Don't be surprised by the fact you can smile.

The internet, I am so tired. I have been sleeping like crap lately. I don't know if it's the changing weather or my terrible schedule or both or something else entirely. It's not helped by the fact that caffeine does terrible things to me and doesn't help at all, and I always regret it when I try it. You can tell I'm tired today because I just spelled someone's name as 'Stefanons' in this form.

Also I am kind of cranky because I met up with a good friend from college who's been out of the country for a couple years. He was in the theatre tech program with me, and I think it was always more of an amusement/hobby for him than a thing he was interested in doing as a career (like many people in the theatre program), because other than an internship during college, he's not pursued doing it professionally as far as I can tell. He kept his hand in doing some community-esque stuff while he was abroad, and entertained me with some horror stories, but that's about it. Anyway, I caught him up on what I was doing, and I forget what exactly he said, because he didn't say it in any sort of negative manner, and I can't even tell if there was surprise to it or if he was just going for confirmation, but the way he reacted to me saying that up 'til last month I was still doing the same job I'd had when I'd seen him three or four years ago -- I mean, that shouldn't be a surprise thing. Sometimes I really feel like I was the only one there who was doing a theatre degree in order to do theatre professionally. And I know that's not true; a quick look on Facebook will assure that, but when I get reactions like that it's frustrating -- I didn't get a degree for fun, I got it because it was useful and something I want to spend the rest of my life doing. And if I don't, it's because I found something I enjoy even more. If I was just doing it for fun I wouldn't have put so much work in that I nearly burned myself out before I even graduated. Come on!

Arrr. Anyway.

Also I spent way too much time thinking about setting up a poly holiday-season gift exchange. Yes, there's 3 Ships (if that's happening? zvi's been very quiet this year and I don't have an inside track any more), but that's primarily threesomes with bonus extra people as a new thing last year, and b. fic only. I'd like to do something more open to art and podficcing and vidding as well as fic. Would anyone be interested in doing something like that? Or do we have enough separate challenges that cover the different various aspects? Feel free to spread the word. People who've run challenges, can the AO3 handle shit like 'yes I would like a vid or a fic' or do they have no way to handle that yet?

In other news, I still can't finish any of my damn fics. Comment if you want any headcanons, though (be as specific as you want).

Ugh, internet, I have been meaning to post for over a week and just not getting around to it. It's my first day off of the year -- I had more days off last year than I thought, and I'm pretty sure than the previous year, though I can't find the post to compare, but they've all been in blocks so it's been a while since my last one off, and I've been running a show since Christmas, so it's been a lot of days with doubles.

So let's see, let's start with the best bit -- who's got two thumbs and got to be within 50 feet of the President without getting tackled by the Secret Service? Well, a lot of people did, actually, but what I mean to say is that I got to work one of the Inauguration Balls. We had to get in at noon to get in before security closed down the one checkpoint, and we couldn't leave until 1 AM, for largely the same reason, and all told we only did an hour of work that whole time. Considering it was a federal holiday (or two) and the last two hours were on meal penalty, I really can't wait to see that paycheck. It's all going towards student loans, baby. Mr. President, thank you for stimulating my economy. (It was really funny -- everyone was just lounging around on the steps since we had nothing to do, and then when they played HttC, everyone kind of scrambled for the stage ramp to watch Obama. I'm sure if you were in the audience, you could suddenly see all these hands come up over the backstage curtain with cameraphones. When Biden came by about an hour later, a couple people wandered up, but almost immediately wandered away again. Watching the Obamas dance was pretty cute though, and when they danced with the wee baby service members. Fandom has ruined me, though, as I kept expecting them to swap again and dance with the same gender.)

Hmm, what else? I also worked the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, which mainly meant getting to hear Free Bird from directly offstage, and see a bunch of morons in tuxedos really excitedly rock out. One looked like a trashy more Italian Tony Stark, which I found amusing. I finished the god damn one-man history show without killing the stage manager, who was incapable of using a headset without me wanting to kill her. I survived another load-in at the children's theatre without me killing anyone there, either. And I think the new TD survived it too. And we are definitely getting our money's worth out of the LED tape. Maybe too much. I'm having too much fun playing with it instead of working.

I'm apparently working too much at the library the next few months, because of scheduling stuff, so I had to cut down a couple days and I'm either going to be coming in late or leaving early or just taking longer lunches. Not sure which, yet, though I should choose fast. And my boss confirmed the whole 'just do whatever with your schedule, you know how to prioritize' thing, which is always nice to hear. Still haven't looked any harder at grad school, though. Haven't had anywhere near the time.

Oh, what else? I read the first Honor Harrington book; it seemed okay, but who puts something as awesome as a treecat over the mantle and doesn't fire it?

Also, I'm reorganizing my bookshelves, since I really need to spread my academic texts out into two, so I'm reclassing everything into Library of Congress in my cataloging app. It's not really supposed to be a cataloging app, so it's kind of not the best. Anyone have any recs for personal cataloging book software stuff for macs?

Oh my god, what the hell was this week.

( Holy crap, theatre )

So that was all terribly exciting. And horribly draining, let me tell you. Lots of 12+ hour work days, let alone day-days. I still haven't watched Saturday's Doctor Who. I basically haven't done anything but eat, nap, and go to work. I had Monday off, but what with all the excitement on Tuesday and Wednesday, plus the late nights, it's pretty much been canceled out.

And it's -- you know, I have a blast when I'm there, I'm doing what I love, but I'd also love to be fucking compensated for working an additional 50+ hours. I'm on a flat fee, and I'm an independent contractor, and it's theatre, in a nowhere near fucking union house, so I know my chances of anything are nothing and nowhere near ever happening, and I did it for the reason I always do stupid shit like this, which is that I want the show to be good, but I turned down an IA gig last Friday and I didn't call in this week and I don't want to give the impression I can be walked all over. I don't want to stay at this theatre forever, I know that. But I don't want to leave it until I have something I can replace it with. And I still don't think I want to be a librarian.

So I'm chasing my tail in circles again.

Ow, ow. Everything hurts. Ow.


Loong two days -- two two-person strikes. Today's was supposed to have four people.

So I'm in tech this week. It was supposed to be an easy tech; it's a remount/touring show, so the whole thing was already supposed to be built, we would just load it into the board and go. Except it turns out the LD turned the plot in two weeks late, focus took 16 hours, and he never provided a show file. So we built all the cues from scratch. And then I think we rewrote most, if not all of them, over the course of tech. Some before we even saw the ones we'd built without the actress doing the scenes. We started Monday. We have an audience tonight. Normally you get a week, week and a half before audience. Because normally you know you're building the entire show from scratch.

So that's been fun. Yesterday I was called in an hour early to do cuing notes, and today I actually voluntarily came in at 8 AM instead of what was probably going to be 12:30, to help with work notes, since the ME went back to Philly to officially move all his crap from there to here.

Everyone is really vocal about how appreciative they are of my help, though, and how awesome they think I am at my job. I only wish this was my job all the time. The PM wanted me to apply for the ME job when it came up a few months ago, but the problem is that it's also Sound Engineer, and I don't know nearly enough about sound to be good at that, and also you need a driver's license. If it was just the second one I'm sure they could have worked around it while I got a license, but the sound thing is an issue. I'd love to know more, but I don't. If they ever split the position, though... But they won't. Anyway, I guess it's nice to know that other people know I'm good at my job. And if I do ever get a job somewhere, they'll totally give a great recommendation.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of cues in this show, so I don't know if I'll be able to write during it, even on the iPod. I mean, it also doesn't help that there's no real booth, just a blocked-off section in the back of the risers that make up the house. Ugggh. Hopefully I can spend the time after I get here and eat dinner writing. Because I was counting on that time to write my 3_ships fic. Also hopefully the library shouldn't be too busy -- it really shouldn't, and I'm working three days each week, so I'll totally run out of stuff to do by day two, if not earlier. Bleah.

I shouldn't be complaining, though. I have Mondays off every week. That's more than I can say of the last couple months, where I tended to have every other week, one day off. Can I have a full-time theatre job now? Maybe if I applied for jobs in Chicago I could get away with still not driving. But I do like DC. But argh.

Anyway. Oh -- also, yesterday on my 30-minute lunch break, the Human Rights Campaign people were out, and I ended up signing up. I actually walked past them, then I remembered fairestcat's post the previous day, and went 'fuck it.' So. Now I have stickers.

Crisis averted, everyone -- Harris Teeter is selling tzatziki again! They also, unlike the Safeway across the street, sell quiche. Both normal size and wee mini bite-sized ones. This pleases me.

I bought so many things. I haven't made anything, though. Didn't have time for that. My morning errand took longer than I'd hoped.

Basically, our light board at the children's theatre sort of died during tech. It stopped being able to save to internal memory, which meant we had to reload the show (from a disc drive, theatre has only recently gotten with the times) every time we turned the board on. But the company that makes the board has the best customer service ever -- not only 24/7 phone support, but they'll send you a loaner board for free so you can still run your show while your board is out getting fixed. So today we were swapping out the boards. There were still a couple weird things, since they had to give us a slightly different model, and the LD also hadn't sent me updated paperwork, so at first I thought the patch was all wrong before I got the stage manager to confirm that the cues looked right. I figured out what the problem was, but I didn't know how to fix it, so I did have to call the help line, so it only took a few minutes and we didn't have to get another different loaner board. But still. There for two and a half hours. So I just went downtown and hung out for a while, and failed to write anything.

Though I did get a little writing done during the show this evening. Roranicus Pondicus says it's time for a fight scene.

Yesterday was the day of emergency lighting. I got to Adventure in the morning and the power was out. I didn't have time in my schedule to not hang, so I spent the first hour of the day working with only my headlamp and the emergency flourescents. And no air conditioning. Ugh. The day got better; we're now well ahead of schedule, but it wasn't an auspicious start. And then at the end of the day at the other theatre, a group elsewhere in the building set off the fire alarm because they were using a fogged without reporting it. It went off about halfway through the show. There's no intermission, it's a 90-minute play. And we had to wait nearly half an hour for the alarm to get fixed. Not optimal. 

Today has been much better, which I appreciate. 

A couple nights ago, I had another Doctor Who dream. It was set in some sort of Apollo-esque spacecraft, but slightly bigger -- they were standing most of the time. And I think it might have been a hospital ship? Anyway, something was wrong with it, they didn't have enough power. Rory was in Centurion mode, and was directing the efforts to reroute power from any systems they could, and the Doctor was obeying all his instructions. They were doing things like turning off the LEDs on the button panels, and for a moment it looked like Rory was going to turn off life support to some of the not-expected-to-make-it-anyways comatose patients. And then there was a scene where they were finally attempting a landing and it was a close-up shot of Rory making an announcement to everyone over the PA telling them to prepare, except as the camera zoomed out, it was Rory standing on the hull of the ship, without a spacesuit, and he looked a little wild. On top of the whole no spacesuit (but not dead) thing. There might have been some maniacal laughter, I can't remember. Then after the landing there was a triumphal drive back to the base in a classic Cadillac convertible. Rory was sitting in the front and Amy in the back. I don't know where the Doctor was at that point. 

Basically I know too much about the space program. And all the Rory parts is me worrying about what's going to happen to Rory in the rest of the season, especially personality-wise. Oh, Rory.

I promised myself I wouldn't spend any money travelling this year, but I've realized that I may have to -- there's a play I really want to go see in Chicago in May. Tickets are $122 each way if I go through BWI. Aurgh. I'm soooo fucking tempted. I might be able to justify it to myself if I didn't have to pay for anything like hotels. Anyone up for hosting? It'd be late May, after the 23rd, in case my show at Studio extends all the way, though I doubt it will. I can't stay with the person I stayed with last time I was in Chicago, as he's living in Georgia. And sadly, if I do this, it'll probably be Chicago only, not a full Midwest tour.

Next year I can totally do more travelling -- if things keep going like they are now, in just over a year I'll have my credit card paid off, and I'll have much more flexibility in my budget. Whyyyyyy couldn't this play just be up next year? But I've no guarantee I'll ever see it again, and that would be a shame. Augh. Life, why?

And see, this is why I get all superstitious and decide there must be something, or someone up there, because here's the upswing of the roller coaster, carrying me out of that worry-spot, and through no effort on my own. Unless you call serendipity effort.

I now have no free weekends between now and, uh, May. I have three back-to-back (technically slightly overlapping) board op gigs lined up with three different theatres. My next day off is March 2, then the 14th and the 22nd, then the first three Mondays in April (4, 11, 18). Then, presuming that the last show doesn't extend, I'm free after May 7. Unless it does. Which it might, you never know.

The first show of the three I rather regret taking, as it's well underpaid, but I kind of felt sorry for them -- usually they get students, so if they're asking it means they don't have anyone. And I was desperate for cash at the time. The third show was the one I've had lined up for months, a second round at Studio -- it pays much much better, and if it does go into extension, the extension rate is pretty great. But this new one, in the middle? Pays hourly. And even if it's a low rate, hourly still adds up a lot better than a flat fee. Especially since I'll be doing some tech. Also it's the only one that'll take taxes out, so I don't have to deal with that hassle. But -- hourly. Hell, that gig alone would solve most of my money problems. *falls over flat*

I am well happy (well, mostly) to give up all my free time for the next three months just for that gig alone. And it means I'm definitely going to pry out my credit card at the Josh Ritter show on Monday. And it'll make saving for that software I need earlier, which is good, since that's been constantly preying on my mind -- though I'm still hoping to hear good things when I go to strike on Monday (not hoping hard, but a little more than initially).

Also, speaking of saving, I looked after my last automatic student loan payment went through, and with that, I actually only need to pay $99 on that last loan. With the number being down to 2 digits, I feel ridiculously better. And the savings is actually closer to $80 than the $60 I initially thought, which will make saving go a little quicker, though I still hope it won't take two years (hell, I still hope I won't have to pay for it).

And man, I'm so glad I didn't sign up to go to MJ or book a ticket to AZ, which were both things I'd initially vaguely thought about doing in those spare weeks in March/April. Man, remember the days when I got pissed off that theatre meant I couldn't go to cons? Well, it still irks me some that I'm not going to get to see anyone for months and months, not even for nano (actually, no, there might be a nano in there once or twice), but still. Not making plans has paid off in this instance.

So, sometime between Monday and today, my schedule went from nicely full to fucking crazy. I signed on to last-minute sound board op for a production this month, and now most of my evenings and nearly all of my Fridays this month have disappeared. I knew I was going to be doing something similar when November/December rolled around, since I'm light board opping for Studio in December, with tech around Thanksgiving. But this starts tonight. As in I'm sitting behind the console listening to the actors do notes. I was going to buy groceries tonight. I doubt that's going to happen. Now I've got to figure out if I've got stuff I can pack as lunches/dinners for tomorrow and Friday. Man, I really didn't mean for this to happen. I'm not really irked at myself but I'm still rather sad to see my Fridays go.

Actually, I'm surprised I'm going to be so busy pretty much straight through 'til the New Year. October is pretty much booked through the 23rd, and November is busy from the get-go and barely lets up, and December is full of double-booked days in Dupont. January's got another focus too, so I might not get to rest much until almost February. Wow. That's a change from the last two years, where December ended up being pretty quiet. Oh well, at least I should probably be making some money. I hope.