Yet another book

My co-worker took a picture of me to hang on her bulletin board because I'm wearing the goofy owl sweater and she says it makes her smile every time she sees it.  I looked like a very geeky teenage boy in the photo (though in defense of the sweater, it does have a nice cut.)  (If it were a movie, Toni Collette would probably be my mother, never mind that I'm actually older, but she often plays the mother to the type of boy I resemble today.)  I need a new haircut, and I subsequently put on a little make-up.  I am also extraordinarily clumsy today.  Missed my bus because I kept knocking stuff over, and spilling things, in the kitchen.  At one point, knocked a can of coconut milk toward my head (it missed), smacked into the counter, knocked over some bottles into wine glasses (which thankfully, did not break)...all of it making quite a racket.  (Like when you are trying to be quiet, and that focus on the act makes you make more noise than you otherwise would've, if you weren't trying.)  It's a clown-moment morning.  I'll leave it at that.

Picked up a copy of 1984 at the bus stop.  One of those bus libraries.  I've started it before, but got bored, I think.  I wasn't planning on taking a book, mostly I look to see what types of books are in them.  I have a bunch I want to add to the collections and am feeling out the offerings to see where to leave them.  Anyway, gave me something to do while waiting for the next bus.

It is a bit boring starting out, I don't find anyone to sympathize with, but it picks up with the ideas of "history" continually being amended so that those are in control are seen as infallible, and so that one can no longer distinguish actual memories from fabrications, or even "when" it is.  And then there is the cloying aspect of always being observed, of always having to be on guard, of a lack of genuine feeling (of any kind.)  The only freedom being in your mind, but you'd better not trust those ideas to be spoken or written or otherwise known.  In a place where there are no laws, but the simplest act of autonomy can subject you to death.  How everything is falling apart.  I'm only on about page 38.

I need to stop starting new books before I finish the pile I'm wading through.  I've lost track of how many now.  Still, this is a good one for reading on the bus, it's very portable (Dickens is not.)

I should find somewhere to go write for a while.

New things

I don't recall it raining this afternoon, nor earlier tonight, yet when I walked home just now after getting out of the house to get some writing done, the ground was quite wet.

I keep spilling things this week: a burrito's contents on my bed (we don't have a dining room); a rotting plum exploded on my pants as I was carrying the compost outside; my water bottle leaked half of it's contents all over my bag, through my workout clothes, and all over my library book earlier today; and I just spilled the drink I was attempting to drink all over my journal.  I had to wear the clothes anyway, because I needed to.  At least wearing them, helped them to dry out some.  And I really should take a shower, but my feet aren't all that dirty, since we wore socks in class.

So, I'm taking this Suzuki intensive so that I can do the drop-in classes, and get some physical theatre practice in.  I walked in with a little anxiety, not sure what to expect, I've had a couple short exposures to Suzuki (in Biomechanics, as well as a friend who had studied with him-Tadashi Suzuki-who led a brief movement workshop.)  Mostly I remember stomping, and that hurting the bottom of my feet.  Oh, and getting tired.  But it was the plies almost did me in today, not the stomping, and then my back was also killing me.  Kinda' amazing how you also use the lower back when you engage your core.  It's mostly lower body work, with the upper body being relaxed, yet engaged, and an expressionless face.  Anyway, my quads were suffering.  By the end, I think all my big muscles had gone into a state of fatigue.  It's gonna be hard to do stairs tomorrow.  I was shaky for a couple of hours after.  Ate, too.  It's funny what uses up the glycogen stores; I didn't feel like it was all that strenuous, and yet we were all working up a sweat.

I had run up to the instructor last week at another event, and probably made an ass of myself, but I'd wanted to ask him about the class.  He remembered me.  There are a lot of things I need to work on (focus, centering, groundedness) and this will be good for all of those.  I like that he's pointing the lack of these out, because I need it.  These forms are simple, but precise, and in that, also difficult to master.  You have to figure out how your body does what is being asked of it.  It's not a way we typically move.

There are only four people in the class.  I keep hearing that casting directors are saying they want actors to have voice and movement, but it seems difficult to get these classes to reach a high enough enrollment to run.  They keep getting cancelled at Freehold.  I'm glad this one is running with only four students.  I want the training.