Sallyacious

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October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween

And I think that's about all the holiday joy you're going to get from me. Just posting here took as much festive energy as I could muster.

It's not that I don't like Halloween. I love the holiday. It's that I've had two straight weeks of rehearsals, those this week being 5-6 hours long, culminating in our opening performance last night which had a decent, but not amazing house. I'm tired. I'm sad. I'm cranky and anxious and my head hurts. I have to clean the house today, and when that's done, I have a bunch of stuff that needs grading, and when that's done--but no, I doubt that will be done before I have to go to the theatre.

Please don't get me wrong. I am really enjoying the show. I just don't want it to be winter yet, and I don't want Poly to be dead, and I don't want to clean the living room. It will be the first time I've done any serious cleaning in the house since he got sick two weeks ago, and frankly, the mere thought of getting my shit together depresses me. There's just so much clutter that's built up here in the last two weeks, as we rushed from rehearsal to hospital to rehearsal to hospital to classes to rehearsal to rehearsal to rehearsal.

Plus, neither Dave nor I have been able to get a decent, uninterrupted night's sleep since about two days after Poly died. Because Imogen has started grieving. This takes the form of her standing in Dave's office or the basement stairwell or the living room--someplace really echoey--and letting out the most frightful yowls, as though she herself is dying. And she doesn't shut up. Did I mention that she begins this nightly activity shortly after we turn out our lights to go to sleep? And continues at intervals All. Night. Long.

I do not understand this behavior. I didn't think she even liked him. And we're trying to figure out whether getting up and bringing her to bed to cuddle will help ease her suffering or whether it will teach her that this is an acceptable activity. Because we don't want to encourage it, believe me. (It doesn't help that calling her name accomplishes absolutely nothing. If she sees one of us, her yowls immediately shift to "Hey! I'm here! Pet me!" calls, but she doesn't respond to just our voices.)

Katala doesn't seem to have noticed. Or perhaps she just doesn't care. She and Poly never really interacted that much. Q is also grieving, but she's doing it by being clingy. When I'm home, as long as I'm sitting down, she's sitting or lying on top of me. Imogen has been doing some of that too, but Q is attached to me like a furry black limpet. Thank goodness her tail is still up when she walks around the house. When Sunny died, that adorable little flag drooped for months.

So anyway, that's the mood in this house. Lost, sleepless, gloomy. Augmented by the grey October skies. It's very strange to move from this atmosphere to one of upbeat comedy and then back again. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of what will happen to me when the show is over. Dave goes straight into rehearsals for a show he's directing (which means he hasn't had a moment to himself since we got back from Hawaii, and won't until the week of Thanksgiving), but I will have evenings of three cats instead of four, and though I've tried to let the feelings cycle through when they want to, I'm not sure I've had much time to really sit with the reality of it. It's still so easy to believe Poly is just sleeping in another room.

However, life goes on, and in a little over twelve hours, it will be November, and NaNoWriMo will have begun for another year. I want to participate, because I think it's good for me as an artist, but I have absolutely no idea about what to write. None. At all. Twelve and a half hours from now I should be sitting here starting a story, and I don't have one. Not a first sentence, not the first glimmerings of an idea. Nothing. I haven't had an idea all year, either. Usually a story comes to me in August and I have to spend two months trying to figure out how to keep it alive without actually writing it. This year? Nada.

So I'm trying something new. I'm going to do the exercise I led all last fall and again all last semester. I'm going to go into my imaginary studio, the creative space in my head, the one that all of my Imagination students created for themselves and then worked in all semester (I've had mine for several years now) and I'm going to see what comes up. I'll hang out there for a while and we'll just see what happens. Even if all I do is describe the space in detail, at least I'll be writing. I think something will come, though. It always does in the studio, even if it's not at all what I'm expecting. But then, that's the joy of playing in that space.

* * * * *

I'm feeling a bit better now. I got up to use the bathroom and that turned into getting myself some coffee, changing out of my pajamas, cleaning up some things in the living room/kitchen/my office, snuggling with Imogen, turning the heat up from 68 to 75 (because I want to, so there) and putting silly blue and neon pink snap-on extensions in my hair. Suddenly things don't look so insurmountable, and I think I have an idea for laundry hampers that are much more interesting/appealing than either piles on the floor or the plastic basket with the broken handle. Maybe I can get the living room cleaned today after all.

Posted by sally at 10:07 AM | Comments (2)

October 29, 2008

Two Things

And you're looking at them.*

Painted nails for Tartuffe in "Twisted Pink," and MY BRAND NEW LAPTOP. Look at that glorious wide screen. We ordered it just before the market went all hooey, when things like money and stock and our bank still existed. My old laptop stopped running Flash for some reason and then started doing other really annoying things, so Dave's solution was to buy me a new one. The old one came to live with us in 2004**, so it's time for a new one anyway.

The funniest part of all this, however, is that I currently possess three laptops. Small portable, old one and new one. Dave only owns two. I have never before had more computers than he has, and it's chaffing just a bit, I think.

Anyway, exhausted, heading to school to write some assignments and do some grading and hopefully see students during my office hours. And hopefully to NOT nap as I inadvertently did yesterday. It was a nice nap, but it cut into my productivity rather significantly, given my current limited availability.

* I'm not gesturing obscenely at you. I'm counting to two.

** Just like the cat.***

*** Too soon?

Posted by sally at 08:47 AM | Comments (2)

October 27, 2008

And Now for Something COMPLETELY Different

I've spent several of my "free" hours working on a prop for Tartuffe. In our production, Tartuffe has a pocket bible that he pulls out whenever he is losing power in a situation. We were using one of those little green books that contains the Gospels, Psalms and Proverbs--they get handed out here about once a semester by very nice men in suits who stand on the street corners--but it's green and too small and just not theatrical enough. So I told the director I'd make one for him.

It was one of the biggest projects I've tackled, and through it I learned a number of things about what I would do differently next time, which is actually quite helpful. But for a first effort it turned out fairly well, I think. It fits really snugly in the hand. It's about 4½ inches tall, an inch thick, and about 2½ inches wide. It has a solid spine and 18 signatures of either velum or onionskin paper. The velum bits have an outer layer of a burgundy unruyu paper, which also serves for the endpapers, though I had to do a fill of black construction paper to cover up the hinges because the unruyu was a bit thinnner than I'd anticipated once I glued it.

The papers I used would be one of the bits I'd do differently next time. I wouldn't ever use velum again in a project like this. The stuff I had, at least, didn't take well to trimming. It felt like it was made of plastic, but it was really the closest thing I could find to the onionskin on short notice.*

The signatures are sewn and glued, and the ribbon bookmark is the exact same color as the unruyu. I got lucky there, but it makes me look like a genius.

The bit that makes me look like an idiot is the fact that I had to hand trim every signature because somehow the cover boards ended up being shorter than the pages, despite my making sure they wouldn't be. My best guess at how I managed to fuck that up is that it happened when I glued the cover paper to the cover boards. I must not have left enough room for the hinge. It's the only thing that I can think of, anyway. Because they stuck out beyond the pages when I glued them to the book block.

I used up three exacto blades trimming the bookblock. And still it looks kind of ratty. BUT. It's supposed to be a con artist's battered prop, from the 19th century, in which case, a rather rough looking, hand bound book is in order. (At least, that's what I keep telling myself. And the director and the props master both loved it when I took it to rehearsal last Thursday.)

The cover itself is a trick I'm rather proud of. It's a brown paper grocery bag crumpled up and left to soak in india ink for several days. I dried it and then ran some watered down black acrylic paint lightly over it to darken it without covering up all of the brown or black paper. I let it dry again and then ironed out the biggest crinkles. I did reinforce the cover joints with book cloth, to make sure it would last through the run. I didn't think the paper bag would hold up on its own.

I cut a stencil for the cross and rubbed it down on the paper pretty thoroughly before I filled it in with an 18K gold leaf pen. It shines beautifully under the lights. A golden gleam against the rumply black of the rest of the cover.

All in all, I'm fairly proud of it. I followed the instructions here for sewing the bookblock. And here for how to attach a hard spine and a cover that is one piece (I'd never done that before). In future, I think I'll probably go with the tapes again--which this sewing style wouldn't allow me--because it's one more thing holding the book block to the cover--but this prop only has to last three weeks, so I'm not going to worry about it now. Besides, it was nice to try something new and be able to add it to my tool box.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

It's been a week now since Polyphemos died. I still miss him terribly, but the tears seem to have subsided. And I can focus on the rest of my life again. We're all adjusting to having one less cat in the house. The girls seem to need more love and attention, which I'm happy to give them.

I may be in denial, because I'm still having trouble actually believing he's gone for good. It all happened so fast, and he was the very last cat we thought we'd lose. I wonder what will happen when the show closes and I have time to stop and look around me again.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Tech actually went quite smoothly this weekend. Six hours on Saturday (including the hour lunch break), and 4½ hours on Sunday. We even worked with costumes Sunday. It took the entire first hour to get everybody into them. I swear I have about three miles of fabric in my skirt, slippery fabric, which I have to move efficiently out of the way so I can sprint down four steps and offstage. Twice. But it's nice to have that. And to hear the director give the designer the following note about my costume:

She's still not sexy enough. Can you make her sexier?

Followed by:

Did you roll up your sleeves for the second act?
Yes.
Oh. You did?
Yes. We also exposed more chest.
Ah. That may be why I didn't notice your sleeves.

And on that note, I'm off to find a push-up bra in this ridiculous little town. I suspect it will be a bit like snark hunting. Most likely nothing but boojums for my bosoms.

*(Cue that old, familiar refrain: I wish I lived someplace where I had more access to supplies.)

Posted by sally at 09:00 AM | Comments (4)

October 25, 2008

10 of 12

Sort of like Seven of Nine, but with less titanium and more standing around waiting. (Wow. I'm a geeeeek.)

We have tech today. Ten hours of starting in the middle of a scene, saying a few lines while the lights and sound change, stopping, and then doing it all over again until it's perfect. Lots and lots of hurry up and wait.

I thought briefly of "forgetting" to pack my character shoes, so I could wear my boots all day and be more comfortable, but I decided to be a good actor and a grownup instead and just be thankful I don't have to wear the underwear from hell today. (That would be a longline bra/bustier that is two sizes too small except for in the cups, where it's a cup size too big. FUN to wear.)

This time around, we seem to be better prepared than ususal. Normally, the actors get to rehearsal and the tech is still being finished up (lights still being hung, cues still being entered in the board, that kind of thing). But this show, most of the lights appear to already be hung AND focused (sidebar here, really, not connected to the further along with the lights thing, the Assistant Lighting Designer is a former student of mine, and I must say, even though we're not supposed to have them, one of my favorites), and the sound is mostly entered in the computer as well. The set's not done yet, so that may be interesting, given that the furniture is all black (which makes a big difference under the lights) and there are mirrored bits on the floor (also important for lighting). But the lights and sound are pretty much ready to go. Oh. Except for the chandeliers, which had been hung but not painted as of last night's rehearsal, so that you could still tell they were made out of PVC pipe.

I love the theatre. The extent of the illusion is pretty extraordinary, really.

Anyway, I have been to cue-to-cues where the actors sat around for three hours or more while the tech got to a place where we could start, but they were already working with light and sound cues last night, so we may be closer to the goal rather than further away. However. I have still packed lots of things to do in my bag, so that I won't end up getting cranky out of boredom.

And now I must take off so I can grab some food beforehand. I want to make sure I have enough to eat. (That will also help keep the cranky at bay.)

Posted by sally at 08:44 AM | Comments (1)

October 24, 2008

Stocking Up

I got my hair colored today in preparation for the Tartuffe opening next Thursday. I'll be wigged, but we'll work some of my hair through it to make it look like my actual hair. It's an awesome wig. It's called "The Farrah," but it looks like Bernadette Peters' hair. And I'll have a lacy little maid's cap to perch on top of it.

Anyway, while I was out, I thought I'd run some errands downtown. I seem to have worn through the heels of my character shoes, I'm actually walking on the nails. So I stopped by the shoe repair store to get some temporary fix sticky pad things to last me through the run. Only, they had a handwritten sign on the door saying they had to run an errand and would be out until 10:30. Which gave me an excuse to head down the street to the local bakery and get one of their to die for cinnamon rolls. Oh. My. God. Those things are soooooooooooooo goooooooood.

I sat in their eating space and munched on my breakfast and read some, and then I headed back for my heel replacements. On the way, I passed our local independent bookstore and thought I'd step in to get a copy of a book one of my fellow faculty members just published. They're sold out--good for her!--but then I realized that tech is tomorrow. 10 hours in the theatre, and I'll need something to do with myself when I'm not in the scenes they're working. So I grabbed several really thick, interesting magazines.

Then, on the way back to my car, I stopped at the local comics/costume/erotica store and bought double-sided nipple tape. Because, as I said to the woman behind the counter, "My goods are on display like a candy store window and I don't want the audience to see more than they've paid for." Plus, my falsies keep slipping out of the bra they have me in, so I'm going to see if I can't anchor them a bit. Aaah, the glamorous life in the theatre, all sweat and bobby pins and worn out shoes and nipple tape. Normal people don't have to deal with these sorts of things.

Anyway, I'm trying to be sure I have everything I need so that I'm ready to go with makeup and costumes and hair when they're added over the next several days. I need to get bobby pins and a new tube of mascara, and a bunch of food and bottled water. I hope I have everything else I need because there is no way in hell that I'm going to have time to do any more shopping after today.

And now I must get my stuff together and head on in to campus, because I have a bunch of grading to get done before my (hopefully) final costume fitting at three. I won't have time for it this weekend, and it's a student portfolio review, so it's not the sort of thing I can take to rehearsal with me to grade during my down time. It all needs to get done today.

But the show is going to rock.

Posted by sally at 11:40 AM | Comments (1)

October 22, 2008

You Are Beautiful

Here on campus, we have an organization called BEAR: Brotherhood Empowerment Against Rape. They're a lovely group of men, and today, they're handing out cards to unsuspecting females that simply say, "You Are Beautiful" on one side. On the other, they read, "You are a beautiful individual, full of life and promise. We appreciate all that you do and support who you are. Sincerely, The Men of B.E.A.R."

How can you not love a group of men who come up with such a sweet gesture?

That card prompted the first genuinely happy smile I've given in days. And I didn't stop smiling, all the way into the department office to make photocopies and all the way back to my own office, halfway across campus. I gave a real smile to every single person I came across, simply as a result of one man handing me that card. I really needed that today.

And in case you're wondering? The statement on that card holds true for you too.

In other news:

The loss of Polyphemos has subsided to a dull ache, which I suspect will be present for quite some time. Years, even. I'm no longer prone to bursting into tears at the slightest provocation or reminder of him, at least not every ten minutes or so. At least not so far today. I'm sure there will still be moments when I do, like when I go pick up his ashes, when we get the necropsy report, when I finally remove his toys from the basket. (That last won't happen for a while, I suspect. I'm not quite ready to admit he's really that gone.)

Yep. Here come the tears.

Posted by sally at 11:56 AM | Comments (1)

October 21, 2008

Update on the Girls

First of all, I want to thank all of you who have sent emails or provided hugs or commented here on the blog. Your support means a great deal to us. It helps, really, even if I don't have the words to explain how. Just know that it does. And a special thank you to the lurkers who have found the courage to post. It's lovely to know you're here.

The girls were not pleased to be wrestled into crates and taken to the vet yesterday morning. They have been assured that they only have to go once a year, and they let me know that they caught on to my breaking my promise to them. But, and this is a tremendously important but, they have all tested negative for FELV. All three. We will take them in again in late December/early January for a confirmation test, but for now, we are breathing easier around here.

They're getting lots and lots of love. Extra love, really. To ease their transition as well as ours. I don't know if they've noticed Polyphemos is gone. Well, let me put it another way. I'm sure they've noticed he's gone. I just can't tell if they care. They had all bonded very closely with Sunny, the male we put down in the spring of 2004, and it was clear that they were all missing him for months after that. Especially Quickly, who used to sleep nose to tummy with him, like a feline Yin and Yang, and who enjoyed being bathed by him for hours. It was especially hard on her. So when the vet introduced us to a kitten, bringing him home seemed like the right thing to do. But Polyphemos was never a part of their lives in the same way Sunny had been, so I think the grieving process/missing of him may be a very different sort of beast.

As will ours.

I am, of course, now that the girls have tested negative, second-guessing my decision. I just have to keep reminding myself that though he looked like Polyphemos, and had that same fire, he didn't move the same, he was blind, and he'd had at least one seizure this past weekend. His blood glucose levels were all over the map. He was anemic. There was something very wrong with him, quite likely something unfixable, and putting him down while he was still full of spark and life and fire, rather than overwhelmed with pain and fear was the more loving choice.

Our vet said much the same thing yesterday morning. Yesterday was her day off. The other vet in the practice works Mondays, but she came in and was there when I got there with the girls. She gave me a big hug and said she'd been trying to figure it out since she heard. I gave her an update on all of the events of the weekend, and she said, "You made the right choice." No questions, no hedging. She came right out and said it. She also thinks he'd probably been carrying his death along inside of him when he came to live with us. She had some other thoughts about how/what might have happened, but that was the gist of what she had to say.

She also said, just before she went back to test the girls, "I'm sorry his life was so short, but I'm so glad it was with you, where he was safe and happy."

So are we.

Posted by sally at 08:35 AM | Comments (2)

October 20, 2008

Polyphemos 2004-2008*

I am wracked with weeping. We put our dear, dear boy to sleep last night.

I came home from rehearsal to a voicemail message from the vet to call her. I did. Poly had a seizure around 2pm, and was now completely blind. The vet,who saw him when we took him over to WSU on Saturday night and checked up on him when she came back for her night shift, said it was possible the FLeV test was a false positive. Leukemia certainly fit most of the symptoms, but so did brain cancer. (We're getting the girls tested for FELV this morning.**)

So I called Dave, who, as head of the student theatre organization was getting ready to start a party for Frozen. "Can you drive?" he said. "To come pick me up?" I got him at the site, and he drove us to Pullman. We had ten minutes alone with Poly in a nice little sitting room. Dave said good-bye to him and left the room, and then I stayed with our boy, who was Polyphemos to the last. Completely uninterested in being held, he insisted on walking around the room. The vet said it was fine, so I let him, while she and I finalized the arrangements. He tried twice to get out the door when the vet went out to get a blanket. Even though he couldn't see a thing. Even though he was much weaker than he'd ever been. What a feisty little spirit.

He was in my arms at the very end, though, fully relaxed for perhaps the first time in his little life.

Looking back, I think this was only a matter of time. He used to sleep with his hind toes curled. I assumed it was stress, as though he couldn't even fully relax in sleep, but maybe it was brain damage. It was certainly the shaking of his hind feet every time he jumped onto the floor--like they stung or tingled--that first told me something was not quite right with him. It's entirely possible that this was the ultimate result of the trauma he experienced as a kitten that cost him his eye.

We'll know more soon. WSU's emergency clinic is part of their teaching hospital. The vet brought it up cautiously, but when she suggested a teaching necropsy, I knew immediately that it was the right thing to do. He was only four, and if they can learn anything useful from figuring out what was wrong with him, then I am all for it. (When I cautiously told Dave later, he was all for it too.) To maybe be able to better diagnose or save another cat with similar symptoms would be a good final gift from him, our boy who gave us so much.

And then they will cremate him and we will have a second orange boy's ashes sitting in a tin on our mantle. Waiting for the day we have a piece of property where I can plant them each under a redwood.

I miss him so much. It's hard to accept that there will be no more escape attempts via either the back door or the basement door. It's hard to accept that I will be able to put the bath towels in the linen cupboard without having to be faster than the galloping orange streak that liked to sleep in there. It was hard last night to make the bed with only Quickly's "assistance." There will be no pink nose poking itself into everything I'm doing, the trademark activity of the most curious cat in the world, no orange rocket firing through the house, no "Heyyyyyyy! I'm down heeeeere. Plaaaayyyy with me with the string!" demands, no tentative snuggles with a boy who was always afraid of unknown danger, no sidelong glances from the eye that knew fully well what you were up to and didn't want any part of it.

I look around the house and I see his reminders, the toys in the basket that only he played with, the box he enjoyed sitting in, the table he liked to sleep on. I hope he was as glad to be here as we were to have him. He was so smart, so beautiful, such a tough and rowdy little pirate of a cat. He gave us so much. I hope we were able to give him some back.

Polyphemos, may your next swing around on this big wheel be full of joy and spirit and impishness, without all of the fear and tension that seemed to dog you.

We love you, our sweet boy. More than words could ever hope to convey. Be at peace.

* This is my 1000th blog post. In a way, it's strikingly appropriate, given what else came into our iives in August of 2004. Anyway, I'm not feeling particularly festive today, as you might imagine. I'll do the giveaway some other time. Maybe as a Thanksgiving treat.

** Just back from the vet. They're all negative. We'll test again in late December, early January to be sure, but they're all negative. I can breathe again.

Posted by sally at 08:56 AM | Comments (6)

October 19, 2008

Polyphemos has Leukemia

Which is sort of what I expected, frankly, given the various signs he's been exhibiting for the last five or six months. they're doing a more sensitive test to be sure the first one wasn't a false positive, but I know he has it. It was the only common factor with a number of symptoms. But he's an indoor cat. They all are, and I assumed that gave us a safety margin. I also thought our vet wouldn't give us an FLV cat. She may not have. She has never once suggested FLV, despite all of this symptoms. One of the others may have given it to him, frankly. We have no way of knowing at this point who had it when they came in the door.

We also don't know, but can find out on Monday, how many others of the cats are positive. According to the emergency vet, we may be lucky. Older cats--and the girls are 10, 13-14 and 17--actually have a lower incidence of it. They seem to be able to either not catch it or to fight it off better than the younger ones. So we may have three negative girls. I hope so. Please pray for them too. While you're praying for us. Because frankly, I think we're going to have to say good-bye to our boy next week.

Posted by sally at 08:36 AM | Comments (4)

Please Pray for Polyphemos

Our best, sweetest one-eyed pirate boy is in the hospital as I write this. The vets don't know what's wrong, they're doing extensive bloodwork and urinalysis. He probably ate something toxic, but they don't know for sure because none of his symptoms have pointed to any one thing so far, they're all over the map.

All I know is that he was in the middle of a visit to the emergency room for general scary behavior when he started running into things as though he couldn't see anymore. And that's when they whisked our beautiful orange boy into the ICU. I'm so scared. Scared that something I did or didn't do has caused this. Scared that we'll never have our lovely boy back. So, so scared.

Polyphemos, we love you. With all our hearts. Please, let that be enough to bring you home whole.

Posted by sally at 02:14 AM | Comments (1)

October 17, 2008

Whining (Or, Sally Throws a Pity Party)

So so so so sososososososososo tired of all of the "have to do" I've been living with for the past few months. I was all excited yesterday because I had all the grading done and my lines memorized (I'm at that odd point where they're falling out of my head again in strange ways) and I could spend the weekend playing, doing what I wanted to do. And I need that right now because next weekend is tech and the two following weekends are show weekends with company coming and that means no time for art for the next four weeks.

And the weekend after the show closes is an art fair that I was supposed to have stuff done for, only I haven't had any time to do art because my days have been full of school and my nights have been full of theatre and my weekends have been full of all sorts of other shit and all I really need is a breathing space. A space where I can play for a little while and not worry about whether I'm meeting a deadline. A space where I can poke around and explore and make something, where no other egos are involved and I don't have to adjust for other people, because it feels anymore like that's what I do all day.

So I was really, really looking forward to this weekend.

And then I remembered that I haven't updated my CV and edited my job hunting letter, and that's an all-day job and I need to get it done and now all I want to do is cry, because the have to dos aren't over yet.

Posted by sally at 09:38 AM | Comments (1)

October 15, 2008

I'm Free (And Other Important Information)

(Insert the Who music and lyrics here.)

In a superhuman feat of endurance, I finished all of the waiting grading on Monday. Yesterday, I entered all of the grades into spreadsheets and calculated midterm grades. And today I graded everything they turned in yesterday. Which means that until next Tuesday? I have no more grading to do. And because I am about as off book as I'm going to get, I don't need to spend any extra time learning lines either. So I can spend the weekend (that's Friday through Monday) doing anything I please outside of rehearsals.

Yesssssssssssssss...

✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂

This is entry number 996. So after this entry, only four more to go until the big giveaway. For which I haven't actually yet finished the book. But I'll be able to do that this weekend. And maybe make some other goodies to include as well, but we'll see.

✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂

I was right.

I had some of my sausage spaghetti sauce for dinner just now. The jar had been thawing in the fridge for the last two days. I scooped out the contents, added a can of tomato paste and cooked it for about 20 minutes. It really is perfect. I'll probably have some more after rehearsal this evening. And for lunch tomorrow.

✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂

I thought I had something more to go here, but I guess not.

...

Wait...

...

Nope. That appears to be it.

Have a lovely day!

Posted by sally at 04:01 PM | Comments (2)

Halloween Rules

I got this from a list of 21 rules, but it seems to me that some of them are just too obvious. In other words, the people who break those rules deserve their bloody painful fates, I think. But as a public service, I'm posting the most important 13 here.

1. When it appears that you have killed the monster, NEVER check to see if it's really dead.
2. Never read a book of demon summoning aloud, even as a joke.
3. Do not search the basement, especially if the power has gone out.
4. If your children speak to you in Latin or any other language which they should not know, shoot them immediately. It will save you a lot of grief in the long run. However, it will probably take several rounds to kill them, so be prepared. This also applies to kids who speak with somebody else's voice.
5. When you have the benefit of numbers, NEVER pair off and go alone.
6. As a general rule, don't solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.
7. If you're searching for something which caused a loud noise and find out that it's just the cat, GET OUT!
8. If appliances start operating by themselves, move out.
9. Do not take ANYTHING from the dead.
10. If you find a town which looks deserted, there's probably a good reason for it. Don't stop and look around.
11. Don't fool with recombinant DNA technology unless you're sure you know what you're doing.
12. If you're running from the monster, expect to trip or fall down at east twice, more if you are female. Also note that, despite the fact that you are running and the monster is merely shambling along, it's still moving fast enough to catch up with you.
13. If your car runs out of gas at night on a lonely road, do not go to the nearby deserted-looking house to phone for help. If you think that it is strange you ran out of gas because you thought you had most of a tank, shoot yourself instead. You are going to die anyway, and most likely be eaten.

Rules to live by. To which I will add one more: Always keep one ear attuned to the background music. If it changes to something scary, leave.

Posted by sally at 09:13 AM | Comments (1)

October 14, 2008

Seven Things You'd Rather Not Know About Me

I was tagged on Sunday by sweet, sweet Laura over at Rhinestone Armadillo. I think she's the first person who's ever tagged me, and I'm tremendously flattered.

The rules of the game are:

1) Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog
2) Share 7 facts about yourself, some random, some weird
3) Tag 7 more people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs
4) Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs

SEVEN Facts About Me

(This is daunting. I really don't feel all that interesting, and seven is suddenly a HUGE number.)

1. I don't listen to music much. For one thing, I tend to find it distracting. It affects my reactions and my artwork, so I generally work with nat. sound. But it's mostly because I have my own soundtrack. In my head. It plays pretty much all the time. For instance, right now I appear to be listening to Daydream Believer, but it could just as easily have been You Shook Me All Night Long or Dancing Queen or a melody of my own invention. I usually can't tell you what triggers a given song in my brain. They're just there.

2. I am terrified of water above my--well, let's not be coy--my nipple line. I get in water any deeper than that and I panic. Though I did manage to hang out in the pools in Hawaii with water up to my throat and not suffer any ill effects. Not even a sunburn.

3. I practice a form of meditation called Wang Family Turtle Qi-Gong. I've sort of let my practice lapse recently, but I need to get back into it. Because with it? I can control my asthma. As in stop an attack within moments. It's pretty amazing. And it works well in combination with the Reiki. Plus, when I was practicing regularly, I was able to see colored auras. I've always been able to see light around people, but with the Turtle Qi-Gong, I could see colors too. It was pretty cool.

4. I have two bachelor's degrees. One from a really, really good school, and one from a really, really good theatre program in a state university with a (now) highly ranked football team.

5. I have Trichotillomania. It's a relatively unknown disorder, but no less horrible for the sufferers, for all that. As near as various "experts" can determine, it's the primate grooming instinct gone awry. Or possibly related to Tourettes. They just don't know. And there's no real "cure." Some things work for some people, but not for others. Some people can control theirs with diet, some with behavioral therapy, some with static electricity, some with medication.

Mine first manifested at the tender age of six, and believe me, if I could figure out why I stopped for three blessed years in my mid-twenties, I would be all over whatever it was that did the trick. The worst part about the disorder is the shame, which is pretty big, given the beauty-conscious society we live in. But I'm telling you about mine here and now because, well, every single time I've shared the secret with someone, I've found another person with TTM who thought they were alone. You're not. Believe me. You're not.

You are also not freakish, ugly or unloveable. Trust me, you're not.

6. My life's goal is to know everything. Not petty gossip stuff, but everything. Or enough of everything to be able to explain it to other people, at least.

(I'm stuck now. Not a single other piece of information can I come up with that isn't either TMI or something I've already posted about here. I can't fart on command like one of my friends in Portland, I've never won anything unexpected or amazing, I have no weird birthmarks or defects, no special skills.)

7. Vocally, I'm a Tenor Alto Mezzo. At least, I used to be, when my voice was at its best. Now, thanks to lapsed training and the asthma meds, my range has shrunk a bit. But when I went in for voice lessons as a grad student, we discovered that though the meds had shaved a bit off my top range--and I used to be able to sing a note that could bore through cement--I had a corresponding increase in the notes I could hit at the bottom. I really should get back to the musical training, but I'm not sure when I'd fit it into my schedule.

So there you are. Even without the TMI elements, this may have been a bit TMI. Possibly also a bit wooooo (or woo woo, if you prefer). Ah, well. What can I say? I made a commitment to myself aeons ago to make this blog a place of revelation rather than concealment. A place for discovering who I am rather than trying to create a popular persona. For most people who know me, if they don't already know the stuff listed above, much of it will trigger, "Oh! Of course! That explains everything!" responses.

And here's where we come to the difficult part. Where seven gets to be a really, REALLY big number. I don't follow that many blogs. Many of those that I do follow are those where I lurk, rather than comment because they're people I don't know. For the small number of blogs (eight, actually) where I either know the blogger or participate in the conversation and so know the blogger that way, one tagged me with this exercise, and I know that two others have done this very meme in the past few weeks. So that leaves me with five. For good measure, I'll throw in a few blogs where the writers post infrequently, but who I love to read.

Here they are:

Heather at What Is My Life Going to Be? - Because she needs to post more often. (That's actually true for all of these people.)

Vicki of Maracas and Havenwood - Answer on whichever you like, my dear. I read them both, and more people should.

Eris of Smells Like Nothing - Because I miss you. A lot. We never hear from you anymore.

Amy of YoAmes and Recipes of the Damned - I'm tagging you on Recipes because I can't on LiveJournal. But for God's sake, post. I yearn to read some more of your stuff.

Karma at Fat and Then - Because you don't have enough to do.

And that's where I get stuck. Seven blogs, but only five bloggers. Everybody else has either done this meme or will think I'm a stalker. So if you weren't tagged and would like to participate, please play along. I'm two short here.

Posted by sally at 12:46 PM | Comments (5)

October 12, 2008

Done?

So I finished grading the midterms last night. It took hours longer than it should have, I think. But they're done. So this morning I got up and vowed to get to the bottom of one of the two remaining stacks of assignments. I made breakfast, graded a little, switched the laundry, graded a little, gave the cat a Reiki treatment, graded a little...

Just now I checked the clock. About thirty minutes more until I have to leave for rehearsal. Fine. The grading pile still looks formidable, but if I really push myself, I should be able to make it after I change the laundry. I dumped the laundry on the bed, grabbed a cookie and headed back to the couch and the grading pile.

Where I took a closer look at the remaining assignments.

They've already been graded. They're all stuff we didn't hand back last week because the students weren't in class. In other words, without even realizing it, I finished the grading for this morning and still have time now to fold the enormous pile of laundry that's on the bed. May this evening's grading go as quickly. I'd love to have one more day off before I have to head back into it. Maybe do some art.

Time to make art. Wouldn't that be nice.

Posted by sally at 11:31 AM | Comments (2)

October 11, 2008

PhotoHunt: Lazy

This is a picture I did not take* because I have been lazy and now cannot afford to be. I have way too much to do. Midterms to grade (not quite halfway done) two weeks' worth of assignments to grade, food to cook, laundry to do, a house to clean up, my first book commission to complete (by tomorrow, I think; I'm not sure I can get it done in time, things do need to dry)... The list doesn't seem to end anymore.

I did go looking for something from my archives. I couldn't really find an image that captured lazy for me that I haven't already posted here. And though I frequently feel like I must be lazy, given the sheer amount of work that's piling up around me, I know I haven't actually been. I've been pretty much constantly on the run the last few weeks. Which would actually be the opposite of lazy.

However, I'm sure many other people actually DID take and post photographs for the theme this week, and you should go visit them and comment on their stuff. Not everybody is as lame as I am.

So after this brief break to post (you know I'm ridiculously busy when I count posting or changing and folding the laundry as a "break"), I'm back to the grading. Someday, I will probably write about why I fundamentally disagree with the concept of exams in classes like the ones I teach, but not today. I've been bitching about it to everyone I know in 3-D, so it seems a little redundant to do so here as well. Even if I'm frustrated because I have to put so much of my time into doing something I think is actually counter-productive.

Right. Stopping. Going to do some more grading now and just grumble in my head.

* Borrowed from Michael David Murphy at Unphotographable.

Posted by sally at 11:16 AM

October 10, 2008

"It's Like Crack" **Updated**

I said to the guy at the Co-op butcher counter as I picked up yet another package of their own recipe Sweet Italian Sausage. Just this morning, as a matter of fact. That same sausage is now well-browned and happily cooking away in a crockpot full of veggies and herbs and tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes. Someday (maybe even later today!) it will be part of what I hope will be a really yummy spaghetti sauce.

Now, I have a pound and a half of extra lean ground beef waiting in the fridge. Some of that was my intended sauce meat. But when I tasted the veggie sauce while putting it in mason jars to freeze yesterday afternoon, it seemed a bit too tomatoey. I'd cut the required 1/4 cup of sugar out when I made it, replaced it with 1/4 cup of red wine instead, but it needed something sweeter. And that's when I realized that I could use the Co-op's sausage for the spaghetti too.

The hamburger will go into sloppy joes (which I will make a bit later today--or possibly tomorrow--and then freeze). and since my mother just informed me this morning that I can freeze cooked hamburger for up to six months, I'll be doing that very thing with some of the rest of it.

Why the domesticated chicky act, all of a sudden? Well, as I said in yesterday's post, now I have the time. I also have the desire to be eating better, which I haven't been able to address until I had the time to shop and cook. And my food is generally tastier than what I can get while eating out. (And cheaper, sort of, eventually. I like to use organic ingredients, so it almost costs the same as a restaurant bill, I must admit.)

Anyway, for the second time in my life, I'm enjoying cooking. I started to get a taste for it in Portland--I learned to make my own vegetable stock, which was fabulous--but then we moved here, and the time to cook went right out the window because I was in graduate school. Now that I have some again, I'm trying very hard to take advantage.

Plus, my parents just two weeks ago brought their old freezer up from Boise when they came to see One Flea Spare. It's not a full freezer, it's about a half-sized upright (it fit in the back of their Subaru Forester), but it's more freezer space than we have now in the stupid side-by-side that came with the house. So I have room to store frozen goods, which means I can prepare more stuff ahead of time to cook up in a hurry later. I like that. It also means we now have room for frozen pizzas. And more than one loaf of bread. And tortillas frozen flat rather than curled up. And for freezing trays of fresh berries/herbs/cut up peaches to bag up later. I cannot for the life of me figure out what possible advantage a side-by-side provides. Especially if it also has an ice dispenser.

One other benefit to all this cooking? It provides the perfect excuse for grading procrastination. "I can't grade these assignments now, I have to do something with the tomatoes before they spoil."

**Update: Oh. My. God. I think I may have just accidentally made the most amazing and perfect batch of spaghetti sauce in history.

Posted by sally at 12:23 PM

October 09, 2008

And Suddenly It All Makes Sense

I just now figured out why I'm so tired. Why my life doesn't seem to have slowed down one little bit, despite my teaching load being more than cut in half.

It's because I'm now doing all the things I paid somebody else to do because I didn't have time to do them myself. I'm actually cooking and preparing meals in advance, like the spaghetti I worked on all day today or the three batches of soup I've made in the last three weeks.

Instead of eating out all the time, I'm taking the time to go grocery shopping and prepare meals and eat at home.

I'm also walking to and from rehearsal. Since I can. Because Dave's in the show, I can walk home with him at 10pm and not be worried for my safety as I make the 2+ mile hike from the theatre to home long after dark. As I said to him last evening, not only is it wonderful because I get time with my husband (a rarity anymore), but it's much more environmentally sound than driving to rehearsal, driving from the theatre to the gym just to work out and then driving home. The walk with Dave is transportation and workout all in one. Which I like. I will, of course, go back to gymming it once the show's done.

And I'm doing all the housework because we're between cleaning ladies. We had a really unsatisfactory one last spring. She broke both of our vacuum cleaners. Our expensive vacuum cleaners. And we just got tired of wondering what would be broken next. So I decided to do the cleaning over the summer at least, since I wasn't going to be earning any money anyway. And we've just never tried to find anybody else, because I have the time now and the good ones are so scarce.

So I'm not being run ragged by the same things that made my life so crazy last fall. I'm now eating better and working out and making art, things I didn't have the time to do before.

Go figure. I'm treating myself better, so I'm just as busy as I ever was. It's just different activities.

Posted by sally at 09:04 AM | Comments (1)

October 08, 2008

Two For One Special

This announcement is for anybody who plans on attending Tartuffe. If you see this production, you will have the chance to watch both of us in one show. As of this evening, David has replaced another actor. It's sad for the actor who's gone, but fabulous for me, because we're working on the same thing for once. And I get to flirt with him on stage. Yay!

So if you were waffling about coming to see Tartuffe, just remember that this may be your only opportunity to experience the glory that is us acting together. We even have a scene that's ours alone. As is natural in our relationship, I do most of the talking.

The show opens October 30 and runs through November 9. Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm, Sundays at 2pm. I don't know how much tickets are.

This? Is going to be fun.

Posted by sally at 10:29 PM

Day Off?

Not really. So I don't teach today. Here's a list of the things I must accomplish before rehearsal at 6.

• Get midterm exams to department secretary to copy.
• Buy new ink cartridges for my printer.
• Grocery shopping.
• Blanch 70 tomatoes and begin tomato sauce in slow cooker.
• Grade papers. Lots and lots of papers.
• Walk to rehearsal.

You know, in pixels it doesn't look that bad. Trust me. It is. Oh. I should put eating on that list somewhere. I knew I was forgetting something.

Posted by sally at 09:18 AM

October 06, 2008

I'm Probably Not Going to Get There

But I have a HUGE list of things I want to do today before I have to be at rehearsal (6pm). So we'll just see where I get.

Basically, this is a blog post telling you I really don't have time to post anything.

And because I don't have enough time do do all of the things on my list, I've decided to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year. I don't have anything but a title ("Do You Have the Time?" guess where I got that), not even a concept or a basic plot. Not even a sentence, beyond that title, so this year is really about leaping off the cliff and seeing what happens. Given that I have a performance the night of Oct. 31, it may begin with flavorings of 17th century French farce, but we'll see.

Also, I just realized that today is my nephew's birthday, not tomorrow. I never had the date wrong, I just thought tomorrow was the 6th. Huh. I've thought that for weeks. I wonder why. His present may be late, then, but he's only two today, so he probably won't notice that I was a day off.

I'll call tonight and listen to him breathe on the phone while I babble, because he's still not clear on what happens with the telephone after you say "Hello?" He's got that part down, by the way. Lately he's been using TV and VCR remotes as well as the control for my parents' bed as phone earpieces. He'll pick one up, place it to the side of his face and say, "Hellllooo-ooo?" I haven't seen him do it, but I've been assured it's hilarious. Which I can well imagine.

And if someone could explain to me why I am so exhausted, that would be helpful. I realized last night, when I got home from rehearsal, that I am always wiped afterwards, and I'm just not sure what that's about. Clearly I'm putting out enormous amounts of energy, but it doesn't feel like that in the moment. I just know that when I get home, all I want to do is lay on the couch and stare at things. Even if I don't go to the gym after rehearsal. It's very strange.

Right. I want to get some books finished and maybe vacuum the living room, and then it's back to grading. I'm behind by a week, so I have 70 papers to grade by tomorrow at 9:30. A.M.

Posted by sally at 10:34 AM | Comments (1)

October 04, 2008

Fifteen Away

I realized the other day that I am almost to my 1000th post. I've been writing here since August of 2004, so it's not surprising, really, that I should have had so much to say. It's been over four years, after all, and that averages out to less than 250 posts a year. Anyway, 1K is a big mark, so I feel like I should have some kind of party. And as you all know, parties mean presents.

For you, not for me. My 1000th post will involve a giveaway for one randomly-selected commenter on that post. One of my handbound books. I haven't made it yet, so I can't show you pictures, but it's in the assembly process right now. There will be pictures soon.

I clearly have no regular posting schedule, (three posts on a Saturday or none at all for a week!) but I'll keep you updated as we get closer. In the meantime, why not warm up to it gradually and comment now?

Posted by sally at 10:53 AM | Comments (3)

Furious

The Executive Branch is at it again. Their latest stupid, short-sighted, greedy, selfish, infuriating action? They want to gut the Endangered Species Act by allowing all US Government agencies to decide on their own--with no input from Fish and Wildlife or Marine Fisheries--whether any particular policy or activity will affect endangered species. Which is, of course, a fabulous idea, because as our current economic situation shows, government oversight is overrated: when asked to choose between making a buck and doing the right thing, for-profit organizations (and the lobbyists they hire) always choose to do the right thing.

Um, hello? Without those two agencies, our fisheries would be completely depleted, perhaps beyond hope of recovery, and we wouldn't have any forest or wildnerness areas left because the Forest Service would have logged them all and allowed ranchers unlimited access. That's not good for streams and recreation and watersheds, but it's fabulous for logging and ranching.

Anyway, the Audubon Society is trying to increase awareness of this particular proposal. Feel free to make a comment there, but an original letter or phone call to your congressperson tends to have a greater impact.

I will be writing all of my representatives and senators. As soon as my incoherent fury settles down and I can actually do something besides sputter.

The deadline for public response and comment is October 15.

Posted by sally at 09:48 AM

PhotoHunt: Sad

This is a picture of my nephew the day after he was born.

I was there

This is a picture of my nephew on his first birthday.

I was there.

Tuesday is his second birthday. Saturday is the party.

I will not be there.

Because of teaching and rehearsal schedules, I will not be able to travel the six hours each direction to attend either one. This makes me more sad than you can imagine.

Posted by sally at 09:15 AM | Comments (8)

October 03, 2008

Beaudyful

So I think I mentioned we were re-doing our bathroom. No? Ah. Well. We're re-doing our bathroom. First step: get rid of the fucking hideous harvest gold bathtub I have tolerated for five years.

Here is what our bathroom looked like on Monday morning:

Can you see, perhaps, why some changes are in order?

Instead of removing the tub and just tossing it in a landfill, we opted to have a cover put over it and to install a matching surround. It's the environmentalist in me, who knows that no one else in the world wants a harvest gold bathtub, and also the practical person who realizes that to get that sucker out of the bathroom with the abnormally narrow doorway we'd have to take it out through the window. I just didn't want to go to those places. This was a much simpler solution. Plus, it meant three days of not showering at home vs. the week or more that replacing the tub might have taken.

So here is what our bathub looked like yesterday morning, after three days of tub surround installation.

We opted for that color because the one thing we're not changing in the bathroom is the toilet. It works just fine. So we picked the new materials to match it. Otherwise, I'd have gone with white.

The contractor laughed at my reaction to the new look. I went in to see it before I wrote the final check. He saw me writing that check as he cleaned up. And when he came back in from his truck, I was standing in the bathroom again, sighing blissfully, with a goofy look on my face. I hadn't realized exactly how much I'd hated that bathtub until I couldn't see it any more. It's so beautiful now.

Clearly there is still more work to do. The hideously tall baseboards must go (The contractor who installed the surround said, "I've never seen anything like that. It's practically wainscoting.") The paint color must change. The corroded sink/countertop and the nasty sink fixtures and the battered old cabinets and the HIDEOUS mirror/medicine cabinet must go. So must the gawdawful light fixture. And the heinous handles and drawer pulls. And the uuuuuuuugly linoleum.

But! We have the paint. It's a gorgeous creamy yellow/white that changes color dramatically depending on the light source, white in daylight and yellow under artificial lighting. The cabinets and door and trim and built-ins will be a bright clean white with no extra tinting. Dave has already built the replacement cabinets. They're sitting in the garage waiting to be painted. And the new, sleek light fixture is in the basement. And we know what we're doing instead of the medicine cabinets/mirrors. We just have to decide on a countertop (perhaps the same color as the surround?) and sinks (white?) and linoleum. (We're thinking about hiring a friend to tile it for us, but the "What are we doing to the floor?" discussion hasn't actually happened yet.)

So soon we'll have a lovely, bright bathroom. Now all we need is the time...

Posted by sally at 10:42 AM | Comments (3)

October 01, 2008

Hawaii - The Walks

(Note: This is a continuation of my writing about Hawaii. I started it two weeks ago and opted to just finish and post it rather than extensively edit and update. I just don't have the time right now.)

The next morning (Wednesday, I think), I grabbed the big camera and headed around the bay on the other side. I'd already been partway along that beach the day before, when I went to see the sea turtles. But there was a visible point, to the southwest, and I wanted to get there.

Plus, I wanted a chance to get some shots with my 35mm. That walk was when I took most of the images I posted here.

This is where I was headed:

Doesn't that look like a lovely walk? I already knew that sea turtles hung out there to rest (I'd been there the afternoon before), and Dave had gone some distance along. I did end up taking off my shoes and wading for some bits, because the tide was in and some places, continuing meant a choice between impassably treed and water. But, oooooh, how lovely and warm the water was. I was expecting PNW Pacific Ocean temps. Silly me.

For these next two pix, I was standing in exactly the same spot. But in the first, I shot the bay, and then I turned around and shot the second. One of the things that just fascinates me about Hawaii is the incredible variety of landscapes and the abruptness of the changes between them.

A little bit later, I turned around and got this:

The square buildings you can barely see in the mist, right at the base of the bay, are our hotel. Look at all that lushness. Gorgeous.

There are at least eight little beach dwellers in this photograph, but there may be more. I am always amazed at how much life the ocean supports. Which is why dead zones horrify me. How can we have created a space that is so toxic that nothing at all can live there? And why aren't we working to stop it?

I stumbled upon the items in these next two photographs while heading toward the point and had to get some shots of them. I don't know what they are, but they look cooooool.

And while I was shooting them, I snapped another pic of our hotel:

This last shot is from the tip of the point I could see from the hotel beach. Beyond it, the beach ends, and there are "No Trespassing" signs that I opted to honor. I could see this awesomely tropical rustic house among the trees and stuff further along, but also decided to honor the privacy of all the residents. However. The greenery in this photo was behind me, back toward the hotel. From here, the bay would be on my right and the break of it beginning right behind me. It was so peaceful here. Ocean on two sides, since the point I had walked to jutted out a bit, but there was a further point on which sat the house, and this amazing, lush vitality on the other two. I just stood there and drank it in, listening to the ocean and the seemingly hundreds of bird calls. So much life.

And then I turned around and headed back to the hotel.

That afternoon, a bunch of us went into Kona for food and shopping, followed by the sunset sail. The next morning, I took an early walk through the petroglyph fields before spending the day lounging about by the pool. And then we went to the wedding vow renewal ceremony on a rocky beach, followed by a fabulous dinner. And the day after that, we said good-bye to the wonderful island and flew home. Well, mostly home. We got into Spokane at 11:57pm and opted to stay at the local hotel rather than adding a 90-minute drive to our already long day of three flights in nine hours.

And just like that, our vacation was over and the insanity of a new fall semester began.

This is probably the last entry I'll be posting on Hawaii, simply because it happened over a month ago now and, frankly, time is getting away from me again like it always does this time of year. I wish I'd had some more time to absorb it, to let it settle into my bones before I was off and running like a mad thing. I really want to let it continue to impact me. Hopefully, it is. But it's hard to tell with shows and classes and other projects (like a bathroom remodel) swirling about my head. I should be able to breathe again in a month. Maybe sooner, if I can get my damn lines to stick in my head.

Posted by sally at 10:04 AM | Comments (3)

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