« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »

October 31, 2007

What the Hell Do I Think I Am Doing?

Sitting here, waiting for the clock to tick over to 12:00:01. I'm not sure I'm going to last another 2 minutes like I need to. At least I got a bunch of grading done while I was waiting.

I don't really know what's going to come out of my fingers as I type tonight. Because the story keeps wanting to show up full blown, I've been REEELY nervous about even thinking about it. And now it's almost time to start.

45 seconds left.

Tick. Tick. Tic. (Sorry, that last one was me.)

Okay. I'm going to spend the final :30 publishing this and opening a Brand New Word Doc.

See you on the other side.

**Update** 12:13am

325 words and all of them suck. I had a brilliant idea this morning on the drive to work and of course I suppressed it all day. Now? It sucks. I'll write a new beginning to chapter one tomorrow. After I've had some sleep. Right now? I'm too tired to care.

Much.

Posted by sally at 11:57 PM

On Not Sleeping

You know how sometimes you do something, even though you know it's a bad idea, and even the knowledge that it's a bad idea somehow feeds the whole need to do whatever it is?

I'm having this issue with staying up past midnight. I need to not do it. I need to get up in the morning. I need to get eight hours of sleep in order to stay healthy. And yet, every night I do something mindless & boring until well-past 11 and then I climb into bed and do puzzles until almost 1am. Sometimes I'm so tired I fall asleep sitting up, yet still I feel this compulsion to stay awake.

I have no idea why I feel this need so strongly. I mean, nothing happens in our house after about 10:30pm. Nothing. Except snoring. Or the quiet turning of a page. Or frantic typing from Dave's office as he tries for the third year in a row to successfully balance full-time job and full-time graduate school. (So far, he's still sane and relatively cheerful, so I'm going to assume he's still succeeding.) So I'm not going to miss anything if I go to bed and sleep.

(Moscow's not exactly a hotbed of late night activity either, given that the only two places you can eat out after 10pm are Applebees and the hot dog stand on the corner of 6th & Main. The bars are open, but I wouldn't suggest they're hopping. At least, not on a Monday night.)

And it's not that I can't sleep. It's not like it was a couple of years ago when I was so wound up and so stressed that I couldn't actually sleep and would stay awake and try to will myself to unconsciousness. When I finally did drift off, it was only for a little while. I would wake up a couple of hours later, wide awake in the wee hours, often falling asleep again about 20 minutes before my alarm went off.

This is not like that. This is just me not wanting to go to bed, not wanting to lie down and sleep. I'm guessing I need to just make myself go to bed early, but I wish I wasn't having to deal with it at all.

Of course, tonight I can't go to bed early. Tonight is the night NaNoWriMo begins, and I have to start writing. Maybe a nap... Though I must admit, I'm even worse at naps than I am at going to bed. It's all about guilt. Sleeping in the middle of the day when I could be doing something Important. My brain just gets all uptight about napping, and even if I'm about to fall over from exhaustion, I will still lie in bed and stare at the ceiling instead of actually taking a snooze. Maybe the trick is to not go to bed for a nap, but to catch 20 on the couch instead. I'm fairly decent at the sneaky couch nap. I think I may try that this afternoon.

Posted by sally at 08:16 AM

October 29, 2007

In a Slightly Better Mood

Mostly because I'm getting some rest and today wasn't too work-y. As in, I "taught", but my TA taught one class for me. All I needed to do was attend. It was really cool. A lecture on zines because that's the final project of the semester.

So now it's catching up and buckling down and getting ready for NaNoWriMo. I adopted two lovely women who are newbies this year. It's a lot of fun to introduce them to the process.

I should be grading. I should be doing art. I should be cleaning off my desk.

Right.

Nothing happened. I just stayed in the chair. Unfortunately, nothing much happened to me today either (preferable), so at this moment I'm not just wasting my time as I blather on, I'm wasting yours.

Okay. Time to pull out the heavy weapons. I have a joke for you. A very stupid joke, but one I find hilarious. I have bothered everybody within earshot with this joke since I first learned it last week. It's your turn.

Q. Why does a chicken coop have two doors?

A. Because if it had four doors it would be a chicken sedan.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Damn, I love that joke. It makes me laugh out loud every time I tell it.

Okay. I'm gonna do me some gradin' now.

Posted by sally at 06:21 PM

October 28, 2007

A List of People I Would Like to Kick in the Teeth

1) The person who nodded and smiled and seemed to be enjoying our conversation who then turned around and posted in her blog about how little I know about a given topic. Rather than listening to me, as I thought she was, she assumed that because I am an actor, I am stupid. (I know she didn't listen because what she said about the discussion made it quite clear that she'd missed my main point. And I know she thought I was stupid because she more or less said that as well. Sweetie? I can follow a hyperlink with the best of them.) I got an A in Jazz History. And I am not a musician. I am not stupid.

2) The student I saw walking down the street in costume the other night. Honey, I don't need to see your bare ass. In October. When it's below freezing. And it was pretty clear you don't usually wear heels that tall. I'm assuming your costume was "Skanky the Pirate Ho" because that's what you looked like. Have some self-respect. Or don't take it personally when guys assume you're just a piece of ass; that's how you presented yourself. Don't get me wrong, if you're in it for the quick and dirty, more power to you, may you get what you want. But you seemed to be much more the, "I'm looking for Prince Charming" type. You're not going to find him while you're dressed like that.

3) The person who wrote and sent an anonymous letter that destroyed a friend's life recently. You? I don't want to just kick you in the teeth. I want to slap you around a bunch. Hard. Real people were hurt by your actions. Real people who didn't deserve to be hurt like that. You are among the lowest of the low.

4) The skateboarder dressed all in black who was riding down the middle of the road in the dark. I saw you because my headlights reflected off the nape of your neck. Which you then very stupidly covered with a black hood once you realized there was a car behind you. Were you hoping to get hit?

5) The U.S. Senator from our great state who has managed to make us even more of a laughingstock than we usually are. Thank you so very much, sir. You have no idea how very much I enjoy knowing that you love the power so much that you won't keep your promises. You've lost your seniority. You've lost your appeal. You've lost the respect of many, many people, both here in Idaho and around the U.S. RESIGN ALREADY. Like you said you would.

6) The Slowest. Cashier. In. The. World. I am now convinced that you secretly move to the register for whatever line I am standing in. It can't possibly be me. Not Every. Single. Time. I go to the store. What did I ever do to you?

And I think that about covers it. For now.

Posted by sally at 06:56 PM | Comments (2)

October 24, 2007

Would You Like Some Cheese...

...with that wine?

As a matter of fact, I would.

I'm sitting here with my laptop and a glass of Killer Red Shiraz. Some cheese and crackers would be just the thing. If I wasn't allergic to dairy products, that is...

And by the way, how the hell did it get to be Wednesday already? I had a rehearsal tonight. A pickup rehearsal, because we have three more performances of Clean House. There was a lovely review in yesterday's campus newspaper, beginning with the line, "A standing ovation was the least that the crowd at Sunday’s matinee of 'The Clean House' could offer." Pretty sweet, eh?

Anyway, rehearsal was less than an hour. We did a speed run with blocking. And then I came home and played video games for two hours. Now I am drinking red wine and yawning and thinking quite seriously about going to bed. Because--How did it get to be that time??!!?

Right.

Bed.

Now.

(Or bed, right now, which works equally well as a directive.)

Posted by sally at 11:01 PM | Comments (2)

October 23, 2007

Music to Grade Midterms By

Dark Side of the Moon works well, I've discovered. As does Senses Working Overtime. Takes me back to my youth. Tomorrow I think I'll try Candy-O.

So today was about teaching and grading midterms. Yesterday was about exhaustion. I hadn't had a day off in weeks. Since the last Sunday in September, if I wasn't working, I was in some way stressing about working. Yesterday I made it all the way to school, talked to my teaching partner and decided that, no, I was done for the day. So I cancelled both my classes and graded two sets of papers. Then I went home, midterms in backpack to be graded later.

I spent the afternoon and evening staring at the walls instead. I was that kind of tired. It's a bit better today, though the 6:30am phone call from my parents, who are currently in South Carolina and forgot about the three hour time difference, did disturb the sleep patterns just a tad.

The show has been VERY well received. Standing ovations on both Saturday night and at the Sunday matinee. I keep wanting to tell the audiences, "Thank you, but sit down. This is for the playwright. She wrote an amazing story. We just helped tell it." I guess all we needed was a couple of previews. Because we caught fire on Friday and didn't slow down all weekend. I got home after the show on Friday and Dave--who attended the ghastly Thursday opening--asked, "How was the show?"

I paused for a moment and then said the only word that would fit. "Perfect. It was a perfect show." Because it was.

Saturday night was even better. Saturday night was the night one of my exits was applauded. We (the two of us in the scene) rocked that scene like we never had before, and it was magical. Apparently the audience thought so too.

But Clean House wasn't my only activity of the weekend. No. Saturday morning was a make-up film and speaker session for one of my core classes. I was glad I went, but it was from 10am-12:30pm, and I could have used the sleeping in. The film was Southern Comfort, and the speaker was Maxwell Anderson, from the film.

Max is amazing. I can't even imagine having to make some of the choices he's made in his life. Or having to live with other people's reactions to those choices. The students seemed to really warm to him. The applause after his bit of the program was heartfelt. Max & the instructors had lunch together afterwards at one professor's house. He's hilarious. He came to the show on Saturday night, too (I gave him a comp), and talked someone into letting him backstage to say thank you. It really moved him, apparently. Which is awesome, and only fair, since I was a wet mess both during the Southern Comfort screening and Max's talk after the film.

Anyway, that was my weekend, following a very long month of teaching and rehearsal and travel and film stuff. I needed yesterday. It made everything I did today possible. Hopefully I will be capable of surviving tomorrow. Though that's iffy. I still feel like I spent last week trying to cross a continent and climbed a couple of mountains while I was at it.

Posted by sally at 05:41 PM | Comments (1)

October 19, 2007

I Cheated

Yes. I am confessing here, and once you've finished reading, you may all hiss me and throw rotten foodstuffs.

I started my NaNoNovel this week.

Honestly, I didn't mean to. I was just making notes about the character and some of the things I wanted to explore further as possibilities, and suddenly I had an opening sentence. And when it's as great a sentence as this one is, you don't ask it to wait another two weeks before you write it down. No. You grab your laptop and type it in.

The next thing I knew, I had 677 words. I'm calling it a prologue. And I now promise that I won't write again about the story at all until Nov. 1. And, of course, now I will be shooting for 50,677 words. Though I won't include these in the word count until I get to one of those desperate moments that hit at the end of Week Two.

This, by the way, is why I don't outline my NaNo plots. Because almost the moment I start thinking about story elements and ideas, the story shows up and demands to be written down. Sometimes it goes places I am not at all interested in going (see last year's novel), but once the story begins, I have to write it down. It's vital to the process. Otherwise, I lose it and I can never, ever get it back.

I know this from experience.

I mean, really, with a beginning sentence like this one, what was I supposed to do?

It all began with Santa Claus.

Posted by sally at 04:07 PM | Comments (3)

Cracked Open

Show's open.

'Twas a rough night. Acting was fairly solid, but tech was all over the place, not aided by the light board freezing twice during the show. When that happens, it has to be turned off and back on again. Sound cues cut out early and occasionally came in early as well. And the snow in the final scene happened during the curtain call. But the audience was forgiving and seemed to have a nice time anyway.

I got a comment from someone who said that was the most honest they've ever seen me on stage. Which was odd, given that last night I was "acting" all over the place. I couldn't seem to ground. Yes, the character is a lot like me and I "get" her in ways that I didn't understand in characters I played while I was in school here. That certainly helps. But there wasn't a huge amount of honesty/in-the-moment-ness happening last night on my end. They say technique like it's a bad thing, but sometimes it's what saves your ass.

Anyhow, we're open. My next task is to find out why the stage manager changed my call time. I don't need an hour before the show. 45 minutes will do me nicely. Not that we're getting accurate calls anyway. Last night, we suddenly got a places call after being told that they were holding the house for another 15 minutes. The woman who starts the show wasn't even in costume yet, because we'd all been doing other show-related things and hadn't been able to get ready as early as usual. Same with the places call after intermission.

It's pretty insane, this process. I can't imagine how hard it would be to stage manage. Well, actually, I can. It's why I've never been interested in doing it. Too hard. Too much work. It's far easier to strive for emotional nakedness onstage than to put up with all the shit an SM has to do.

Posted by sally at 08:54 AM | Comments (4)

October 18, 2007

The Most Exciting Thing I Have Ever Done

Would not be proctoring a freshman midterm. Though that is how I am spending my morning.

Right now, I am sitting with my feet up on a table, occasionally peering over my laptop at the worried freshmen in front of me to make sure they're doing their own work. They are. I know that the fact that I could easily get a high B on the exam without studying at all means more or less nothing. After all, I wrote part of it. But still, it's fascinating to see the faces that look exactly the way I know mine looks when posed a question on an exam that I wasn't expecting.

And also a little strange. This is the first midterm I've ever given. I don't like to give tests. I prefer making them think on their feet, via discussion. When it's time to synthesize a lot of information, I prefer papers. Something they have time to think about and consider. Tests, though I am a very good test taker, always annoyed me. I mean, most of the time, I forgot the information right after, so I'm not sure what purpose they serve.

THIS test is designed to do a couple of things:
1) Make sure they understand they should be taking notes & doing the reading;
2) Help them figure out how to take tests in college to be sure they can hack it as they get further along in academia.

I'm not much of a fan of grades, either. I think they cause more damage than they are worth. I mean, look at No Child Left Behind. Exactly how does that testing system teach our children the things they will need to get by in life? Plus, with grades you get students like the one who came up to me just before the midterm, panicking because his printer stopped working, so he can't turn in the papers that are due for class. He's already in a state of terror because of the midterm today (his grades are not that good right now), and the printer thing took him over the edge. HOW is he going to be relaxed enough to take this test now, with so much riding on it? What benefit will he accrue from this experience?

I wish there was some other way to assess student progress than grading. And testing. Though I will admit that nothing makes a student pay attention in class like an F at midterm. Or drop, if they've decided the F means the class is stupid. Because it's the class' fault. A failing grade has nothing to do with personal responsibility and participation.

Part of the reason I'm musing on this right now is that I had to turn in failing grades for 1/3 of the students in one core class. Not because I'm hideously strict. I'm not. Because they weren't turning anything in. And let's face it, the assignments aren't that hard. Really. "Draw a picture of a doorway symbolizing your transition into college. Consider how you want to represent your past & your future. Is the door open or closed ? Which direction are you facing? What surrounds the doorway on either side?" This is not, as I said, a huge project. It is an interesting one. And yet, people didn't turn them in.

I think part of the issue may be that the class has the word "Art" in the title, which is apparently synonymous with "easy" in some minds. Trust me. As a working artist, I can tell you right now, Art ≠ easy. Ever. Sometimes it's glorious and soul-filled and things just flow out of you. But you have to do a lot of work to get to those places, and they're not places you get to stay for very long. And then you have to do a lot of work again.

Dude. A student just got here. Forty minutes into the seventy-five minute class period. Good luck with that.

Posted by sally at 10:20 AM

October 17, 2007

I Should Be Doing Something Else

Driving to campus. Grading. Answering student email. Running lines. Sleeping. But I wanted to check in to say that last night's rehearsal was dreadful, as far as my part in it was concerned, and so I'm taking it easy today to get some rest.

For the first time in history, the theatre was warm. Like 85 degrees or more, and that was in the house. Imagine, if you will, what it was like under the lights. In a sweater. And a coat. And panty hose. I felt like a lizard on a rock. All I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Couple the energy sucking from the heat with the fact that I slept too little and not too well the night before and you get a Sally who was lucky to be upright. When intermission came, I headed out the back door to stand in the cold air before I barfed. It was ghastly.

So. Today. Taking it easy. Skipping my office hours and just going to campus to teach. Then I'm coming home again. To sleep maybe, or maybe to just lie around the house and eat bon-bons. Fuck the grading. It will still be there tomorrow. And the next day. Until I get around to doing it, actually.

Posted by sally at 08:58 AM

October 15, 2007

What I Meant to Say

Was that yesterday was really relaxing. I slept in. I stayed in my jammies until 1pm. I caught up on my blog reading. I planted bulbs. (Three kinds of daffodils, red and white perrenial tulips, scilla, crocus, snowdrops and English bluebells.) I ate a leisurely lunch. I spent a lot of time snuggled with cats. It was wonderful.

Until about 4pm. When I went to the theatre for our first full tech runthrough and learned they were still struggling with the dry tech. (Don't even ask about Saturday. Saturday was our cue-to-cue and it was just hard.) The ASM met me at the door with, "Sally! Why are you here? You know you don't have to be here until--"
"Until 4," I said.
"What time is it?"
"Ten til."
"Oh. Oh NO."
Our straight six took seven and a half hours. I'm tired again.

Posted by sally at 08:25 AM | Comments (2)

October 12, 2007

Tech Weekend + Homecoming = Pain in the Ass

They set off fireworks in the soccer fields that are about a block away from the theatre. It sounded like someone was shelling the building. So loud that car alarms were going off. LOUD.

I need to eat something.

And then go to bed, because I have to be back at the theatre by 10am tomorrow. Here's hoping I can actually eat my entire snack before I fall asleep.

Posted by sally at 11:33 PM | Comments (3)

October 10, 2007

Whew

Okay. I'm back. To sanity, to life, to consciousness.

What a crazy fucking week.

Where to begin?

How about here:

My flying trip to Boise for my gorgeous nephew's first birthday. I left campus immediately following my last class on Friday. I'd forgotten to have lunch, (my last class ends at 4pm) so I grabbed a burger (ugh) on my way out of town. I drove to Lewiston, checked my bag, went through security and hopped on the plane. I think I waited a grand total of 1/2 hour in the boarding area. And then it was go-go-go with an almost-toddler all weekend. So lovely. What a gorgeous boy he is. And now he is one. Where the hell has the time gone ?

While I was in Boise celebrating the Boy, I was also putting the finishing touches on a recording schedule for a set of voiceovers I'd been asked to coordinate. For a shoot my brother did locally. (He's been here for the past few days. I kept running into him on campus. It was awesome. Especially when: 1) I smacked him on the head in front of the crew before they knew who I was and 2) when the 1st AC called John my "older brother". Yessssssss.) Anyway, I had to squeeze in some late-night online time to get that all put together and workable.

And then there was the crisis. That took up a lot of my weekend too, specifically, the hours when I would normally be asleep. Only I couldn't be asleep, or even enjoying my nephew's adorableness because I was stressing over an issue that raised its head before I left town here.*

Seriously. I can't even talk about the roughest bit except to say that it involved email and made me not want to even touch my computer for several days. That's a big part of my absence here. And when I discovered it had been resolved this morning, my entire body relaxed. It's like the sun got turned on again.

Also adding to my lack of hours online and my scant postings here, of course, is also the whole teaching and grading thing. Which I love, but which is not exactly effortless. Nor is rehearsal, though it has also been a joy. And short. We've only done a full 4 hours one night this whole process, I think.

Not a joy has been the cold I seem to be fighting. I was in bed before 10 last night, though, and that seems to have made a great deal of difference. I'm feeling much better now.

And now that I have a major grading task more or less accomplished, now that I don't actually have to "teach" one class for the next three class periods because I very cleverly arranged to have other people do that, now that two other classes of mine are all about the student sharing, and a fourth is being led by my partner, and I've done all of my lesson plans for the fifth for the next week or so, now I can take a step back, do a little grading, post here, focus on tech for Clean House and maybe do some art. And also get some sleep. Because, Dude, after the week I've had, I'm tired.

*No, it's nothing to do with my marriage. David is wonderful. I am very lucky to have him in my life.

Posted by sally at 09:36 PM | Comments (1)

Quick Catsup

Sweet virgin olive oil but I've been busy. Classes, rehearsals, voiceovers, flying trips to Boise for my nephew's first birthday; it's just been crazy.

Updates (and almost-toddler pix) coming soon, I promise. First, I've got to focus on the seventy-bajillion things on my to-do list.

Posted by sally at 08:47 AM | Comments (1)

October 03, 2007

Writing. Well?

I've gone and got myself updated for NaNoWriMo again this year. (Because this last go-round of freakish busy-ness wasn't enough, I must now add novel writing into the mix.) What can I say? I had to. I had a title. I had a concept. This is a thing what begs to be written. And so I will. Somehow. Those of you looking to say hi via that particlar forum (i.e. my fellow insane participants) will find me under the same name as you see at the top of this page.

And speaking of writing, behold the 2007 winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, penned by one Jim Gleeson:

"Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them 'permanently' meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee."

Mr. Gleeson, I've never met you, but I must share with you my delight in your winning entry. It's one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

Posted by sally at 08:08 AM | Comments (4)

October 02, 2007

Breathing Space

I have one. Miraculously, it seems, just when I thought I was going to go mad. But then, this whole semester has been like that so far.

Take my office, for instance. It's a lovely space. And sometimes, I'll open the door and I'll realize it's a mess. Horrible. Disorder everywhere, papers all over. I'll stress and stress and stress about it, trying all the while to focus on work. Then I'll move a pile of this stuff to get it graded. And I'll pick that book up to take it home. And suddenly, my office is fine again. I think it's got something to do with how small it is, any extra and the space looks like a mess. But still...

That's kind of what seems to have happened with my time.

Saturday was my day off. I did very little. I couldn't take it completely off, because I had so much to do to prep for this week. But I didn't do any grading. Even though I could feel it looming over me everywhere I went.

On Sunday, I worked. I did class-related stuff all morning. Then I had a Midsummer text workshop from 1-5. Then I spent 45 minutes talking with a student. Then I had Clean House rehearsal until about 9pm. Then I came home, did more school-related stuff. Then I went to bed. Feeling slightly panicked despite the red wine buzz.

Yesterday, I graded papers. Then I walked across campus and taught two classes. On the way, I met with someone who will be speaking to one of my Friday classes, just to be sure I was still on her schedule. Then I walked back to my office and graded some more. About 4:30, I finally got all of the Sex & Culture grading done. All of it. I went to dinner with Dave. I went to rehearsal at 6. I wasn't present, really. My body was there, but my brain was thinking about the grading I left till last, the grading that needed to be done for my 9:30 class this morning. (I did that on purpose, to be sure I'd get ALL of the grading done before I went to bed.) I got out of rehearsal at 8:30. I came home and did the rest of the grading. It took me 2 1/2 hours. I got to bed around midnight.

This morning, I got up, went into my office, and updated the gradebook. Then I taught for three hours. (Well, not really taught, It was a work day for the students. They worked on their major art project for the semester.) This afternoon, I put together my lesson plans for tomorrow and graded about 1/3 of the assignments I collected today. Then I took 45 minutes and worked lines for the act we were running twice tonight. I came home. Dave and I had a leisurely dinner. I went to rehearsal and just finished up there.

And as I was leaving the theatre, I realized I have no pressing tasks awaiting me tonight.

Nothing.

Yes, there are still things to grade, the stuff I picked up today, for instance. And tomorrow I'll get some more papers. And I'll collect still more on Friday. But those are small beans and easily addressed during my office hours. I'll work on grading tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon. I can work my lines after that. And I can put together my Friday lesson plans and figure out what to assign one group of students to work on over the weekend. Maybe even get ready for Monday too. So I don't have to worry about anything this weekend.

Because I'm taking this weekend off.

To visit my Boy.

He turns one on Saturday.

It's so hard to believe that this happened almost a year ago, and that by the next time I see him, he'll be walking.

Posted by sally at 09:42 PM

October 01, 2007

I Have Only One Thing to Say

164 lbs

Only seven more to go for my short term goal. Only 14 more to go to reach my target weight.