Wow. I went to my blog and found that the ad banner was actually related to the content of the site and not something that bothers me. I suppose if it really bothered me, I could shell out the cash to have the banner removed. If I were going to spend money on this site, I'd get the image hosting upgrade or the audioblog option. Alas, none of these things will come to pass in the near future.

My birthday has come and gone, leaving presents and a slight weariness. I've had a week of birthday, which was strangely tiring. Still, no complaints. It's good to be appreciated and get cake and presents. I took a cake to the show on Saturday, to celebrate. One of the actresses and I share a birthday. It was lovely. Joseph danced for us and had a discussion about kabuki, dance preservation, and the use of chorus in greek drama.

The weather has been quite condusive to good moods, though my uncle told me that it will be back in the forties again soon. Sad. Still, I can stay inside and listen to all my birthday cds and watch my new dvd of Waiting for Guffman. The dvd features more scene in the musical that weren't in the theatrical release. One of the actors told me that Christopher Guest has a new movie coming out soon, lampooning the folk music movement. I think that there was a small write-up of it in this month's Vanity Fair.

My grandmother gave me the Verve Remixed cd, which is highly excellent. I think I'll take it to work to play during sound check. I have to maintain my reputation of good taste. Or at least eclectic taste. I'm thinking of burning a mix cd of different things that I've played during sound check to give to the actors at closing. I like this group. It's strange to think that we only have two weeks left on the production.

My grandfather's sock is to the heel flap on the first sock. I haven't been motivated to knit during the show lately. The pattern in the yarn is quite beautiful, a vast improvement over the dk weight socks that I gave him last year. My knitting has improved since then. I also have to play knitting fairy for Lewis, who is just learning to knit. He's making a scarf. A scarf that needs to be ripped out again and restarted. Maybe this is the parallel to Penelope's weaving that isn't in the play.

I've been thinking of renaming this blog. A couple of weeks ago, I was explaining the whole project to one of the actors. Back when I was toying with the idea of a paper version. I explained the origin of the title, Reciprocity Failure. It's a technical term from photography, referring to the non linear response of film to light in longer exposures. Any metered exposure at a second or above must be doubled to compensate for diminished chemical response. Kind of dry, huh? Then I pondered the other meaning of respirocity failure in my life and wondered if the title wasn't a bit of a curse. But what else would I call it? My old favorite, Love for Three Oranges, sounds like a site for a starving hooker. Something to ponder.

I haven't blogged in ages. Since before my show opened. I was aware of this, in a little shame spiral over the fact, and tried to put together a paper version of Reciprocity Failure. That also withered on the vine, like all those minidiscs I meant to send Willie. So sorry.
Well, my show is open now. Has been for a few weeks. It's a bit routine, which is nice, but the actors still find ways to run off the tracks. That is often the case with live theatre. The production got a Jeff recommendation, which is a big deal. We may or may not be nominated for Jeff citations at the end of the season.
So I was riding high over the Jeff rec when three really crappy things happened to me, all in one day: I didn't get a job that I really wanted, I tore a large gash in the bottom of my foot (and still have no idea how, but there was plenty of blood), and my mother's cat pissed on my walkman. This is one of the few good things that I will say about Sony: it still works. I wiped it off and gave it a liberal spraying of Lysol. I told one of the actors in the cast this tale of woe and he merely said, "well, it's good to get it all over with in one day". A good attitude to take, I think. I'd taken it as one of the many reversals the universe metes out, but that may be piscean thinking. In any case, my foot healed and I got over not getting the job. And I've finally used the minidisc player (because the cat would never pee on cheap electronics) after weeks of aversion.
I finished knitting the green mountain spinnery sweater, most of it done in the booth during slow scenes. I haven't blocked it yet, which I should do, since I plan to make a second one out of All Seasons Cotton. It's important to establish the proper fit of the garment before starting on a second one from the same pattern. So, while I procrastinate on that, I am knitting socks. I finally finished the brown striped ones that I started while I was on tour, and knit one k3p1 ribbed sock in a gorgeous Koigu colorway. Koigu is very fine. Too fine, perhaps, for mindless theatre knitting. My current project is a pair of Jawoll jacquard socks for my grandfather's upcoming birthday. The lovely sisters at Arcadia Knitting helped me pick out the yarn. They have excellent taste. I think it's good to be back in a sock mode. They're more portable a project and people always seem impressed with the apparent complexity of the project.
My birthday is tomorrow. I'm having a week of birthday, because of all the crazy schedules involved. I celebrated it yesterday over lunch with my maternal grandparents. I'll celebrate it tomorrow-sort of-with my mother, then on Saturday with the cast. One of the actresses and I share a birthday, which seems an odd coincidence given how small the group is. And I have a TBA gathering with my Johnson relatives. I told my grandmother that I am fairly inflexible about moving my birthday celebration this year, due to my work schedule. I have only three nights off a week, and I need some rest after four nights of running the show. I begin these arrangements happily every year, then slowly fill with dread. It's such a pain in the ass dealing with large groups.
My mother mysteriously bought Margaret Cho's concert album, Notorious C.H.O. This is an unusual choice for her, but I doubt she knew how graphic the material was when she purchased it. Graphic makes it sound bad, which it's not. It's just something that I don't want to listen to with my mom, or imagine my mom listening to.
I'm looking for another gig, for after this one closes. I sent the Goodman an email, which was very promptly answered, but I am not holding my breath. And I think I may have blown my chance with Steppenwolf, but it's worth giving them a follow up call to my unanswered email. I am not as persistent as I perhaps should be, but I'm afraid of being pushy or desperate. And I can be both.

Well, it's 841 am, and instead of making my way to work, as I should be, I am spinning my wheels at home. Today is the day that we move into the theater, when I'd like to be there to take blocking notes, but I'm in crisis mode. Simply put, there was a freak accident involving my cell phone and a bowl of water. The phone is, predictably, dead as a doornail. I had a small anxiety attack, then called my service provider. This is the week that I absolutely cannot be without a phone. What could I have done to deserve this? Plenty, I'm sure. Now I wait for the local store to open so that I can get a loaner phone, subject to availability, and get on my way to the far reaches of the north side. This sucks. A lot.
I've just started a scarf, to be given as a gift, out of sirdar snowflake, after making several unsatisfactory swatches last night from the self-striping mohair that I'd planned to use. Maybe I've gotten over knitting mohair scarves. It's a pain to work with, and terrible to tear out. So, I threw it back in my basket, where it will sit until I need to make another hat.
I'm going to go shovel the driveway. A lot of snow was dumped on us last night, and it still appears to be falling outside my window (of course, it could just be blowing off the roof). It was the sound of a neighbor's pick-up truck plowing attempts that finally roused me from my bed this morning. That is a dreadful noise, but seeing as the local municipal government seems unaware of my street at times like these, I am glad that someone's doing it.

One of my postings has disappeared into the great ether of the internet and I haven't the energy to recreate it tonight. Today was a precious day off, which will not be repeated until after the show is up and running. I cannot wait to get back into my normal routine! So, I spent most of the day in bed with the latest issue of the New Yorker, intentionally avoiding the love themed insert. I will not lose it over this holiday. I also finished the bag that was my mom's present just in the nick of time. It was to be felted, but I hadn't the time to felt it and dry it. Also, I didn't know how furry my mom wanted it. Different people have different ideas about how felted an object should be. I'm still of a mixed opinion about the last bag that I felted. I'd not considered the mohair content in the yarn I used (though, with a name like Mountain Mohair, I don't know how that slipped my mind), so it ended up lofty instead of fuzzy. I also finished one of the production presents that I was working on. It turned out kind of big and funny looking, but I'm used to hats made to fit my head....
Very little theatre related thought or activity today, which is a relief. I searched for my post it flags and thought about production gifts, that's the extent of it. I have to make my way to the theatre through this weather, leaving my house at the ungodly hour of 8 am. Luckily, it's an election year, so the streets should be cleared within the city limits. Past them, who knows?

I'd hoped to increase the frequency of the updates on this page, but that evidently is not working out. The opening date for my show looms ever larger on the horizon. How can we open in less than three weeks? As a result, I'm cracking down. Efficient use of time seems a lost cause with the group, but I am giving numerous line notes. I scribbled furiously last night as we ran the largely neglected third act. I feel peevish giving the notes, because line notes require nit-picky reading of the script. However, the show presented should feature the language of its author, not the gist of it.
A side effect of the intensified (for me, at least) rehearsal schedule is that I see my mother very little. She and I are on opposite schedules. She leaves while I am still coccooned in a big pile of blankets in the morning, and I return after she's already gone to bed. After one of her coworkers called at 1230 am, I went in to talk to her briefly. I think that she was a bit peeved that I was keeping her awake to ask her how to convert a pattern so that it could be knit circularly. Not the interest so much, as I was excited by the idea, but interest in a project that is currently at the bottom of my list of priorities. Basically, I want to make a shell with color blocks of dark, grey/purple and light lilac. I have four balls of the purple and three of the lilac and want the lilac section to start as high on the garment as possible. Sounds like one of the story problems I hated in grade school! Well, what I've learned of the adult world is that life is one big story problem. So, my solution is to knit the garment in the round, thereby knitting the front and back at the same time, so I don't have to worry about rationing yarn. Also, I hate seams. I have a project that's been finished for while that needs only to be assembled. Outlook unclear. Actually, it's very close to the lilac in the planned project, so I may have that as an incentive to finish it. When I get around to it.

The chenille monster is finished! I'm going to think long and hard before attempting another chenille project.
I burned a few cds to give to my grandmother last night. She's still building her cd collection after over a decade of avoiding the technology. Vinyl sounds better, I agree, but it's hard to get anything on vinyl in our neck of the woods. As I put my cd burner to work, my eye fell upon the manufacturer included case inserts. All wrong. So, I dug out my usb adapter and film scanner to make another stab at installing them. I want to make my own cover art! My usb adapter has mysteriously, miraculously decided to work. I will never, ever complain about computer quirks that go my way. The scanner is another matter though. After installing and uninstalling, restarting the comp., etc., it still can't find its driver. If it sin't one thing it's another. However, my one of my sound programs has a label maker, with some decent clip art included. It doesn't satisfy my artistic urge, but it gets the job better than trying to print small on a little insert. Actually, this label maker, which can pull the track info from cddb, is pretty awesome. I can make labels for all sorts of media, like tapes or minidiscs. Maybe I won't get too upset about my film scanner giving me grief after all.