Glorious long weekend

And I'm sitting around in the house.

Ended up with a bag of green walnuts, so, looking up, and comparing, recipes for nocino (green walnut liqueur) and trying to motivate myself to go out an buy a bottle of vodka, and a big enough container to hold it.  My reticence is both that if I'm home I have a hard time motivating myself to go out (I'm fine if I'm already away from the house; though, all I've done today is to go for a walk, and go to the farmers' market), and a fear of poisoning myself.  I think the chance of the latter is slim, actually, the vodka and sugar probably kill off anything scary.  At any rate, you mix it up and it sits around for 40-60 days, then you strain it into sterile bottles, and let it sit around for a couple more months, and voila.  I don't even really drink much, but it sounds interesting.

Finally saw a rough cut of the film today, it's pretty good for a rough cut, it flows well, especially considering how it was shot.  I think I'm a bit aggro, but maybe there are takes where that is not so much.  Everyone else seems good, to me.

I've been exhausted for the past couple of weeks.  Not even that I need to sleep, though that would help, but that I just lack the energy to move.  Feeling about 30 years older than my actual age when I garden, I just sorta' slowly shuffle around, barely getting anything done, my back's messed up, but it's not just that.  Been taking iron in hopes that it helps, I'm pretty sure I'm anemic, and it seems to be slowly working.  (I was anemic until I went on the Pill, and started eating red meat, but I went off of it over a year ago, and it's a toss up...in some ways I feel better (more emotions), but in others worse (no energy), so...)

The nearest liquor stores seems to have closed it's doors for the time being.  I should probably do something with these walnuts before they rot.

The black duck is a she, and has a few chicks.

Chicks, July 2/ L Herlevi, 2016

Goose, July 2/L Herlevi, 2016

How they are now, July 2/L Herlevi, 2016

Already September

I feel like when we get to the other side of the rainy weather, we will be in another season: from a relentless heat wave (3 months?) to a normal autumn.  I can see a storm passing to the north, the dark clouds, curtains of rain falling, currently sunny directly overhead.  A wind has kicked up, what little is making it through the partially opened window, is pleasant; got a bit stuffy in the attic during the day.

I only ended up meeting with two people about the piece, consecutively, and in the end, I read the poem to each of them, and we talked about it.  Really helpful, needed to get out of my own head.  I think creativity is hard to do in a vacuum, at least for me, I need to bounce things off of people, hear someone else's take on it.  It went in another direction, and actually both of them were thinking in the same vein; they are both storytellers.  I have a lot of work to do.  Feeling sorta' flat emotionally, but I've worked through that before, so I have some hope I will again.  (And I don't actually know if I am even doing the show at this point.  It's taken me so long to get a handle on this.)

The second person made the observation that I shouldn't worry about trying to have people "get it" or to try to compromise what I say.  You're never going to reach everyone, and as I've mentioned before, something about the sea we're all swimming in has made me censor myself, a lot.  We also talked about getting to original gut-level reactions because the passion is found there, i.e., I genuinely care about that, and should use it.

Took a break from thinking about it for the evening, and promptly fell asleep.

Had a lot of encounters with birds today, must have bird-friendly energy.  The most amusing of the lot was when I went to the urban-farm store on my way back to work, there were a bunch of adolescent chickens in a coop.  While looking at the ones in the lower level, I kept getting hit with feed or sawdust from the upper level, I had to tip-toe to look in and the chicks were also stretching their necks up to look back out at me...a mutual curiosity.  Then walking to the bus stop, I noticed a broken branch hanging, from a distance I thought I might be able to reach it and pull it down.  Turned out I could not, but there were branches with hook-like ends and so I grabbed one and tried to catch the branch to get it to drop.  A very tall man came over and pulled it down for me.  It was sorta funny.  I didn't need to be doing it, but I thought it might drop on someone's head later on.  Sorta made me feel like a crow or something.

I have studio time on Friday, should get some sorta new draft done by then.

The birds have got my number

Sitting down to lunch outside, I'm an easy target for the crows.  No sooner have I begun to eat (pasta with peas, kale, and a can of tuna) then a couple of small crows are at my feet, mouths gaped open from the heat.  Sad, little caws.  A parent and a baby.  They know how to pick 'em, I toss tiny bits of tuna and the adult puts them in its beak.  The baby begs, pink mouth wide open, flapping of wings, head hunched back.  I decide to see if it can eat on its own, smash a pea in my teeth and toss it in the general direction.  It eats part of it.  The parent picks up the rest.  Eventually, the baby is spooked by a maintenance vehicle and flies off into a tree and  the adult starts catching my offerings of peas and tuna in the air: party tricks.  Finally, beak full enough, it caws, and listens, caws...locates and flies off to a tree and feeds the baby.  I only have a couple bits left when it returns: I have to eat, too.  I go inside to wash my plate, and when I return back outside, they have moved on.

Oh, crap!  I just signed up for an audition.  Tomorrow.  What the heck was I thinking?  Yikes.  I guess it's good experience if I want to do this line of work.  I am insane. (Because I'm not prepared to audition.)

Baby Gull

(Found the cable.) Most interesting creature from yesterday.  I hadn't seen one this young before, big gray fur ball.

Gulls, July 5/L Herlevi 2014

Baby, July 5/L Herlevi 2014

Friday-drizzly

Spot caws loudly, deeply, reverberating through the trees, only silence as an answer.  Sometimes I think birds must like the way their voices sound, and call out just to hear it.

I was one hour late for work, misplaced my house keys and tore my room apart looking for them: on the bright side, I found several things I had misplaced, and managed to get rid of a few things.  They turned up on the kitchen table underneath a stack of advertisements.  (Have no idea why I put them there or when.)

While running frantically around the house, my roommate told me to be careful in traffic: she got hit by a car last night, on her way back from another emergency room visit for vertigo.  They had to take her to the hospital in an ambulance, she says she's really sore.  Luckily, the driver stayed and helped her, and there were a lot of witnesses (and apparently, we have a lot of nurses in the 'hood.)  I think she's okay physically; emotionally, however, it's upsetting to have someone hit you with a car, or even a near miss (I've had both.)  It's ironic that I was actually considering going and seeing a therapist about the fact that on my way home last night, I really, really, really had an aversion to being around traffic, to the point where I was dreading crossing the street, even when I had the light: people just don't pay all that much attention.  Maybe it was just something about the energy yesterday, 'cos even after she told me this morning, I was fine going to the bus stop, back to the usual state of things (but, of course, it wasn't dark out.)

I came across an article about using Meisner work for preparing monologues should find that again.  I think I have the two I want to do, but haven't started seriously working on them yet.  My mom is going to pay my membership fee to TPS (Theatre of Puget Sound) for the year (Christmas present), so now I just need to figure out how I'm gonna pay for headshots.  I want to have them professionally done, but if it comes down to the wire, I'll have someone take a picture of me and use that; I can't use that as an excuse not to do the auditions; but they are pricey: it's grocery money for a month.  Otherwise I have to wait another year, and I want to start making practical use of all the classes...which is rare for me, I usually like to learn for the sake of learning.

Trying to get my arms around a big project I just took on.  I like having this much to do, but it is like herding cats together for a photograph: there are so many little pieces that keeps wandering off that need to be brought back into the frame.  It needed to get done yesterday.  I'm on vacation in seven days...time to work miracles to get it finished by then.

Onward!

Crowds

As I make my way to work in the morning, there are an inordinate amount of birds flocking and diving through the skies, in front of traffic, through the trees, landing in clusters on the streets...I'd chalk it up to the wind, but it's not that windy. Or trash day...or they are just playing, more than usual though. Also, an army of grounds crew armed with leaf-blowers and lawn mowers out on the lawn...more than usual there as well.  A day of crowds.  At lunch, the birds are assertive, one gull with an injured foot jumps up and eats off a girl's proffered fork. Others swoop low over students' heads as they walk across the plaza.

Last night we rehearsed with another choir, in a much, much bigger space. It's fun, but you have to sing differently than we can get away with in our regular space; consonants get lost, so we really have to hit them.  And then the conductor wanted more open vowels so I was trying to re-learn the words, but it was also only the second time I'd seen this music, and then there are some difficult soprano descants in it which he said to bring out more, but I'm having trouble finding them, so I was lost.  I will need to get to a piano beforehand to pick out the part. We are also singing in "quartets" as opposed to sections, so I can't even rely on listening to another soprano, as I'm not standing near enough to any...Ha! everything I don't know is exposed.  At times I could hear my part off in the distance, but as someone else pointed out, it felt like being on an island. It's good to mix it up and I think it sounds good overall.  And singing with this conductor makes me seriously consider finding a voice teacher.  There are a things I would like to be able to do (nuance, dynamics, etc.) that I've been trouble getting to on my own, and now that I'm getting more comfortable with how my voice sounds, I might find it less intimidating  Also, a couple of my classmates are working with voice coaches and I'm inspired by that.

Seeing people in Halloween costumes makes me happy.  Curiously, the only people in our office that dressed up today were all IT staff.  I didn't dress up this year; feeling unoriginal.  Last time I dressed up was as someone from an 80's hair band. Today someone I work with said they didn't recognize me, but it's just 'cos I was wearing glasses.  (Not as a costume, just to see better.)

Bought candy on the way home, but only got one trick-or-treater, and I think it was my next door neighbor; I imagine everyone else might be afraid of us. Sat in the living room waiting, watching "Last Man on Earth" or something.  I thought it was about zombies, but I guess they were actually supposed to be vampires. Has an ambiguous ending, the woman who'd received immunity tells the temporary vaccinated vampires that everything is going to be all right, and walks out of the church where they'd just murdered the last man. I think the man was Vincent Price, I'll have to look it up.

Last night I was trying to do some writing while waiting for a classmate, and a man I kinda' know in passing was trying to ask me on a date, I think. He was progressively more and more drunk, I don't think he will remember.  It's not actually flattering if someone needs to be that drunk to talk to me, I kinda' will talk to anyone, you wouldn't need to be wasted, I'm not that scary. As I've mentioned before, I like talking to people...and I wonder if he would like me if he were sober, or if it's only the alcohol...again, just not flattering. (Kinda' leaves me feeling like I'm either repulsive or super intimidating...if you bothered to talk to me, you might decide I'm neither.)  Okay to be fair, maybe he actually wanted to talk to me before he got drunk...and then he kept calling me by my legal name and not the name I go by, which was also disrespectful.  I don't go by my legal name because I prefer not to; I find doing that presumptuous, never liked it when "adults" did it, I kinda' feel like it's someone taking the upper hand on you (to decide to call you by a name different than the one you introduced yourself as.)  I think at some point, we get to choose how we present ourselves to the world, including our names...and I think other people should generally honor that in us. It makes us equals.  Which is how it should be.


Melting/L.Herlevi 2008


After work

Went and got a massage after work, was slightly late because I was explaining what Shuttle Express was to someone that needed to get to the airport in the morning. The therapist had calluses on his fingers which felt like sandpaper in my armpit, I so, just wasn't breathing. He spent so much time working on my neck, jaw, face and arms that he rushed through working around my shoulder blades (the thing that was bothering me, but everything hurt) and shoved his weight into the knots around my shoulders so hard that I ended up with these super deep lines all the way down my face from below my eyes to my jawline where my face dug into the head rest. I waited a little while before I walked outside, but I still think I looked like I had some scarification on my face. I walked between some kids sitting on either side of the sidewalk and as I passed them one asked if I wanted to hear a joke, when I said "no" he then asked if I wanted to make out with him. I'll take that as a compliment. (It wasn't asked in a creepy way.) I'm probably twice his age, even if I look young. (I did say "no" by the way, and "thanks for asking.")

I went to go water. On the bus this other kid was listening to his headphones. He started moving from seat to seat, and then pulling the stops and going as if to get off the bus, but then leaning to look out the windows and doors and at who was on the bus, but not getting off. Eventually, he ended up really close to the driver, kinda' dancing in the space between the driver and the door. It would be weird any day, but a driver got shot this morning, so it was weird at how much he was in the driver's space. I noticed he had a white band on his arm, and the bus goes by a hospital...maybe he was coming off painkillers or something. Totally in his own universe. I got off before he did.

Got a few ripe tomatoes, I think. Again, I'm not sure what they look like ripe, but picked them anyway. (These are orangy-red with green streaks) Right before I was finished watering, the crows started making a ruckus. I figured they'd found a hawk or owl or something. I half-looked and saw a lumpy shape in the trees. I walked over underneath the trees as I was leaving. I stood there and looked up at the "lump" which turned out to be a barred owl, I think. When I got there, the crows left, and the owl eventually turned it's head forward and then looked down at me. Then, satisfied, it pulled up it's foot and scratched at it's face and groomed itself, occasionally re-making eye contact with me. I waved good-bye to it and left. Always cool to make contact with wildlife. (Am glad it didn't swoop down at me.) http://www.owlpages.com/image.php?image=species-Strix-varia-18
This is a link to an owl picture with it's leg showing. I think they have cool-looking legs.

When I was almost home, a couple of Great Blue Herons circled overhead, squawking to each other. I haven't gone birding in a while, I suppose they are coming to me today.

Oh, and we are supposed to give the names and email addresses of our two guests plus which show they are coming to for the performance by noon tomorrow...I haven't a clue. It's such short notice. I didn't even know what time the show was at officially.

Breathe...this post sounds frantic, even to me.