch finishing the gloves) I taught James what the Refresh button on a web browser is used for.

"It's that thing with the two circling arrows*. Next to the red X, that's the Stop button. No, where the browser buttons are. Where the back arrow is. It's between the Home, the picture of the house, and the red X. Okay, you got it. Good."

I've never had to be the techie one before.

*On IE. I'm having download problems and can't get Firefox on my laptop. Probably because the laptop is so old that it predates the written language.

Had myself a merry little X-mas.

The Great Storm of 2008 has now passed, as has 2008. The snow is gone and we've emerged from our holes, blinking in the sunlight, to return to work.

Most of us.

I'm taking some time off. From working, from my day gig, which has been at the Pike Place Market since April. I've really enjoyed it, but the first day that the snow came the buses from my house stopped running I was overwhelmed by relief that I didn't have to go in.

So I never went back. I didn't burn any bridges, I have a lovely mom-like boss who is very understanding (and saw it coming), so I'm okay.

This has been a long time coming. I'm tired, I need the breathing room, and I think I finally learned this year just how bad the SAD componant of my health is. Being outside when things are getting dark, not enough light...yuck. I was coming home in tears since October. I actually really enjoyed the snow: it reflected light into our windows and made everything seem so much more cheerful. I miss it...but I don't miss the fact that the entire city stopped working for two weeks.

However, the reason that I can do this is because of my amazing partner, James. We're living together in Fremont. It's not exactly the neighborhood that we want to be in, but we both love the place itself. Neither of us has ever really been homebodies, but it's easy to enjoy our house now. I feel safe to balance my medication and get my life back together now.

Also, we're online now! So being in contact with life will be a little easier for me.

More later...now that I can!