24 April 2012

art of the month club

whew!  this month has been packed with arts stuff.  i've finished up the spring session, put on a performance showcase, set up a gallery exhibition, held auditions for emergence project, and almost have the summer session stuff ready to get out there.  that doesn't even include any of the things i've supposedly been working on for myself.

my script frenzy maiden voyage has stalled at about thirty pages so far.  as satia told me, the fact that i've even committed to an attempt makes me good for it.  yeah, that's right... i'm a weiner!  if only i can churn out the other seventy percent in the next week, then i'll be totally golden.  on the other hand, i have made some effort to start entering into short play contests.  if i can get produced, how many pages does that count for?

so, i'm also the project director on ep for the third year running.  i can't honestly see how i'm gonna get burnt out on this anytime soon, because each year the kids who are involved keep me so excited about the project.  are they neurotic and making some creative mistakes?  that's what is called a new director in my book.  the writers are being great about lending moral support, and my bevy of emails to the whole crew (which should really count as another ten pages or so for me!) is keeping us all with it on the details, including me.  it's really an ideal production for me - i get to help train a new set of peeps, i have staff support, and it's awesomely fun to see how they envision the plays.

speaking of art, i've had the good fortune this year to hook up with some amazing talent on the visual side of things.  all you need is one right person to point you in the right direction and it's suddenly raining cool-ass people.  summer session is gonna rock, and i feel like i'm starting to get an idea of what the hell my function is in this... kind of... sometimes.  that means i'm doing well, doesn't it, if things can stay flexible and yet still evolve while being fairly organized?  wait, is my program like jell-o?  i like jell-o.

and another thing, i'm realizing once again just how separate that different types of art seem to be if you don't make an effort.  i mean, i'm not the best visual artist in the world, but i take a decent whack at it.  i've been performing and directing for a while, and now i'm seeing what i can do as a singer.  if i weren't willing to make an ass of myself on a regular basis, i would've missed out on a lot.  as my favorite saying from ken robinson goes, "if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."  it's not that i'm not just as self-conscious as the next dufus; i'm just willing to live with a little more humiliation than most people in the name of expression.

if i can wrangle all my wild art sticks in the flame, maybe i'll try some more new stuff over the summer.  hey, i've never done any sculpting before!  if it makes a mess, i can totally do it.

this week's big shout out:  happy birthday, my zillion april peeps!

13 April 2012

ode to zip

i don't really have that much to say
so i won't say that much today.


true fact!  i like spinach.

09 April 2012

lent outta shape

the end of twenty dollar lent!  i made it!  this has been one of the more suckular secular lent challenges for me, but it was awesome at the same time. 

so the final tally for each week goes as follows:
$0.14
$000000
$7.80
$0.87
$000000
(-$6.83)
$0.81

... which would make the total overall a whopping $2.79.  however, fate stepped in yesterday!  we went out for steak with derek's parents, only to have to send back TWO sets of overcooked meat.  not only did we end up paying for nothing, but the manager was kind enough to give us forty bucks worth of gift certificates.  even after leaving cash on the table for the poor waitress that felt like crap for the fact that our food was such a debacle, we still ended up way ahead.  frankly, i was fine after eating salads and sides and bread, but hey, if they wanna reward us simply on the basis for not being a dick about it, then the bonus was worth the trouble by far.

i guess if you add in the bonus moolah courtesy of the guy in the kitchen who can't manage to cook a steak without charring the hell out of it, then i'm up a total of close to thirty bucks!  it's a good thing, too, because we went out for pizza (after midnight, so it was totally easter by then) and left another whopping tip just to celebrate.  going on to blow more money, i'm thinking the left over pad thai from earlier this evening is going to make a great lunch tomorrow.

in the end, i've done well, and derek has even helped me (mostly) stick to my weekly budget.  even the overage had nothing to do with him, as i insisted that he needed to try some dorito loco tacos and neglected to tell him that i was out of money for the week.  the real goal was to get me to eat at home more and spend less of my paycheck on forcing people to bring me food.  goal served as far as i'm concerned.  the grocery store is once again my happy place, i've managed to "cook" on a regular basis, and i'm sticking way more fresh produce in my face under the guise of emergency food.  thank goodness that making spinach salads is way quicker than ordering takeout, or else this would've been a massively failed attempt at new habits. 

oh, and the funny thing?  my pants are thanking me as well.  they've quit putting a sleeper hold on my belly button and started being nicer to me.  my bra still reserves the right to regularly torture my dorsal cleavage, but the rest of my clothes have come together in a united show of support.  i'm not the sort to do a regimented diet, and i think i look pretty good most of the time - i just hate having to buy new pants.  while i didn't anticipate the shift in body goo away from the waistline, anything to keep me out of a badly lit fitting room works for me. 

some people thought at the beginning of the challenge that i would rarely get to go out to eat.  i must say that it was surprising just how much fun i could have on twenty dollars a week. maximum number of times i went out in one week?  FIVE!  thanks to coupons, happy hours, splitskies on meals and a concerted effort, i found out one of the big parts of fun is all about ordering water instead of a beverage.  when the hell did they start charging so much for fucking iced tea?!?!  handy tip from me to you.  go forth and order out, all on less than probably already spend on cappucinos.

the next challenge looms:
script frenzy for april - eek!  i'm about 15 pages in to the 100 page goal so far.  more updates as things roll along.  whether i make it or not, i'm taking myself out to eat at the end of the month!

02 April 2012

script frenzy amateur

so, as i was growing up, i remember very clearly having an incident with my algebra teacher.  it was a classic teenage moment in which she explained to me that i would need algebra forever.  me, being the salty little spark plug that i am, shot back to her that i would be doing something creative with my life; algebra wouldn't be the thing that would get me where i wanted to be.  she scoffed haughtily, i stopped listening to pretty much anything she said, we agreed to disagree.

have i used algebra since then?  if you can count making calculations about what sort of discounts i can try to get based on sale pricing, nonprofit memberships, and the like - i guess i use just enough of it to count as algebra.  really, geometry was always more my thing.  math isn't evil, it's just misunderstood because kids get tortured for no reason with it.  have i used my creative skills as an adult?  hell yes.  in that respect, my algebra teacher can suck it.

hopefully i can give my creative muscle a decent workout for script frenzy month in april.  i have to write at least 100 pages of scripted material over the course of 30 days.  that's it.  it's that simple.

in declaring this to the world (i.e. a few people who might read this or my other posts) it makes me more motivated to accomplish my goal.  it's something i've always wanted to try anyway, seeing how i do at writing scripts.  as i told one person, during nanowrimo i have tried on a few occasions to work on a novel, only to end up with a few 10 page novellas.... okay, so they were short stories.  okay, so they were only a few pages of gobbledegook that didn't even amount to a coherent story.  all this to say, i'll try a different format and see what happens this time.  hey, if i end up with at least one decent 10 minute play, the whole thing will be aces for me.


what i did this weekend:
got bitchy, went to the ballet, ate food