All Eyes on Me

I'm sure you're all very tired of hearing status updates on my health and schedule by now, but writing things out helps me get my head on straight about what I'm doing and what I should be doing. Slowly feel like I'm getting myself back together. Diet, exercise, and skincare routines have been put back to where they should be. The cold is almost gone; I'm not as sneezy and stuffed up but the tiredness remains. That's still really bugging me, though.

I've always found a pretty definite sundowning effect in my ability to focus and get work done I don't specifically want to do. I'm a morning person in the extreme; I always feel best and am most productive when I rise early, do important stuff first then, and then chill more as it gets later, but in the past few weeks it's been ridiculous. My work schedule for the semester has a couple of ten-hour workdays built into it now, and by the time it's over, it's at a time of day where I am notoriously unproductive even when I'm not burnt. In the last week I've passed out around nine PM four times. I get up at six, so I guess nine hours isn't an unreasonable amount of sleep for my body to want, but it sure means there's not much time to do anything else once I get home from work.

I really want to go back to the writing habits I had before the Mrs. Hawking productions got so intense. But with so little focus by the time I'm free to do it, and so little time before I'm crashing like a ton of bricks for the night, it's not happening. Ah, well. Maybe I need a little more recovery time. I hope by the time this cold is totally out of my system, I won't need so much sleep. Or maybe I should plan on devoting more of the lighter-scheduled days of my work week to writing. Maybe I should just say screw the evenings on Monday and Wednesday and do what I want then. I'm not good at being easy on myself, but sometimes there's just no point in hammering when you're not going to get anything out of it.

I woke up with a cold today, the first I've had in like five years. It's not all that bad, but I dislike anything that reminds me that I'm not actually invincible. If I'm not invincible, it means there are some things I can't do, which I don't like to think about. Moreover, it's sapping my energy, and I've got more on my plate than I hoped I would right now.

I finished my writing project I needed for a submission opportunity, thanks to some awesome friends giving me feedback. Thank you, brilliant people! But now I need to finish editing my article for Game Wrap, and it's pretty demanding with jumping into new classes now. Not a good time to feel even less focused than usual.

I am close to having a break, though, or at least as much as I can with my normal work schedule. Next week I won't have the pressure of any due dates on me. I will use it to take a breather, but also to figure out what my next direction is. Which writing project to do next, what I want to have on my schedule, get into good life habits again. I want my exercise routine to go back to near-perfect, and my skin is a volcanic wasteland. I'm usually relentlessly healthy because of my routines, so if I'm compromised enough to finally get a cold, I probably need to take care of myself.

I am so ready for the holiday break. I have been holding it together, but I'm so severely overloaded right now that I worry about balls being dropped. I'm prioritizing work right now, finishing my teaching obligations strong until the end of the semester, and so far I've met all deadlines and requirements, but I'm drowning in grading. I would very much like to be hired back at the same institutions next semester, so I'm pouring effort into doing a good job, but the combined weight of everything is dragging at me. Mrs. Hawking and Vivat Regina are going well-- rehearsals are ahead of schedule, actually --but I'm afraid my burnout will affect my ability to keep things moving. I really don't want to fall behind.

The stuff I don't owe to anybody but myself has been a complete mess. My acne protocol, my chores, all that have gone to hell. Thanksgiving threw off my diet for four days, and though I've been back on it since then, my exercise schedule got beat up. I feel softer and squishier, and I hate it. My body has been a little bit sore-- my right wrist and hip both feel slightly injured, and I'm not sure if it's because I haven't been exercising as much, or if I hurt them while trying to exercise and shouldn't stress them. I really need to get myself back in a routine, but the energy and focus it requires is in short supply right now.

Time will open up relatively soon, though. The semester will end, and rehearsal will break for the holidays. Then maybe I can catch up on all the stuff I'd let fall by the wayside in the meantime.

There is a scene I'm planning for the sequel to Adonis. It has Aidan confessing to Diana how challenging he's finding the role of figurehead for their rebellion. How difficult it is to project the complete confidence, strength, and determination required to inspire the troops. He says he doesn't feel that way, and feels false for acting as if he does. Diana tells him that people act confident in order to make themselves confident. She tells him what is now on the banner of my journal page-- "Do you know why heroes boast? Because it makes them brave."

I am proud of that line. I even think it's true.

My plate has literally NEVER BEEN FULLER. NEVER. I may have seriously overcommitted myself. It happened in part because I want to contribute to so many worthwhile things, and in part because of certain obligations I feel I must fulfill. But I WANT to do these things. I WANT to conquer them and make them part of me. I WANT TO DO IT ALL.

So I am going to make a hero's boast RIGHT NOW. To pump me up, to make me fierce, to solidify my determination to get through.

HERE ARE ALL THE THING I'M GOING TO DO BETWEEN NOW AND THE END OF THE YEAR.

- I am going to teach two college courses.

- I am going to direct and produce my two plays, Mrs. Hawking and Vivat Regina, to bring serial theater to Arisia 2016.

- I am going to costume the fall production at Dana Hall.

- I am going to serve as a volunteer at the Charles River Museum of Industry.

- I am going to finish my play Base Instruments for release as the third installment of the Mrs. Hawking series.

- I am going to serve on the editorial board for Game Wrap Magazine.

- I am going to help write Pub Crawl, a new Alleged Entertainment larp for Intercon.

- I am going to stick to my diet and exercise plan for the proscribed twelve weeks.

I am going to do ALL THESE THINGS. Because I am strong and brave and a warrior. THIS IS WHAT A WARRIOR LOOKS LIKE.



WITNESS ME.

My grandfather, Arthur William Roberts, passed away this week. He was the life of the party, a WWII combat veteran, a loving and supportive presence, and the man who taught me to love and be proud of my Italian heritage. He was very old and had a great life. He was at the point where he wasn't really mentally present anymore. There's no particular tragedy in this, though we'll miss him, and he was my last living grandparent.



I have to go to Pittsburgh for the funeral, and as much as I want to be there to say goodbye properly, I am not looking forward to the trip. In order to not miss either any of my new classes and to have enough time to do the outside prep work, it's going to be a whirlwind. I'll have to go off my diet, I'm sure. There won't be any way to take my smoothies with me, and it would be a huge pain to try to get the right supplies and make them. I'm allowed one cheat day, but I'll have to do two, and that displeases me. Because, like most funeral trips, I got the plane tickets at the last minute, they both have connecting flights so they didn't cost an arm and a leg. I have to get up at 4:30 on Sunday to get a shuttle to the airport to get on a 7am flight, and then not arrive until 11:45pm in Boston on Monday, for the shuttle to take me home by 1. And then get up and teach first thing the next day.

So I think the whole business is going to be pretty unpleasant. I've been tired enough from adjusting to my new schedule-- I'm only in week three --that I don't relish that wrench being thrown into the works.

I have a lot of change going on in my life right now. My work, my routine, my diet, all these have been shaken up in a short period. This is a good thing, though right now I'm just getting used to it all. In truth I want to incorporate even more new things. I'm hoping to get into a new exercise routine. After some weeks, I plan on going into play rehearsals that will take up my evenings too.

But even the things that have gone into effect are still brand new. I think it will take me some time to adapt to how these things feel. Right now it's kind of stressful. I believe I'll feel more comfortable with things in time, but it can't happen all at once. In that case, it make sense to not change everything up at once. Maybe I should worry about getting a handle on the stuff I've got on my plate already before I pile on even more.

It's so typical of me. I want it all and I want it now. I want to power through my new work and schedule, remake my body, and do all my creative projects. But I need to remind myself that it's okay to take these things on with baby steps. Let me get used to how things are now, for at least a little while.

So it's okay if I don't jump into my new fighter workout routine. I feel guilty, like I'm falling down, like I'm not going to accomplish my fitness goals. But I don't need to do it all right now to get it in time. It will come. Like so many things in my life, I need patience.

I am back from my visit to Bernie in Baltimore, and it was very lovely. I am reminded every day how lucky I am to have him in my life, but it was great being physically in the same place for a while. He's so good and adoring to me, and when I read that article that's been going around on how much emotional work women tend to get stuck with in their relationships, I realized in ours most of it is readily taken on by him. Not too many men like that, and certainly NOT the way of my previous relationship experience. Bernie's the best.

On other notes, I stuck to my diet, though I didn't exercise nearly enough. I also got very little else done, besides keeping up with Hipster Feminist (which turned four years old on Sunday!) It turned out to be a very nice vacation, though, which I guess I needed. But it's tough to get my brain back into getting-things-done mode now that I'm home again. August is almost here, and I'm trying to figure out what I need to focus on for the new month.

Probably the most externally important is finishing my syallbus for the class I'm teaching at Lesley. I know mostly WHAT to talk about and stuff, but I need to find good texts. I don't want to make my class buy a ton of books, as I remember how I hated breaking the bank on that when I was in school, so I need stuff I can post as PDFs on the class website to save them money. And they need to have examples of protagonists who are possible to discuss in terms of what they mean for the culture and individuals that have embraced them.

I need to finish my article for Game Wrap Magazine, "yearly publication focusing on the art and craft of live action roleplaying games." I'm on the editorial board as well as contributing, because I've always wanted a forum like this to exist where people can really examine larping seriously! My article is on the narrative function of villains in theater-style games, and how they must be designed and managed in order to properly push the conflict.

I want to do 31 Plays in 31 Days again, though probably under different terms than the ones expressly stated. Not sure exactly how I want to tailor it to my purposes, but I have been very happy with what it's done for my writing to participate for the last three years. I just need to decide what my personal parameters will be. As you can probably tell, I find structure very helpful.

Possibly related to that, I want to finish draft 1 of Base Instruments by the end of the summer, which I'm considering to be September 1st. Maybe I can use 31 Plays in 31 Days to faciliate that. But I want a complete draft, so I can schedule a time for friends to come over, read it to me, and give me their feedback to shape the edit.

That's a fair bit! I shall use this week to figure out how I'm going to do it.

Mrs. Hawking is finished, and I am pleased. We filled our house for both shows and my cast and crew did a phenomenal job. I'm really proud and happy. I even talked to some people afterward who may be useful in moving forward with the project from here. Who knows, of course, but we'll see. I'll be writing about the experience on the Mrs. Hawking blog in the coming weeks, so I'll say more about it there.

I wish I could say I could head into my break now, but sadly I'm not quite free yet. Urinetown, the show I'm costuming for Dana Hall, is now in tech, so that means one more week of rushing around all day. *Sigh* That makes five solid weeks. Fortunately the costumes are in pretty good shape by this point, so it's not the worst tech week I've ever had. It's just been wearing on me so hard to have had practically no downtime in over a month.

Next week I'll have a break. Not only will all my current obligations be done, I'll even have a little time off from my work at Bunker Hill between semesters. The idea of having entire days with nowhere to rush to is staggering at the moment. I really need not only the break, I need to switch gears. I am getting my head on straight about what my next steps are going to be-- from what to focus next on for Mrs. Hawking, to things for my other projects. It'd also be nice to see some people socially for once. I'm really looking forward to the change.

Feeling a bit burnt and overstretched lately, but it's not that bad. Been spending a lot of time lately running from one appointment to the next, which for me is always more exhausting if I have more things to do but I don't have to travel between them. Festival is coming up this weekend, which I'm super excited about, but I'm scrambling to make sure my new game Woodplum House is ready to go. The sheets are done, but there's lots of in-game bits and pieces and environmental stuff to put together, which is tricky. Between work and rehearsals, I'm slammed.

This kind of slight frustration usually comes out in me as some kind of vague discontent I direct at something I have an ability to fix or change, which I think explains why lately I've been super bored and annoyed at my appearance. I hate my hair and all my clothes right now, which likely has more to do with the fact that I can do something about it, but still is annoying me.

I kind of want to change my hair, but I think I would end up hating anything that I did to it. I have recently become weirdly fixated on the idea of getting an undercut, like Natalie Dormer has in the Hunger Games. I don't know why. It probably would look super stupid on me. But I've been thinking how they say everybody should do something crazy with their hair once in their life and I never have. And it's just hair, it grows back. I've even heard if you do it right you can make it so you can have enough hair to flip it down over the shaved part so you don't see it all the time. But my wardrobe is definitely not badass to be compatible with a look like that. And it'd probably look stupid, the idea of is unbearable to me and my Narcissus-like self-obsession.

The obvious response is, of course, "Why don't you just change it to a more conventional hairstyle?" Frankly because I'm concerned anything as simple as cutting it short would make me look like a soccer mom-- dorky, unflattering, with the air that you've given up. See above, Narciussus-like obsession with my own image. I guess there's dyeing it, but I'm generally not a fan of how non-professional dye jobs come out, and the salon ones are very expensive, not only to get but to maintain. I'm not sure any other hair color would suit me anyway; I have very classic fair-skinned brunette coloring.

I also want to throw out all my clothes. Recently I started a joke with myself, when I found myself getting dressed in the morning and not being totally happy with my look, "Well, today's not the day I'd like to run into Chris Evans, but it'll do," playing on the fact that he's from the area and occasionally returns to visit. But now it basically just feels like I'm embarrassed to be seen at all. Yes, not everything needs to be the gorgeous but low key, effortlessly chic but simple, not trying to hard but still totally sexy ensemble I would choose to win the heart of my celebrity crush, but I just hate everything and want to replace it all. Unfortunately that's also too expensive a proposition of me.

The wardrobe thing at least is very likely related to the fatigue of winter clothes, and feeling completely bored of all the layers and sweaters and stuff I've been forced to wear to keep warm. Once the weather really changes and I get to wear cute stuff I haven't touched in ages, I might cheer up. That would be nice, as my pocketbook would not like me to pitch out everything I own right now.

At least, I hope so. Mostly I just wanted to make the Eliot reference.

It will be April in a few days, and of course it promises to be busy. Mrs. Hawking rehearsals start back up again on Tuesday, and I'm trying to get prepared. About half the cast is new and half the cast is from the previous production. I've never worked on a show like that before, so it will be interesting to see how that makes the process different. I'm hoping it will be EASIER in some way, but we'll see.

It's turned out that it's taking up my Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Four days a week is not terrible, and really only the leads (and me, of course) have to be there all those days. A very manageable schedule. The play is short, and as I said, I hope half the cast being familiar makes things smoother. Unfortunately that worked out to be over BOTH my ballet nights, which makes me sad. I love ballet and I don't want to get out of practice with it. I won't be able to start attending regularly again until late in May. At least it should save me some money.

I've been focused on this project so much lately partially because it takes up a lot of my time and makes up most of what I have to talk about, but also because I'm making a serious go of getting it out there. Maybe it's a crazy pipe dream, but I'm hoping to some day make a writing career out of it. My current strategy is to build up a following for the property, so that it might get noticed by the right people due to a higher profile, and if and when I get a chance to pitch it to that or another somebody, I can point to an established fan base. It's a lot of work, I don't know if it will succeed, and it's basically guaranteed to keep me a starving artist for the foreseeable future, but I'm giving it a shot.

I'm sorry if I've been flogging the Mrs. Hawking stuff too hard. I don't want to get on anybody's nerves. I hope I've made it clear that all this stuff is opt-out for people who aren't interested. Like, I hope people who enjoy it come to the show, but don't feel pressured. Especially if you already attended the Arisia production, don't feel like you HAVE to unless you want to.