Sleepy

I hadn’t slept more than three hours Thursday Night, but had so much to do yesterday, and my mind was spinning, that I had to force awakeness. I pushed water and protein all day, and it seemed to help. My left eye has a mild stye/infection and it’s bothersome but not painful. I think it’s partly a reaction to lack of sleep.

All day I was racing around, and feeling kind of giddy, and then I wanted to crash, but knew if I did I’d be comatose.

However, I found the energy to do a CSz show (not our best, but solid, if a little off-kilter) and do dinner after, and dinner was nice. Relaxed. I needed it as much as the show.

Came home, was going to post a blog but my website was broken.

Broken
Yes, broken. Terribly so. Of course, I immediately assumed it was WordPress that had gone wonky, backed up my sql tables, grabbed my template files, and purged WP. Then I realized I couldn’t get to the site at all. Could ping it, could traceroute it, couldn’t actually get to port 80. Fuzzy had me telnet into it (I haven’t used telnet in at least five years) and test that way, so I could give Dreamhost ALL the information. They never responded to my email, but it’s working now (obviously).

Note to self: mucking with webfoo at 2:00 AM when you’re already developing under-eye circles to rival any corpse in a Tim Burton movie – not the wisest of choices.

Also? Thank God for concealer.

BPAL
Got my order last night. Can’t remember right now what the imps were, but there were FIVE frimps in the box, including Hemlock, which is poison green. The bottles were Milk Moon and Poisson d’Avril.

Going back to sleep for a short while, then will start work on, well, work.

NOTE: If you’re looking for my Friday’s Feast responses, they’re in the next post down.

So I’m working on this novella, and I’ve spent the last week world building, and finding characters, and in a much-needed mind-candy break last weekend, I found myself on ff.net, reading, of all things, Beetlejuice fanfic. Most of it was based on the cartoon, which is kind of creepy because my anti-animation brain vaguely recalls that cartoon Beetlejuice was pretty gross, in a monsterish sort of way, while movie Betelgeuse (and I use the different spellings on purpose) was, after all Michael Keaton under a bunch of make-up and while the character was also gross, it was a completely different kind of gross.

Some of it, mainly shippy stuff in which grown-up Lydia and old Beej get together, was actually fun to read. I mean, really, it’s no worse than any other fanfic out there, and considerably better than some, if for no other reason that everyone and their little sister isn’t writing it.

And, hey, I never said I was sane.

But it made me realize three things:
1) The lead male character in my novella, who still hasn’t told me his damned NAME, is an amalgam of a bunch of Michael Keaton characters, and has the actor’s eyebrows.

2) I own no Michael Keaton movies on DVD, and yet I really enjoy his work. (Well, I do NOW because I ordered Beetlejuice from Amazon and used my spiffy prime privileges to get it really really fast.)

3) People you don’t know in real life, and have no prayer of meeting, can totally be your muses.

So I told myself, “Ok, if that’s who this character wants to be, and since he’s otherwise cooperating (except for the name thing), I will go with it.”

The thing is, I generally have tv or movies – mostly movies because there’s no distracting commercials – on while I’m writing. There’s something comforting in the conversational cadences, and every so often there’s something really compelling to watch, which is cool, because you’re supposed to look away from the computer screen and regular intervals to keep your eyes healthy and stuff.

I mean, I love music, but I can’t listen to it while I’m working because I either want to sing, or I feel guilty for ignoring my cello, or both. And I can’t deal with silence because it becomes heavy, oppressive, and almost tangible, like this thick curtain of NOTHING that saps your energy and sends your brain into sleep for self-defense. In my world, silence is NOT golden.

So, today, I tivo’d the 1989 Tim Burton Batman, which, yes, features Michael Keaton as the titular hero, but I hadn’t seen it in so long that I found it too compelling to not watch, well mostly, and as I’d watched Beetlejuice last night I was in a position to analyze performances. While there are really big moments in both films that everyone talks about, these two things pulled my focus:

1) Beetlejuice: The look right before he launches into the “qualifications” speech is priceless. I know half of it is the dead make-up, but no one has more expressive eyes than in that moment.

2) Batman: The bedroom scene where Bruce Wayne wakes up with Vicki Vale – he does this thing where he watches her sleep for a few breaths, then cradles her head against him, and the wordless tenderness and hint of vulnerability in that tiny moment caught my attention. (I also noticed that a bunch of the fanfic authors borrowed that move in their fic…I wonder if it was a conscious borrowing.)

And after all this, I still don’t know the stupid water rigger’s name. I know how he sounds and what his hands look like. I can hear his voice (a little gravelly, with casual speech that masks his education), and I know how striking his eyes are, and I know that my main female character, Rebecca, will ultimately pick him over the military dude and the scientist who are also vying for her attention, but I can’t find his NAME.

(And no, Jeremy, it is NOT Chelsea.)

But it’s after four in the morning, and I have a ton of work to do tomorrow, AND a CSz show to be in, so I guess I’ll have to curl up and sleep and figure out his name tomorrow. Maybe another showing each of Beetlejuice and Batman will help. If not, well, White Noise is in my Blockbuster queue and should come up in a week or two.

And sanity is overrated, really.

Appetizer
What is your favorite kind of bread?
It depends on the situation. For breakfast and most sandwiches I’m partial to multi-grain wheat, but I like raisin bread sometimes – especially with melted sharp cheddar on it. Then again, I like liverwurst and cream cheese on rye every so often, and there’s nothing like San Francisco sourdough.

Soup
When was the last time you bought a new pillow?
March, 2006. I bought five.

Salad
Approximately how many hours per week do you spend surfing the ‘net?
Considering that I’m paid to write web content, it would be easier to count the hours I’m NOT surfing the net in some fashion.

Main Course
What’s the highest you remember your temperature being?
104 when I had pneumonia at the age of eight. That’s a stretch of summer I’ll never get back.

Dessert
Fill in the blanks: When I ____________, I _____________.

When I write, I usually have movies on for background noise.

[blenza_autolink ff]

I say… And you think… ?

1. Freeze :: tag
2. Naturally :: clean
3. Painting :: Sunday in the Park with George
4. Merits :: attention
5. Ironic :: inflection
6. Survival :: of the fittest
7. Cow :: 185
8. Anchor :: steam
9. Sisters :: Bing Crosby & Danny Kaye
10. 70 :: interstate

Like this meme? Play along here.

More than anything, I feel drained tonight. I’m not in a bad mood. I’m not grumpy or cranky or bitchy. I’m just tired.

All day long it felt like Sunday, just as yesterday felt like Saturday, Partly this is because I played at CSz on Thursday and Friday. If I’ve already been there twice in a week, it has to be Sunday, right? Even tonight, as I write this I’m checking the clock going, “Well, it IS Sunday.” And I mean, yeah, technically, it is – now – for like AN HOUR it has been. But that’s not what I meant. I don’t mean Universal Time Sunday, or Calendar Sunday, I mean FISCAL Sunday.

I slept a lot today. Til noon, almost. I needed the rest. Needed to just veg. I woke up cold and thirsty. I made cocoa, and was still cold. I blasted the heat and took a hot shower even though hot water is bad for dyed hair – I was too cold to wash my hair in tepid water, as I usually do. It wasn’t even particularly cold outside – 50-ish – cold for April, yeah, but not, you know, COLD.

Left early for CSz because by the time I was no longer cold, I’d flipped to hot, and was craving a Jamba Juice. Got to the arena around 6:30. Helped make the seating chart. Cleaned up a bit. Worked bar. I don’t like to talk about shows I’m not in, but tonight’s was a little…off. It wasn’t BAD, but it fell into that good-but-not-great category we’re trying to break out of. House was packed, and there were people shopping us for a remote, which they didn’t book. It’s easy to blow it off as “their loss,” but…there’s a part of me, the super-critical part that I try to stifle when it comes to everyone but myself…that was ticking the things that should have worked better or been tighter.

Also, I’m concerned about a fellow player. She seems drained and drawn in a way that isn’t just “really tired.”

I play again this Friday, and one of our players who’s been recovering from an injury for a while will be referee for the first time. I’m as excited about being on the same liners with him AT ALL, as I am about him being back. He’s always really nice to me, and he makes me smile just by being around.

And I’m babbling. Because I’m tired.
Sleep sounds awfully good just now.

Sometimes I fantasize about living in 1920’s Paris and hanging out with writers and artists, and never letting them know I’m really a geek from the future. It’s not much as secret identities go, but the notion amuses me.

Here’s the truth though, most days, I feel like I’m wearing a mask, that the real me is this tiny, insignificant, boring person, and I just pretend to be interesting or funny or cool. I can pretend to be outgoing, but mostly, I’m shy. I can fake being vivacious, but really I’m a quiet bookworm, and most days my tolerance for other people is pretty low. Well, for stupid people, anyway.

But then I have this other self, too. And if it sounds like I’ve got a case of MPD, I don’t, any more than any other writer or improv performer or other creative type of person. Just like I’m not clinically bipolar, though sometimes I feel that way, at least artistically.

But I digress.

Along with Shy Melissa there’s a part of me called Super Mel! (the exclamation point is obligatory, in this case.) Super Mel! has no fear, and dives into new situations without pausing to think about what the consequences might be. Oh, there’s an audition for CSz? Sure, why not? Oh, you’re going to write a novella in 35 days and submit it to a contest? Of course you are. Oh, you’re going to quit your job at BigFinancialCompany because it makes you cry? Go for it. Super Mel! is the part of me who knows – just knows intrinsically – that Everything Will Be Okay.

Shy Melissa sometimes doesn’t even want to be the person who orders pizza, but Super Mel! does the taxes in five minutes flat, and gets money back, despite being self-employed and not paying quarterly installments. Shy Melissa freaks out when it’s the end of a show and it’s time to play 185 – because what if she’s WRONG? but Super Mel! gets in trouble for not letting the other team’s players jump out first.

I know I’m not alone in this. That others have different aspects of self, as well. I think it’s normal, actually, that we adapt our personalities to whatever situation we happen to be in. The trick is in not letting the shy squeamish part rule. And I have been, for far too long.

And it stops.
Now.

Stolen from Dreamalynn @ LiveJournal. In this Meme, answers can be no more than ONE word long.

1. Where is your cell phone? Nightstand.
2. Describe your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/lover? Supportive.
3. Your hair? Dyed.
4. Your mother? Hurricane.
5. Your father? Non-existent.
6. Your favourite item? Laptop.
7. Your dream last night? Vivid.
8. Your favourite drink? Coffee.
9. Your dream car? MG.
10. The room you are in? Cluttered.
11. Your ex? Incarcerated.
12. Your fear? Waning.
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? Published.
14. Who did you hang out with last night? Troupe.
15. What you’re not? Tall.
16. The last thing you did? Snuggled.
17. What are you wearing? Pajamas.
18. Your favourite book? Changes.
19. The last thing you ate? Pasta.
20. Your mood? Creative.
21. Your friends? Talented.
22. What are you thinking about right now? Novella.
23. Your car?. Green.
24. What are you doing at the moment? Blogging.
25. Your summer? Approaching.
26. Your relationship status? Harmonious.

…outside our theatre, which saw us arrive to a chorus of tornado alarms, we sat around the green room taking phone calls from players who were going to be late (hail) or not able to make it at all (more hail, a tornado touchdown) – one of whom (tornado) lives very close to us.

At almost eight, we hadn’t warmed up, hadn’t figured out teams, and thought we weren’t having a show. But we had people who did show up, and even though they were a small bunch, they were loud and happy, and Rob said if they were willing to come out, we would give them a show.

So we did.

We played two-on-two with a DJ. TC and I were blue, Craig and Dedi were red. Evan DJ’d. We opened with Do-Rap (Blue won) – We played Forward and Reverse, Red played Changing Emotions & Styles. (Red won round one.) Red played Dinner at Joe’s. We played Blind Line, and won. We played Five Things (4/5 – TC guessed). Red played Dance Party for the catch-up round. Ref’s challenge was Story. We won. Eng-game was 185. Red won the match, but I’m really pleased with my performance tonight, even though I did forget to let a 2nd red player jump out in 185 (because they were behind). We skipped half time, and the last two games were called uber-fast. In addition, audience earned 6 brown bags (5 by one person). Taping his mouth didn’t help.

Went to Hoffbrau for dinner. Came home. Am too jazzed to watch tv, too tired to write anything good.

Cocoa, I think, is just the thing. And sleep.

Oh, and the house is fine.

Fun With Words: Word Oddities

Tonight while we were waiting for Rob to get suggestions in BlindLine, I was standing in the hall talking with Evan and Bob, and we wound up chatting about words that use all the vowels in order, and stuff like that. We all admitted to being A Word A Day subscribers, as well. How cool is that.

Looking for the answer to a question, I came across the above site, and had to blog about it. So. Now I have.
And on that note – BEDTIME FOR ME!

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