My show closed on Sunday. It was a very emotional affair. We spent the last nine weeks together, living, breathing, and eating the Sound of Music. We became a big, dysfunctional family of actors, knitters, techies (with some overlap between those groups) because we had no time to see our real families. Closing a week before xmas makes for a rough reentry into the family sphere. Some of us will work together again, but it won't be the same.
I'll miss Mitch and Melody, who are sure to become legends in the Chicago theater community, the most. There's something incredibly appealing about getting a hug from a seven year old who's genuinely glad to see you every morning when you go into work.
They're great kids. Mitch is incredibly helpful and kind, the best sort of big brother to Melody. He helped me do my mic checks while I had laryngitis. It seems as though a voice is not terribly important for the person engineering the show, but it is hell running a mic check without one. Also, writing notes to communicate doesn't work very well over the ClearCom! Rita, the stage manager, and I both adore M&M, so she took Melody to see the SM booth. Melody even got to press GO on the light board after the theatre was clear. Since Mitch was curious about sound, I had him run through a couple of big cue sequences. I loved how exciting our jobs were to the kids. So, I suggested to Rita that we let them run the storm sequence (thunder and lightning, very exciting stuff) together. We were almost as excited as they were. I'm really going to miss those kids.
My next show doesn't start for a month, which leaves me with loads of free time. Too much, I think. A month is a long time to go without a paycheck, but not long enough to pick up another gig. So, lots of Netflix and knitting, I guess. I didn't have as much time as I thought I would to knit during SOM/WTP, so my grand plans to knit a million things for xmas didn't come true. I did knit a few things for people on the shows, so I guess it all balances out. Under the xmas tree this year, one might find the following things from my needles: two cabled scarves, of similar design; a cushy ribbed scarf of kettle dyed wool from south america; one hat, made from odds and ends of Manos; a tiny sweater to illustrate the larger one that I meant to make in time for xmas but didn't get around to--- if I get around to making it. I've been on a finishing kick, to get all those things ready. My beautiful French alpaca blend sweater that has languished for months as I worked on SOM/WTP came to mind. All it needs is the second half of its shawl collar finished and some seaming. A good afternoon/evening project. I can't find the collar piece--still on the needles--even after an exhaustive search of the house. I've asked St Anthony of Padua to have a look around for it, though I imagine this is his busy season. I don't have enough yarn to make a replacement collar piece. I hope that it will turn up soon, since I don't want to send off to Belgium to get more yarn to finish it. As soon as I do, the lost piece will turn up.

KILL THAT MOUSE!

Yesterday, I was sitting in the living room, watching some mindless television, when I heard a squeaking noise. It sounded like a squeaky dog toy. I don't have a dog, or any dog toys, just a ferocious, voracious tom cat. Or so I thought. I went to the kitchen to investigate, and discovered Winston chasing a large grey mouse in circles. An art director couldn't have chosen a better mouse to go with my cat. "Kill it. Kill it," I cheered, then thought the better of it. I felt like a spectator at an underground cock fight, and didn't want to stick around to see the denouement. He chased the mouse for five, maybe, seven minutes. Did Winston kill the mouse? No. I hope that Winston isn't operating under the assumption that the mouse is his playmate or friend, because Winston's #1 job is to kill mice. I gave him several stern inspirational talks about killing the mouse, and brought him back to the kitchen to sniff around. So far, no sign of the mouse's return. You can't prove a negative though, so I will continue to coach the cat to commit rodenticide.

Today, I started knitting a beautiful caramel colored chunky alpaca scarf. For myself. I feel vaguely guilty making something for myself this time of year. All of my other projects are for other people. I even plan to make a scarf for my secret santa person at work, which is perhaps overly ambitious. I bought two fabulous balls of Colinette yarn for a dollar each out of the bargain bin at my LYS. I don't know how I'll get it done, since I can't work on it at work. The secret part of secret santa would be ruined in the recipient recognized the scarf! My scarf is coming along at a nice clip, on size 36 needles. Yes, they make them that large, and they were the envy of all the ladies at work this morning. I've won the big needles pissing contest.
My dad called this morning, to ask about sound equipment suggestions for xmas. Luckily, I keep my phone on vibrate when I'm at work. I think it's so cool that someone would give me gear for xmas!
I used to read the New Yorker from cover to cover every Thursday afternoon (except when there was a double issue) when I was in college. I would just lie in bed and read the entire magazine on the day that it arrived in my mailbox. I haven't done it since then. Some of that has to do with structured time and not reading the gallery listings anymore, but I kind of miss it. I decided that I would read the whole magazine yesterday, during my free afternoon. The magazine arrived over the weekend, but I hadn't had a chance to read it yet. So, I crawled into my nice warm bed and promptly fell asleep before even opening the magazine. I took an accidental five hour nap. Guess I really needed the sleep.

Brown paper packages tied up with string

Hello. I probably haven't talked to you in a while because my life hasn't been my own lately. I'm running two shows concurrently, which means that I have very little free time. Today I had a rare afternoon off, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I spent a few hours at home, while there was daylight, then headed into the city for coffee with Joe Tech and a bit of shopping. No xmas presents purchased, but I had a good time and Joe got his compressor back.
I still have a few presents to buy for xmas. Just the big ones-- the grandparents and my mom. I don't know what to give them. My grandparents have everything they could want and no place to put anything (the two are related). And, well, I don't know what my mom wants. Pout. I'd decided to do an ambitious knitting campaign for the holidays this year. Great, except I work all the time. And since I'm engineering my shows instead of simply a board op, I can't knit during the shows. I got so spoiled during summer stock, when all I had to do was press GO every once in a while.
Knitting is going through the cast like a virus. Last week, I went down to the ladies' dressing room to discuss a mic snafu and found the actresses silently knitting. All of them. It all started when one of the girls brought in a project. She taught one of the other girls in the cast. Her mother decided to learn as well and took to it like a duck to water. Soon, other women clamored to learn and secret knitters brought in their projects to pass the time backstage. I've seen this happen at other theatres, but never on this scale. We've even got one of the actors knitting! That's Kaylie pictured above, with her latest project. She makes amazing, fuzzy scarves as gifts and plays a wicked Uno game.
I've got a few projects in the works. My beloved french alpaca sweater is on a back burner, in order to make things for other people. It's almost entirely knit, too, but I don't quite understand how it all goes together. I guess that's one drawback to using patterns in a foreign language. It makes me feel so damn smart, but when I don't understand something, it's really rough. There are two scarves going now, one out of beautiful Colinette wool tape, and the second of kettle dyed wool from South America. Oh, and a hat. I guess there isn't time to knit any socks before xmas.

I'm tired, so tired

I have an eight show week this week. That sounds fine, if you distribute the eight shows across seven days. Except my eight shows all happen in five days-- three two show days in a row, and two singles. It's too much. I have another three shows before my day off, and that thought puts me on the edge of tears. Please, Mr Producer, don't do this again! It's too much for everyone, especially the children. Yes, the kids are doing all eight shows too, since we don't do understudy rotation (we don't have the resources). Yes, I'm whining now. I'm tired and I want to get all of this out of my system before I go to work, where everyone else is coasting on fumes too.
Next week, I have four days off. Four! Silly me, I scheduled an appointment on Monday, so my plans to lie in bed like Brian Wilson must wait. Then, one of my friends from college is coming into town. I suspect he isn't a morning person, though.

Days Off

Now that the show is in full swing, and the windows in my house are done, I've had a bit of free time. Free time.On Friday, I used this unexpected furlough to go to the makeup department at Carson's. Surprisingly, nothing caught my eye at the MAC counter, except the brush cleaner that I went in for. They even had their little xmas kits out. Instead, I ambled over to the Clinique counter. I've been a Clinique customer for a long time, even though my aesthetic has been less *subtle* lately. I was quickly whisked into a chair and made over. I love the makeup they sold me, but not the way that the Clinique artist applied it. Why is it that makeup artists must always do one hateful thing that undoes all the wonderfulness of the rest of it? I don't want to have Liza Minelli's eyelashes! I do not like to have crazy, thick eyeliner! I don't need to wear powder and foundation together! Well, that's a series of complaints from separate events, but you get the point. I felt fabulous and lovely, walking around and shopping after the makeover. When I got home, I saw that the mascara had sloughed off into raccoonlike grey circles under my eyes. Very unfabulous. I took it all off and reapplied the Pink Tweed dual eyeshadow combo in a less 80s fashion, then headed off to opening night.

Yes, we're finally open. Of course, I had plenty of problems with the mics on opening night, in front of all of the bigwigs in the company. Sigh. I don't like static, but there is very little that I can do about interference. We're running 22 wireless mics, so somebody's going to pick up something inevitably. Thank god the next show has a much smaller cast. So, a full weekend of shows, then two more days off! Yay! On Monday, I drove into the city and hung out with Lewis. He was so happy when I gave him his much-belated birthday present (it's early for next year, I guess), a striped hat made from Manos del Uruguay. I took the #22 down to Andersonville. A drunk or otherwise socially inept man pestered me at the bus stop until the bus finally arrived. I have two CTA cards: one with $20 on it and one with $1 on it. Which do you think I grabbed when I left the house? I didn't have any change, any cash at all, so I had to ask a woman on the bus for the remaining fare balance. Argh. Several homeless men begging on Clark St. told me how lovely/fine/sexy/beautiful I looked as I strode purposefully towards the bar. Maybe it was the hundred odd dollars' worth of makeup I was wearing, but I'd like to think that my day off happiness was writ across my face. I had dinner with a friend. It was lovely. Today, more errands, and not in any logically mapped out path through the city. I'm looking for the perfect xmas cards. I came across some very beautiful Art Nouveau letterpress ones at Paper Source, but it's awfully hard to justify $1.65/card (before taxes and postage) when I need forty of them. Instead, I bought a print of a fake antique tourist map of Paris for less than $5, and some thank you cards. They're always good to have around.