I've gone without posting for so long that I barely know what to say. And so, a list!

5 Things That Make Me Smile

1. DC! I love every part of this city, from its perpetually delayed red line to its time vortex of museums to the fact that it keeps offering me work.

2. The Avengers, which I HAVE NOT seen yet (but will hopefully manage on Friday). The buzz and the flailing on LJ/Twitter/Tumblr have made me oh so happy, even as I remain unspoiled for the actual movie. Pretty people. Pretty people being happy at each other!

3. The Unusuals; I inhaled all 10 eps of in a mere 2 days. It's not a perfect show by any means, but the chemistry between cast members is FANTASTIC. Jeremy Renner and Amber Tamblyn are awesome together, and it's always a pleasure to watch an actualfax platonic relationship develop. Both characters are imperfect but relentlessly good people, and I want to give them hugs and make them happy forever.

4. Closing a show last weekend, teching a show next weekend, and seeing as much theatre as I can manage in the intervening days. So far: 39 Steps. Plans to see Taming of the Shrew and maybe 1776 if I can manage it.

5. This song from The Guild, which I've been headbanging around my room to for the last 48 hours:


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My work contract is up in just a few days, which means my life is full of frantic packing (... or not. *shiftyeyes*) and saying goodbye to the people I've lived and worked with for the last 9 months. At the moment, I don't have either the brainpower or the emotional wherewithal to talk about the strange and constant "trust these people with your life and now NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN" whiplash that is theatrical employment, but my head is filled with it. My room is currently far less packed than it should be, and I have 4 shows in 2 days, which suggests that my suitcase will remain unpacked until Monday. Hooray for preparedness.

I did a spectacularly terrible job at sending holiday cards last year, and am planning to remedy that this year. Care for a card? Comments are screened, so drop your address below. I cannot guarantee cards containing traditional holiday sentiments, but I most definitely can promise cards that make you smile.

Relatedly, I'm having lots of fun with this:



The relevant details, from the intro post: this is a stocking-stuffer fest. If you’d like to participate, just copy the following code, drop it into a new comment and let your stocking be stuffed! Icons, mini-mixes, new LJ friends, a cover for you awesome story, a recipe for oreo truffles, whatever your mini-Christmas wishes are. My comment is here, if you're curious. Wandering through the comments is a delightful explosion of fic recs, recipes, knitting patterns, and gifs. And it's only Nov 26th!

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People of LJ/DW, I beg your brains! I need assistance with teevee-related decision making.

I miss consuming a multi-season narrative in giant bites. I had a few watching projects going, but kinda failed out of extended narrative for a while. Sure, I have the back half of the current Doctor Who season and various other things (like QI and Charlie Jade) to watch. But I want a new show, and I'm having trouble deciding what to watch.

I got partway through s2 of Supernatural before I stopped because it got too scary. Yes, I am a wimp. Suspense and a little bit of gore is all it takes to give me nightmares for a week. And my work is too stressful for me to lose an entire night's sleep. I really loved the stories with the Reaper, though. I much prefer godly forces to "help, I'm stuck in the crawl space of this hotel." If I can hop, skip, and jump my way past the cheap scares and go straight to the awesome epic stories, I'm all for it. Also, I kinda want to meet Cas.

I was about halfway though s3 of Smallville when life got busy, and I never picked it up again. No particular reason, just didn't get around to watching any more. In fact, I have a couple eps that I watched and wrote brain drool for, but waited to post until I had a whole block. The "I have a seeeeeeeeecret but I can't tell you" narrative got old three seasons ago, but I'm always in the mood for more Lex.

And I left poor Merlin back at the beginning of s2, preferring to coast along with just the fandom. I hear s4 is looking WAY up; thoughts?

Do I:
- pick up Smallville again
- give Supernatural another chance
- scrap both and watch [insert awesome show here]

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My day, in three moments:

1- The smaller theatre's show (we have 2 stages, one giant opera house and one proscenium) opened today. Hooray! But now there's a post Opening Night Party party happening in my house. There is music. And yelling. And board games. And jumping? [I don't begrudge the partying in general, and also I live with 13 people so noise is a constant, but GNARRRR.]
ETA: Now they're playing DJ Earworm, and I can't deny the power of awesome mashups.

2- I burned my hand earlier, and it hurts and is puffy. I burned it by TURNING ON THE TAP. Because our tap water, when given the chance to warm up, is juuuuuuust shy of boiling. I KID YOU NOT. Folks took measurements last year, and it clocked in a around 190 Fahrenheit (boiling is 212). My shower, naturally, remains room temperature.

3- My father is here! Well, not here here. But he's in the same state as me! Tomorrow, I shall take him to my favorite brunch place and 2 of the 3 places of business I frequent in this town. Within walking distance of me (ie, not across the scary, pedestrian-unfriendly swing bridge) there are 7 businesses where I can exchange money for goods or services. One of those is the theatre, 2 are restaurants. There's an ice cream shop, a post office, a cheese shop, and a clothing shop for wealthy, colorblind retirees.

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Watched two movies this past weekend, paired specifically because they both focus on a gay main character but are definitely not Issue Stories. I've had both I Love You Phillip Morris and Christopher and His Kind on my To Watch list for a while, and decided a double feature was in order. charloween helpfully pointed out that they're structurally similar and both based on true stories.

This is by no means a review; it's more a somewhat un-garbled collection of my thoughts.

Aaaaaaand posting now as our power has been flickering ominously. Hey there snow in October, how are you? (If you don't hear from me for a few days, I've probably turned into a slush monster.)

I Love You Phillip Morris: ( silly, abrasive, and frustrating )

Christopher and His Kind: ( pretty, subtle, and unexpectedly uplifting )

Time to stop writing things and make sure my electrical devices are charged. I don't expect the power to go out for more than a minute or two, but the ice covered leaves are apparently felling branches and trees all around and I'd rather have a full and charged Nook.

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I've said many times that the world of theatre (really, entertainment in general) is very strange. Our "normal" isn't.

For City of Angels, one of my responsibilities is the blood rig. A gun goes off, and there's a beautiful moment where one character stumbles backward and clutches her chest as a blood stain slowly appears then grows on her white dress. In order to make that awesome effect, we use a mechanical rig. In addition to getting the actress into the rig, I make the blood and clean the whole affair every show. (It's great fun; I love gore effects and volunteered be keeper as soon as I heard mention of the rig!) To fill the blood pack, I use a solution of Aged Reel Blood, water, dish soap (because we have to wash it out of clothes 8 times a week; liquid soap makes it washable AND thickens it), and a dash of green food coloring (for color, so the blood pops against her white dress even more). I mix up a few bottles of the stuff ever other week and fill the blood pack for every show. Neither process is particularly neat. In fact, I end up with blood all over my hands and arms if I'm not careful. Though it's washable, my skin absorbs die easily, so my fingers will remain stained pink until well after the show closes. The first time I made new blood, I sprayed too much water as I was cleaning, and ended up with what appeared to be arterial blood spatter across my face. Yaaaay gore!

A few days ago, I got out of the shower after using a new shampoo for the first time. Imagine my horror when I glanced down to see red blotches all the way up my arms. I had a moment of "OH NO HIVES!" followed by "Quick, rinse to get off whatever little bit of irritant is left!" in turn followed by "... oh. Blood stains. No need to panic." That definitely belongs on the list of Things Not Hear Outside the Entertainment Industry.

The baggies that hold the blood are actually shortened IV packs, since IV bags have this awesome self-healing gel that can be repeatedly pierced with a needle but won't leak. I also have a full-sized IV bag that I fill with warm water to clean the rig. The rig is electric, and the motor's got a good little buzz. So there's me at the sink with an IV bag full of warm water, a coil of medical tubing in my lap (warm with the water running through it), and a little motor buzzing happily.

Chances that a random bystander would see me and think I'm doing theatre things: slim.
Chances that same bystander would thing I'm doing porny, medical kinky things: VERY HIGH.

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I started an All Clear post this morning. The flood waters are down, the rain has stopped, the clean-up is mostly done. The rain this past weekend bumped the flood waters up again, so the dock was only 2 feet above the water level at low tide (usually it's about 6 feet above). But the parcking lot was dry.

When I got to the Opera House this afternoon, I found that the dock was underwater and the lower parking lot was flooded again. I laughed. What else could I do?

Everyone I interact with is exhausted as the end of our run creeps up. 2 weeks ago we had cancelled shows and hurricane crazyness. Last week we did 9 shows (one extra performance may not sound that bad, but trust me, IT IS): 2 on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday, 1 on Friday, 2 Saturday, and 2 Sunday. We have the same schedule this week. Next week is closing, so we have a wacky schedule. Instead of having both Monday and Tuesday off, we have a show on Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday, 1 on Friday, and our final two shows on Saturday. After the second show on Saturday, we'll start strike/changeover. Sunday will be a day off, which much sleeping and relaxing. Monday we'll prep the theatre for tech and Tuesday we start tech for City of Angels. We have our first paying audience the following Friday.

If that sounds exhausting and overwhelming, that's 'cause it is. The last week and a half sucked pretty much all the life out of me, so I'm running on giggles and little else now. Luckily, so is everyone else. The dressing room has been filled with lots of goofing off, levels of insanity not previously reached with this cast.

I'm typing in circles now, and it's past 2am, so here. Have some music. I've been listening to this song lots (and now the rest of the album, since my terrible internet connection and iTunes finally cooperated enough to let me buy it!). The Gotye love is longstanding, but Kimbra is new to me and she is fierce! Together, they make much awesome.



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I have not been swept away by winds or flood waters! There's no horrific damage in our area (that I've seen), but widespread mild to moderate damage. Lots of debris, some trees down, some significant flooding. We lost power around 6:30am on Sunday, and likely won't get it back for another few days. Since we're on well water, we also don't have that. No power is no fun, but 50+ people with no flush toilets is not so good. The theatre has installed us at a somewhat-local hotel.

I've done enough camping (and lived far enough from civilization that a squirrel sneezing on a power line means a power outage) that I can handle walking 7 minutes to the generator-powered Opera House to use the bathroom. I even got to shower this morning! I got reid of perishables in advance, and cooked food that I could eat cold, so I was doing ok there as well. I also crammed my Nook with books and fic, and was content to survive the week. But I am perhaps a bit more adaptable than some, in this respect. And so the theatre is putting us up in a place that doesn't smell of stale wee.

The fact that the entire town is without power means far less light pollution which means STARS! STARS FOREVER! Got to see Jupiter and the Milky Way last night, and is was magnificent.

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Earlier this week, we felt (well, lots of other people. I was out and about, and din't feel a thing) the East Coast earthquake.

We're also in the midst of bracing for angry Hurricane Irene to throw herself at us.

Yesterday, I saw a locust sitting on our screen. I looked at him (her?), he looked at me, and we both went our separate ways. Didn't think anything of it until someone made a "the world's ending! Signs of the apocalypse! Plagues!" sort of comment. Then I flailed QUITE A BIT.

Irene is still a few hours off. It's been grey, drizzly, and unbearably humid all day, but we got proper rain and our first big thunderclap around 11:30pm. I've charged and updated my Nook, located my flashlights, cooked/acquired non-perishable and cold-friends food, put up lots of water, and am as ready as I'll ever be. I now plan to sleep for a bit, then hopefully wake up to see the brunt of the storm. We're right on the CT river (the theatre butts up to the water, my house is less than half a mile away) so flooding is a pretty major concern.

Trees + wind + rain + river = a predicted mess.

Chances are pretty good that we'll lose power (though I expected it to be out already and we've still got active power, cell signal, AND internet--if you can call this crawly connection active). If that happens, I'll check in over here on the Twitters.

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This morning I bummed a ride into the only town nearby with a coffee shop and spend my early afternoon sitting in a window seat with coffee and Fly Trap by Frances Hardinge. 2 hours spent happily immersing myself in the world of Toll-by-Night with green-painted rebels and crotchety geese and hapless would-be kidnappers.

Then I climbed head first through a bedroom window in order to unlock a door.

And how way your morning?

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