More Notes From Above Ground
This is written at weird o'clock AM, when I should be in bed asleep.
Instead, I write with Siamese in lap, from the house of a friend with a faster internet connection and a tabby in need of medication. Ooop, the Siamese, having remained in my lap long enough to be written about, has now decamped. His co-cat, the tabby, needs subcutaneous fluids and oral meds. I've been helping out his person (an international folkdance friend, J) with the fluids; Mr. Tabby is a strong cat and Quite Unreconciled to the needles and fluids routine. It's a 2 person job (She wraps Mr. Tabby in a towel like a kitty burrito, and I stab with needle. And then we hold onto needle and cat until 200 cc's of Ringer's lactate has dripped in under his skin, as he alternately puts up with it in a bad-tempered silence, growls, and squirms. This is a big improvement on our first attempt -- he bit his person deeply enough for it to get infected and require antibiotics, and we could only get 50 cc's into him before we were all too traumatized to continue. Sigh.). She's out of town overnight tonight, so I came by to give him his evening pills. I hope that in a few months he accepts the sub-q fluids with more grace and lets one person administer the fluids alone, but we'll see... or, rather, *he* will. On the bright side, he is the only cat I've EVER known to take pills when they're wrapped in a bit of wet cat food.
Alas, I'm updating using LJ's web-based interface, which makes it slightly more difficult to do cut tags and the like. Please forgive me for being both tired and lazy and just writing in straight text.
I'm looking for work again; the job I got in January Did Not Work Out. I keep learning the same lesson -- I can't pretend reality will go away just because I don't like it. G'rrr. I've been working on this one since I was a teenager (or at least, that's the first time it bit me hard in the ass...). I don't generate structure easily or willingly. This does not absolve me of responsibility, but when I try to pretend I'm "like other people," and refuse to ask for help in some appropriate way, I screw up. More detail upon request. The upshot is that I need to make sure I negotiate a work situation with enough external structure, and keep working at it until I'm reasonably productive. Back to the proverbial drawing board.
'Tis a pity makeup doesn't pay... I have such fun doing stage makeup (and even designing wedding makeup or escorting the intimidated to Sephora or MAC and helping them pick out some good stuff). I'd need an agent or agency if I were to try to do more professional makeup work. I hate the administrative overhead and would gladly pay a commission or whatever to have someone else handle that part.
I did my fourth year of makeup for a local "Family Opera" -- this year's show was Space Opera 2005, a Star Wars show. I got to engineer Princess Leia's Buns of Steel, age a couple of Jedis, and do a quick job on Jabba the Hutt (who sang a showstopping blues number). It was an original opera, written by the fellow who co-founded the company and drawing on an amazing assortment of musical traditions. Despite a mixed cast of 80 kids and adults, it manages to hit "good community theatre" quality, not "school play." That said, I've learned a lot about designing makeup for others to execute and Letting Go of my customary picky perfectionism from this group. I like them enough to keep working with them -- there are some really lovely folks in that group, including a bright and creative 13 year old girl who has adopted me (her own parents are wonderful people; I'm not compensating for any family dysfunction. And she's a great writer...) And one of the props from the show was a lovely parody of the Dummies books: Stormtrooping for Dummies.
Ran my usual crazy second night potluck Seder, and for once got to be a civilian at a first-night seder (thanks, chanaleh!). Perhaps I'll write up more on them later, but I really ought to get home soon...
Tomorrow is the last show of Yeomen of the Guard, staged by the G&S group of a Local Institute. It's an honor to be part of this production -- it's the fourth or fifth consecutive show I've done makeup for. The cast is lovely and gracious, and has put up with the aforementioned picky perfectionism with patience (and much noodging to keep me from obsessing overlong, sigh). The show itself is quite simply one of the best I've ever seen from this group. Altho' it is time for it to end, I'll miss it when it's over. (I haven't done so much age makeup since The Crucible in '01! )
I am having an astonishingly difficult time getting to bed at a reasonable hour and making time for 8 hours of sleep. It's typical for ADD folks to have difficulty with this. I come from a family of insomniacs, and have long suspected that if I ever get "enough" sleep on a regular basis, I'll be unable to get to sleep at all. Borders on superstition, that. And working on a show has been a flimsy excuse for blowing off a regular bedtime... I come home kinda wired and then read for a few hours and suddenly (yeah, right), it's 3 AM.
And speaking of that, it really IS 3 am, and the Siamese perched on top of the monitor will explode in 10 minutes... time to go home to my own cats.
And so, to bed.
Instead, I write with Siamese in lap, from the house of a friend with a faster internet connection and a tabby in need of medication. Ooop, the Siamese, having remained in my lap long enough to be written about, has now decamped. His co-cat, the tabby, needs subcutaneous fluids and oral meds. I've been helping out his person (an international folkdance friend, J) with the fluids; Mr. Tabby is a strong cat and Quite Unreconciled to the needles and fluids routine. It's a 2 person job (She wraps Mr. Tabby in a towel like a kitty burrito, and I stab with needle. And then we hold onto needle and cat until 200 cc's of Ringer's lactate has dripped in under his skin, as he alternately puts up with it in a bad-tempered silence, growls, and squirms. This is a big improvement on our first attempt -- he bit his person deeply enough for it to get infected and require antibiotics, and we could only get 50 cc's into him before we were all too traumatized to continue. Sigh.). She's out of town overnight tonight, so I came by to give him his evening pills. I hope that in a few months he accepts the sub-q fluids with more grace and lets one person administer the fluids alone, but we'll see... or, rather, *he* will. On the bright side, he is the only cat I've EVER known to take pills when they're wrapped in a bit of wet cat food.
Alas, I'm updating using LJ's web-based interface, which makes it slightly more difficult to do cut tags and the like. Please forgive me for being both tired and lazy and just writing in straight text.
I'm looking for work again; the job I got in January Did Not Work Out. I keep learning the same lesson -- I can't pretend reality will go away just because I don't like it. G'rrr. I've been working on this one since I was a teenager (or at least, that's the first time it bit me hard in the ass...). I don't generate structure easily or willingly. This does not absolve me of responsibility, but when I try to pretend I'm "like other people," and refuse to ask for help in some appropriate way, I screw up. More detail upon request. The upshot is that I need to make sure I negotiate a work situation with enough external structure, and keep working at it until I'm reasonably productive. Back to the proverbial drawing board.
'Tis a pity makeup doesn't pay... I have such fun doing stage makeup (and even designing wedding makeup or escorting the intimidated to Sephora or MAC and helping them pick out some good stuff). I'd need an agent or agency if I were to try to do more professional makeup work. I hate the administrative overhead and would gladly pay a commission or whatever to have someone else handle that part.
I did my fourth year of makeup for a local "Family Opera" -- this year's show was Space Opera 2005, a Star Wars show. I got to engineer Princess Leia's Buns of Steel, age a couple of Jedis, and do a quick job on Jabba the Hutt (who sang a showstopping blues number). It was an original opera, written by the fellow who co-founded the company and drawing on an amazing assortment of musical traditions. Despite a mixed cast of 80 kids and adults, it manages to hit "good community theatre" quality, not "school play." That said, I've learned a lot about designing makeup for others to execute and Letting Go of my customary picky perfectionism from this group. I like them enough to keep working with them -- there are some really lovely folks in that group, including a bright and creative 13 year old girl who has adopted me (her own parents are wonderful people; I'm not compensating for any family dysfunction. And she's a great writer...) And one of the props from the show was a lovely parody of the Dummies books: Stormtrooping for Dummies.
Ran my usual crazy second night potluck Seder, and for once got to be a civilian at a first-night seder (thanks, chanaleh!). Perhaps I'll write up more on them later, but I really ought to get home soon...
Tomorrow is the last show of Yeomen of the Guard, staged by the G&S group of a Local Institute. It's an honor to be part of this production -- it's the fourth or fifth consecutive show I've done makeup for. The cast is lovely and gracious, and has put up with the aforementioned picky perfectionism with patience (and much noodging to keep me from obsessing overlong, sigh). The show itself is quite simply one of the best I've ever seen from this group. Altho' it is time for it to end, I'll miss it when it's over. (I haven't done so much age makeup since The Crucible in '01! )
I am having an astonishingly difficult time getting to bed at a reasonable hour and making time for 8 hours of sleep. It's typical for ADD folks to have difficulty with this. I come from a family of insomniacs, and have long suspected that if I ever get "enough" sleep on a regular basis, I'll be unable to get to sleep at all. Borders on superstition, that. And working on a show has been a flimsy excuse for blowing off a regular bedtime... I come home kinda wired and then read for a few hours and suddenly (yeah, right), it's 3 AM.
And speaking of that, it really IS 3 am, and the Siamese perched on top of the monitor will explode in 10 minutes... time to go home to my own cats.
And so, to bed.