Title:	Work for the downtime
Topics:	bah, burn notice, directing, gaming, hamlet, jared, larp, rpg, schedule, schoolwork, tabletop, theater
Author:	_dragonwolf_
Date:	2009-12-15 @ 12:46
Security:	public

Been feeling very off these past few days. Trying to relax and get centered again.

Jared is finally finished with all his work and feels pretty good about it, which is an enormous weight off my mind. Unfortunately for me, his finishing means he needs to go home now. I'll be taking him to the airport after work today, and he'll won't be back until January 17th. I'm kind of sorry that now that things have finally evened out we don't get to be together for a month, but we'll make the best of it like we always do.

I am resolving to try and not get so irritated about everything the way I have been lately. I feel like I'm turning into this seething mound of discontent that my friends soon won't want to be around. Also I've been clenching my teeth a lot, which is a combination of anger-stress and constantly being too cold. There's a habit I'd like to kick as quick as possible.

I want to use this month effectively. There will be a great deal less going on to which I have responsibilities. No Jared around means a lot more lonely time, but its one positive is that it frees up my timetable a lot more-- no driving him places, no running errands, no conforming to his schedule --so since my time will be entirely my own I want to utilize it efficiently. Interesting people do interesting things. These are mine. I tell myself that when I start to want to lock myself in my room and never have responsibilities ever again.

The major things I must do--
- Prepare for the next session of Burn Notice. We're restarting after a long hiatus, but I really want this game to keep going.
- Work on my six assigned characters for Labor Wars
- Block To Think of Nothing, and see if I can figure out how to schedule rehearsals in advance
- Get together applications for grad schools
- Finishing (finally!) the fucking Hamlet DVD

Title:	Brian brightens my day
Topics:	activities, bah, birthday, frances, humor, jared, steph, to think of nothing
Author:	_dragonwolf_
Date:	2009-12-14 @ 11:56
Security:	public

I was winding up for a really grouchy entry here, but I've been reading back entries of oakenguy's LiveJournal and he is so funny and interesting and awesome that my mood is greatly lifted. Thanks for being wonderful, Brian. :-)

This weekend was over before I even realized it began. Lots of rough stuff going on for Jared, and he needed a lot of help from me to get through it. I'm glad to help, and I think everything is handled and okay now, but I'm kinda burnt out. Also, I ended up having to see a lot more of Sara than I'd hoped I would. Honestly it wasn't that bad, she was fairly pleasant and I put forth my very best effort, but I had things I would have rather been doing with my time than have brunch with her and drive her places because she put zero planning into this trip. Honestly the only thing that really bugged me was the expectation of how much Jared would be available. No, Jared TOLD YOU he was not available to entertain because IT IS FINALS WEEK and he HAS FINALS. *Sigh* She ended up offering to make us dinner as thanks for our help, which was very nice of her, but necessitated I spend more time around her, and I couldn't refuse without looking like a jerk. Again, the evening was pleasant enough, but I don't want to spend that much time around a person whose primary effect on my life has been to make my boyfriend feel bad about himself. At least I got to take a break from it all and go with Steph to the Natick Mall, which turned out to be a lot of fun and a nice respite from my roles as "support system" and "ex wrangler." I may have to have dinner with Sara again tonight, but hey, it'll be a meal I don't have to pay for, and I can at least enjoy Jared's company and the fact that three years is a sufficient period of time to pass that I can exhibit normal girlfriend behaviors in front of his ex without hurting her feelings. (For those of you who react to this length of time with outrage, the last time I was actually in Sara's presence was over two years ago.)

Also, went to a lovely surprise birthday party for Frances the other day that was incredibly nice. Every time I talk to her I'm reminded of how I need to spend more time with her. It was just a lovely, nice, low-key evening with good friends, which I needed, and Jared too. Nearly the entire cast of To Think of Nothing was present, and it really warms my heart to see the evidence of how enthusiastic they are about this show. I'm so excited to get to work on it.

Focuson the positive, Phoebe. Like the show, and being with Jared, and the sheer unadulterated awesome that is oakenguy. That'll keep me from being the constant grouch I'm threatening to turn into.

Title:	Brooding
Topics:	c.s. lewis, love, musing, parents, right and wrong
Author:	_dragonwolf_
Date:	2009-12-14 @ 09:42
Security:	public

Throughout my childhood, my mother liked to use a particular quotation from The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically said by Aslan to Lucy about why she should forgive a treacherous friend of hers in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "She is weak, but she loves you."

Whenever I would get too furious or judgmental about someone in my life for not being as strong or as brave or as good as they should have been, my mom would say that. "She is weak, but she loves you." By this she meant be forgiving, because that person may not have much strength to draw on, but they do love you, and the goodness of loving and caring and meaning well indicates that there's something worthy of love about them.

I still remember all the times she said this to me, and it did make me think. But the older I get, the more and more my response becomes that there is a corollary-- "She is weak, but she loves you." "She loves you, but she is weak."

I don't know if that's right. But I'm coming to believe that if you love someone, you owe it to them to be strong. That doing the hard thing for them is part of loving.

Title:	Redemption in January
Topics:	gaming, larp, rpg
Author:	_dragonwolf_
Date:	2009-12-12 @ 15:45
Security:	public

I forgot to mention this here-- I signed up to play in Alison Schaeffer and Brian Richburg's larp, Redemption: High Noon at the Devil's Luck in January at Brandeis. Jared did as well. Anyone else going to be in it with us?

Title:	Weird stuff I'm thankful for
Topics:	happy, musing
Author:	_dragonwolf_
Date:	2009-12-12 @ 10:39
Security:	public

I'm thankful that I have all my arms and legs and hands and things, and that they all work right.

I'm thankful that I'm naturally pretty in the way I want to be, because you don't know how happy it makes me to be able to say that, yes, I do in fact look this good first thing in the morning.

I'm thankful my parents and nice and cool and understanding and not crazy.

I'm thankful that my friends like my cooking.

I'm thankful for Elsinore, which has many factors which drive me crazy, but where I also have my big bedroom for a santuary and a good location and enough space to entertain.

I'm thankful that my leather purse didn't get permanently discolored by the snow that got into it the other day.

I'm thankful that my health doesn't depend on any medications.

I'm thankful for how much of my favorite TV shows are accessible online these days, so I can watch them whatever I want.

I'm thankful that I don't have to spend money on makeup or alcohol because I don't like any of that stuff. Good thing, 'cause that shit is expensive.

I thankful for the fact that, even though sometimes the love in my life puts me through struggles, it stills means that I love and am very loved.

Title:	E-mail subject: "Comfort Food"
Topics:	cooking, food, parents
Author:	_dragonwolf_
Date:	2009-12-11 @ 19:56
Security:	public

An e-mail sent to me by my dad:

Tyler Florence Beef Brisket Au Jus, Parsnip Pureè, Balsalmic Roasted Onion, garnished with Watercress - Oh My Eaten in front of a blazing wood fire! Love U & wish U could have joined us! Mom is the best!

Title:	Post-Sleep No More
Topics:	dance, macbeth, performance, theater
Author:	_dragonwolf_
Date:	2009-12-11 @ 12:44
Security:	public

I wondered at the production of it; I wonder how they put it all together. There was so much precision timing involved, a need for characters to go from totally different places and activities to converging on a location in precisely the right moment to act out another scene together. And that venue, the abandoned school, was not small; they used four floors of it. I can't imagine what rehearsal must have been like. Or what directing it entailed. I guess they blocked it in pieces, though I suppose there was no way to see the finished product in its entirety.

I love the idea of it. It was basically silent actors going through a series of interlocking, highly stylized scenes in a cyclical pattern that roughly followed the story of Macbeth. The environment was enormous and detailed, and there was so many things to watch and see. The set dressing was gorgeous and so detailed, the way they constructed all the rooms to look like bedrooms, living rooms, gardens, the heath, a forest, a banquet hall. What effort, thought, and cost they must have put into it. I would have loved to have had the time to take a closer look at it all. I wished the lighting had been better, partially for this reason; I have practically no night vision, and I know it was supposed to be atmospheric, but I just couldn't see things well enough. I liked the masked element in theory-- it was really creepy to see lots of people standing around in faceless masks --but in practice it was kind of painful to wear over my glasses. Unfortunately typical. Ah, well. At least it made it easy to distinguish audience from performer.

( Random things I saw, cut for spoilers. )( Read more... )

I know Macbeth quite well-- been in it twice --and even I had a tough time sometimes figuring out what was supposed to be going on in the scenes. I enjoyed the puzzle, but i feel I got more out of the scenes whose story I grasped. I feel like I missed a lot, so I kind of wish there had been a way to know where to go so I could have seen more, but I enjoyed the wandering aspect of it. Each scene went through its cycle three times I think, which gave an interesting detached-from-reality feel, as if they were ghosts haunting the house. I kind of wish there had been a way to know where to go to see things, though.

Overall, a very enjoyable and fun experience, though I wish I had understood it better and it had been better-lit. Loved how detailed it was, and I'm glad that somebody was willing to go to all the time and effort to put something that complicated together.

Title:	Dinner for GURPS players
Topics:	bernie, cooking, food, friends, gaming, jared, matt, rpg, tabletop
Author:	_dragonwolf_
Date:	2009-12-10 @ 10:09
Security:	public

Feeling much better today. The lack of sliding on the road on the way to work this morning helped. Last night Jared and I were going to cook, but he also wanted to talk to his fellows involved in Matt's four-color supers game about his character, so we decided we'd have the GM and the other players over for dinner. I was in the mood to make a lot, so I did the Rachael Ray apricot and cippolini braised chicken, my mom's complicated wild rice dish, steamed broccoli, and a yellow cake, graciously frosted by Matt. Other than the cake being a bit dry-- I had one fewer egg than I needed, and I think I left it in the oven a bit long --it came out very nicely. The wild rice is pretty much the only rice dish my family makes (we're not really rice eaters) and I like it's because it's complex and sophisticated, but I'm always afraid that all the different flavors make it tough to gauge whether it will suit someone's tastes or not. There's mint, orange, scallion, toasted pecan, golden raisin-- I think it all goes very well together, giving it a nice fresh taste, but there's no accounting for what people like. Jared, for example, tends to be hot and cold on it, depending on how it goes with what it's being served with. Fortunately it went over pretty well last night, and I will have the leftovers for lunch today.

Talk over dinner ran very hard to GURPS in general and this game in particular, as it was designed to, which meant I didn't have much to add. But actually I was pleased by that; it was pleasant to let the conversation of my guests wash over me while I made myself comfortable and enjoyed my food and let my mind wander. For some reason I didn't have it in me to be terribly engaging or engaged, so just being present without having to be anything in particular was nice. I enjoyed the company, and being able to kind of be alone while in it. I know Jared definately was happy to spend the evening with friends and get to talk out what he was thinking for his character. And I like to think Bernie, after being trapped in his last for two or three days straight, appreciated the dinner and the chance to hang out with friends.