(no subject)
Dude, I am the master of ladders. And the master of tape. And the master of paint. I AM PRETTY MUCH THE MASTER OF ALL SET-RELATED THINGS, EXCEPT THE STAIRS AND THE BED, WHICH I DID NOT BUILD, BUT I AM HELLA SKILLED WITH THE WALLS, YO.
...I'm sure this has nothing to do with having spent three and a half hours working on the set of our school musical today (plus another seven hours over the last three days and god knows how many hours before that). But by God, it is so very satisfying to be able to hit the last spot on the last wall with the sponge, climb down the ladder of death (I like to think that I am the only one psychotic enough to stand on the second-to-top step, which is necessary to reach the very top of the flats, but it doesn't stop my legs from shaking and being forced to cling to the tops of the flats for support), and call for people to start ripping off the tape. Pretend masonry, man, you gotta love it. I will have pictures eventually. It is not actually done--gotta paint the stairs and stage, gotta set up the last masking curtains--but it is a hell of a lot more done than it was yesterday, and that, as I mentioned, is deeply, deeply satisfying.
I don't actually talk about my Life Outside The Internets much, which occasionally strikes me as odd, because my play production class is one of the most important parts of my life. (I credit it with making me marginally Cool and Popular--in a school of 1500 kids, I have a Recognizable Face now; I am known, and I am liked, and I am useful. That's a good feeling to have.) I've done posters for seven of the eight plays we've done since I joined the class when I was a junior, and I directed a play for my senior project, and I know that I consider this class to be more important than pretty much the rest of my current educational career. So it seems odd that I don't talk about it much. Maybe one of these days I will start. Of course, not for the next couple weeks, because rehearsals go until 6 on weekdays now and 10-Whenever We're Done on Saturdays and we perform next week starting Wednesday (Th., Fri., Sat., then next Th. and Fr.), and I accept all this with a curious form of grace, because I simply can't think of not being in a play. Staying late is just part of the job, same with building sets and learning lines and getting paint on my clothes. I'm sure there's something deeply philosophical about all this, but I have to go to dinner now.
(The musical, incidentally, is Once Upon A Mattress; I'm in the chorus, largely because my directorial involvement in the last play--the rehearsals of which overlapped with the first month of the musical's--prevented me from having a larger role. It's a somewhat subversive retelling of 'The Princess and the Pea', and it is so much dirtier than I expected. There's a song where a king has to explain the birds and the bees to his clueless son--but the king's mute, you see, and has to pantomime it, and the son just doesn't get it...and then there's the striptease song that ends with And I know I'll never live happily ever after/Until I'm a bride/Then I'll be happily happily/Yes, happily happily/And thoroughly...satisfiiiiiiied! Keep in mind that the person the singer wants to marry is the aforementioned totally-clueless prince. He's very adorable, though. And the princess is a total fairy-tale-subverting rockstar who wrestles knights to the ground, swims the castle moat to get in, lifts weights, sings about how wonderful swamps are, and calls herself Fred...they are the best and most adorable musical couple ever. OH AND. The entire plot of the play is about how nobody in the kingdom can get married until the prince does, so--everyone is very eager for this to happen, and there is a line in the opening number that goes None of the ladies are having any/No one is having any/No one is getting any--YOUNGER, so when our director asks us what our motivation is, we can quite cheerfully declare, "SEX!" and be not only absolutely correct but also not even a smidgen inappropriate. I mean, it's true.)
(You may have at this point guessed that it is a very fun musical to do.)
...I'm sure this has nothing to do with having spent three and a half hours working on the set of our school musical today (plus another seven hours over the last three days and god knows how many hours before that). But by God, it is so very satisfying to be able to hit the last spot on the last wall with the sponge, climb down the ladder of death (I like to think that I am the only one psychotic enough to stand on the second-to-top step, which is necessary to reach the very top of the flats, but it doesn't stop my legs from shaking and being forced to cling to the tops of the flats for support), and call for people to start ripping off the tape. Pretend masonry, man, you gotta love it. I will have pictures eventually. It is not actually done--gotta paint the stairs and stage, gotta set up the last masking curtains--but it is a hell of a lot more done than it was yesterday, and that, as I mentioned, is deeply, deeply satisfying.
I don't actually talk about my Life Outside The Internets much, which occasionally strikes me as odd, because my play production class is one of the most important parts of my life. (I credit it with making me marginally Cool and Popular--in a school of 1500 kids, I have a Recognizable Face now; I am known, and I am liked, and I am useful. That's a good feeling to have.) I've done posters for seven of the eight plays we've done since I joined the class when I was a junior, and I directed a play for my senior project, and I know that I consider this class to be more important than pretty much the rest of my current educational career. So it seems odd that I don't talk about it much. Maybe one of these days I will start. Of course, not for the next couple weeks, because rehearsals go until 6 on weekdays now and 10-Whenever We're Done on Saturdays and we perform next week starting Wednesday (Th., Fri., Sat., then next Th. and Fr.), and I accept all this with a curious form of grace, because I simply can't think of not being in a play. Staying late is just part of the job, same with building sets and learning lines and getting paint on my clothes. I'm sure there's something deeply philosophical about all this, but I have to go to dinner now.
(The musical, incidentally, is Once Upon A Mattress; I'm in the chorus, largely because my directorial involvement in the last play--the rehearsals of which overlapped with the first month of the musical's--prevented me from having a larger role. It's a somewhat subversive retelling of 'The Princess and the Pea', and it is so much dirtier than I expected. There's a song where a king has to explain the birds and the bees to his clueless son--but the king's mute, you see, and has to pantomime it, and the son just doesn't get it...and then there's the striptease song that ends with And I know I'll never live happily ever after/Until I'm a bride/Then I'll be happily happily/Yes, happily happily/And thoroughly...satisfiiiiiiied! Keep in mind that the person the singer wants to marry is the aforementioned totally-clueless prince. He's very adorable, though. And the princess is a total fairy-tale-subverting rockstar who wrestles knights to the ground, swims the castle moat to get in, lifts weights, sings about how wonderful swamps are, and calls herself Fred...they are the best and most adorable musical couple ever. OH AND. The entire plot of the play is about how nobody in the kingdom can get married until the prince does, so--everyone is very eager for this to happen, and there is a line in the opening number that goes None of the ladies are having any/No one is having any/No one is getting any--YOUNGER, so when our director asks us what our motivation is, we can quite cheerfully declare, "SEX!" and be not only absolutely correct but also not even a smidgen inappropriate. I mean, it's true.)
(You may have at this point guessed that it is a very fun musical to do.)