All Eyes on Me

I am graduated now. I have a Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University. And, amusingly, I can't seem to get the beginning of the opening number from Avenue Q out of my head. ;-)

It was a really great weekend. My parents came up for the ceremony, and they and Jared and I did some fun things. We went out to dinner Friday night, and then took Mom to the Dreitzer Gallery to look at the senior show. Jared hadn't seen it either at that point, so it was good that we went. She was very glad to see Kindness's painting of me, and unsurprisingly her favorites were him and Ernest. I've always said Ernie's style reminded me of hers. ;-)

Saturday we went to the zoo! I love going to zoos, 'cause I love looking at the animals-- it kind of renders me into a little kid. It was so much fun being out with Jared, gushing over animals. And then we came home and prepared a big dinner. Bernie's parents were also in town for his graduation, so Bernie wanted to have a big dinner getting friends and family together. We made chicken marbella, mint-citrus wild rice, spinach salad, French onion soup, and mixed berry pie. I liked Bernie's mom and dad a lot, and I got to teach Jared to roll out pie crust. :-) The other guests consisted of witticaster, zapf, the Daves, and bronzite, who in case he had any concerns WAS both helpful and charming, not to mention made a favorable impression on my parents. ;-) All in all, it was a really nice evening and I had a very good time.

Sunday was graduation. My mini-commencement and the main commencement went well enough, though they were both a bit on the dull side for my tastes. I probably would not have gone if my mom hadn't wanted me to, but it wasn't so bad. Jared was wonderful to be willing to sit through it all for me. Afterward we collected my brother, who spent msot of the weekend hanging out with friends, and went to a lovely dinner in the North End. All in all, a most excellent weekend.

I took Jared to the airport to go home today. Here we begin our third summer apart. We've done this twice before now so we've pretty much figured out how to make the distance not feel so far, but I am sad as always to have to be apart from him. We spent the last week in the same house together, and it was really wonderful. But now I must be strong, and make time to talk to him every day, and plan times to visit over the coming months.

Since good fortune would have it that bronzite is in my hometown area on business this week, I had a very nice evening last night meeting him for dinner and a movie. Normally when I'm at home lately I'm quite bored when I'm not specifically doing something with my parents (whose desire to have me home is really the only reason I'm willing to come), so this was a lovely stroke of luck and I had a really nice time. Thanks, Bronzite, you made my night.

Today is Easter Sunday, which means Christ is risen, my family goes out to brunch, and I don't have to keep kosher anymore. I think I did a decent job, if I may say so myself. My final verdict on the experience is that it really isn't so bad, and I wouldn't suffer too badly if I had to always do it, but given the choice, I'd rather avoid the pain of having to watch out for things, and I missed the trayf things I couldn't eat. We had a really nice brunch on a sailing-ship-turned-restaurant in Philadelphia, then spent a few hours wandering around the city before going home again. A lovely day all around. I didn't get anything productive done, but I've promised myself to be more focused tomorrow. I hope Easter was just as nice for all of you, and enjoy the rest of Pesach.
 

Friday night - All's Well That Ends - This really was an excellent game. It was incredibly thickly plotted, and it seemed like pretty much every character felt like they were important and involved in significant things. I loved the setting, and the way the history was interpreted for dramatic effect. I was Robert Floode, a successful boy actor on the Elizabethan stage, and I very much enjoyed my entanglement in the theater world. Also, I always enjoy having the chance to interact with electric_d_monk, who had the role of Mr. William Shakespeare. I was genuinely cross-cast for the first time, and a role like mine is actually probably better suited to it than most. Additionally, it's games like these that really point out how the management of information can really affect a game. I tend to be an inveterate liar in larps, mostly to manipulate people, but sometimes you manipulate them more by telling the absolute truth. I got a fundamentally honest character to to tell me everything she knew by answering all her questions completely frankly. Amazing how one thing works well in some instances and another works better in others. AJ, the author and GM, is not only an excellent writer but an incredibly charming guy; I'd love to get the materials from him and run it myself here at Brandeis sometime, and from a quick conversation I had with him it seemed like he'd be okay with that.

Saturday morning - Muppet Purgatory - Unfortunately I did not have quite as good a time in this game. It was a horde game in which I was cast as horde, but-- obvious as it may seem --I like being horde in good hordes, I really don't like it in not-so-good hordes. The horde in this game was not written to allow a lot of interaction with other characters, and a lot of the time if someone didn't get the Muppet reference the character was making, either you had no idea how to play it or no one knew how to respond to you. Not my kind of horde. I think the cast characters must have been better, as the cast seemed to being having a lot of fun, but they were also played by some really strong larpers-- oakenguy as Fozzie, Margaret Simkins as Miss Piggy, Jim MacDougal as Gonzo, and the guy I didn't know who played Animal was absolutely amazing. Poor Nomi as Kermit had to run around herding cats trying to get us all out onstage, and Adina and Laura made a really good Statler and Waldorf. I liked the performative aspects of it, when you went out on stage with an act-- I got to play in a D&D game run by Animal, and sing the Internet is For Porn, among other things --but the horde just wasn't strong enough to stand without the context of the presentations. So not a great game, but probably some would have fun with it, and not really the game for me.

Saturday evening - League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students - I had a blast in this game. I heard reports of Matt and Lise working on this game over the past year and grew progressively more excited for it as time went on that I couldn't not sign up for it. I loved the Victorian pastiche part of it, and they wove it very skillfully into the Harry Potter setting. I was the Cheshire Cat, and got to wear my sexy kitty costume that got more than a few approving looks. ;-) i had enough plot to give me a direction, and then the total freedom to pursue what interested me and stick my nose in other people's business. It was a very interesting character in its function and capabilities, and I loved getting to figure out how to use my situation to my best advantage. I had an ability that was both very powerful and incredibly abuseable, and I surprised myself by how much I used it during the game, but I worked very hard to not screw anybody with it. I followed around the guy who played Auguste Dupin a lot, as well as Marc Blumberg as Professor Moriarty, partly because they had interesting mysteries and partly because they were just fun to interact with. Among those that impressed me were those two, Margaret (as always) as Artemisia Black, the guy who played Watson, and Jared in his incredibly cool character that I ended up having a really fun time with. The one real criticism I had involved the deduction mechanic, which was a great idea and worked well, but there was just so much of it to get done that it tended to eat up a lot of time. I like the concept of it, though, and I'm considering asking if I can adapt it for something in Oz. Heh, as a side note, there was an incredibly cool moment right before the game that I was in my Cheshire Cat costume standing in front of Matt and Eager Mike-- my two Cheshire Cats. I am extremely amused to think that Matt was my original Cheshire Cat, and I was in the first run of his.

Sunday morning I wasn't in any game, but I did watch the second run of GM Space. It ran beautifully yet again, and I am incredibly proud of how strong that horde is. I think everyone who played it enjoyed it, even the players who typically don't like horde games. Socially I felt like I got to talk and hang with a lot of great people. Jared and I chatted a lot with David Cave, who played the March Hare in the second run of Alice, who is trying to finish a larp of his own. It was also great getting to see Marc  Blumberg, who impressed the hell out of me as the White Rabbit. I wanted to talk more to Margarat Simkins, but she just kind of got away from me even though we were in two games together. One of the best things was that I got to be with Matt and Lise, who I haven't seen in a really long time and have really missed. They were excellent company, and I want to talk to them more about their game. The dead dog, organized by londo, was very nice. This weekend I also made a point of hanging with bronzite because I haven't seen him in a while, and I wanted to hear about how it was to do Iron GM. His team, I Escaped from Arkham, won the contest, and now I'm very curious about their game. I also chatted with the dude from Mystical Journeys in the black and purple cyberpunk getup, who maintains the fact that he was flirting shamelessly with me is proof positive of how he was not part of his fellow's speculation that my age was fifteen. *Grumble* Stupid Alice pants making me look like a scrawny shapeless kid. It was also really nice to just be able to just be with Jared, hanging with people, playing games, and not worrying quite so much. We both had a bit of con crash afterward, I think because we had to be plunged back into the grind of work and stress, but for the timebeing it was a really nice diversion. He busted out an impression of someone at the dead dog that cracked up those of us still lingering.

So yeah, it sucks to be back to the grind, but overall, good con, and thanks to everyone that helped make it so.

I slept through the night last night for the first time in days. Finally. A little bit of peace. Up ntil then, the best news I had was I finally figured out how to shut my storm windows.

I was wondering, did anybody take pictures during TMA? I don't quite remember, but I think somebody was, and I'd really really love to see them. I also think quotes were being taken-- any chance of those getting sent out any time soon? 

I had such a good time at TMA. I loved my character, I loved my interactions with other players, and it was a great distraction from the other stresses in my life. It was so well run, and so many people were exceptionally well-cast. Apparently it was teenyweenyowen who made the initial suggestion that I play who I did, and to him I'm very grateful. And a special thanks tobronzite, my faithful shadow, who kept me company, let me bounce all my half-baked ideas off his very politic silence, and joined me in my mad dash through Shapiro Campus Center. I couldn't ask for a better long-suffering AGM. Thanks, dear.