All Eyes on Me

Halloween yesterday was wonderful, surrounded by friends in excellent costumes. Best evening I've had in a long time. Perhaps the most notable part of the evening were the five members of Team Fortress 2 that got together a fantastic group costume that yielded some great pictures. It was actually initially Jared's idea a month or so ago; he's recently gotten very into the game and thought it would be a fun and funny idea for a big group to do together. Several people expressed interest, but I think Jared and Bernie kind of didn't think anybody else would actually do it, so kind of felt like it couldn't happen. It took Matt actually getting together costume pieces to get things going; when I saw he was into it I started getting after Bernie and Jared, who got back into it when they thought there would be a real group. Jared was the Sniper, Bernie was the Engineer, and Matt was the Scout, all of which were remarkably well-cast in my opinion. Ryan and Kindness were pulled in at the last minute as the Spy and the Medic respectively, which worked out pretty well too! We took some fantastic pictures, which will soon be on Facebook. In the meantime, here's a sampling:
 

Finally got myself a Gmail account-- breakinglight11 like the name of the banner under which I run my larps --in preparation for the time when my Brandeis account finally expires. It probably won't anytime in the very near future, but it's good to be ready. Otherwise it doesn't really matter which of my addresses you use, I have them all sent to the same place.

I think I would like to write up a record of what goes on in my Burn Notice game, an episode guide, if you will.  I know when Kindness was running the saga of the Fairview Five, Matt would recap each session in his LiveJournal as a way of preserving the story. I always liked this idea, as it is a way of holding on to a story that you wrote that is told in a medium as ephemeral as the roleplaying game. As I'm trying to make it feel as much like a TV show as possible, I'm considering the story in the units of "episodes"-- not necessarily sessions, but the complete self-contained story that a single episode of a show would contain. In the four sessions we've had so far, there have been three episodes, begun if not completed. The pilot to our "show" was the two-parter getting Donovan knocked out of the field and stumbling back to Miami as a burned spy, combining the attempt on his life signaling the burn, his awkward return to his hometown and all the baggage he left behind, and the first job he would go on as part of Bruce's investigation team. Now we're onto the second episode, with another job and introducing some of the ongoing elements of the story. When I write them up, I'll also give them titles like real episodes. Now that I think about it, if I recall correctly the Buffy system is designed to function like seasons of a TV show-- is there any tangible effect of that on the way the game is run, or is it just flavor? Regardless, I like it, and want something similar for my game.

Went contradancing with morethings5 last night, and got to see captainecchi, electric_d_monk, natbudin, and v_cat. It's something I've been wanting to try for a while, and when Lise mentioned it recently I figured now was a good time. The dancing turned out to be really fun, and not too terribly difficult to pick up. It probably helped that Jonathan very kindly showed me how the steps beforehand, so when the caller called them out, they were a lot easier for me to follow. He was such a good partner. :-) Unfortunately, by the end of the fourth dance I got so dizzy I was slightly motion sick, which worsened with the car ride home, and didn't go away until I finally fell asleep. Blast my so very fragile equilibrium.

Still, it was fun and fantastic exercise. And Nat showed me this really cool iPhone application that helps track calorie intake and burn when you're working out and watching what you eat. I'm thinking it might be worth downloading, at least to get an idea of what sort of numbers attach. I've had weird eating habits in the last week or so, but I have been working out pretty consistently. That reminds me, I need to keep taking weekly pictures to monitor my tummy progress.

After several days of comfortable purposeful isolation, I emerged from my solitude this weekend to do several things with several people. Saturday I headed over to the new place of bronzite and pezzonovante to try and help with the move-in. I baked ginger molasses cookies, bought jugs of lemonade, and brought a bottle of wine as a housewarming gift, as that is what Italians do when somebody moves into a new place. As it happened, quite a few people came out to help John and Tom deal with all their stuff, and there ended up being too many cooks in the kitchen. I was sorry I couldn't be more help, but hey, cookies and wine are a contribution, right? I considered hanging around out of the way in case there was something I could do, but I wasn't loving how this one girl I didn't know who was there was barking orders at everyone, so I decided to just clear out and not have to deal or be a hindrance. Hope everything ultimately went well.

In the evening Marissa and morethings5 came over to hang and have dinner with me. I really enjoyed the last time we did that and wanted to see them sometime, as well as with all the kosher people gone I wanted to eat with people who would let me cook something really trayf. So I made pork chops in sauteed apples and onions with rosemary corn cake and brussels sprouts. I was incredibly pleased with how the chops came out, mostly because I remembered that pork is best when it's brined before you work with it. It's a very lean meat that has a tendency to dry out, so letting it soak in a salt and herb solution will keep it juicy after you cook it. This is also a useful technique for turkey, which has a similar problem, so I'll actually be able to use this cooking technique with my regular dinner crowd. It was also really nice to talk to them, both them together and just Marissa after Kindness went home. I don't think I've ever had a chance to really talk with just her before, and I was always sorry about that because I've always felt that she was the kind of person I could tell things to. I hope I can entice her out to Waltham again sometime soon. I'll have to figure out another tasty dinner.

The next day I met twilighttremolo for sort-of lunch and for wandering around Waltham. She is another friend I've wanted to spend real time with and get to know better, and I had a really nice time doing that yesterday. I wasn't quite sure what I would say going into things-- I have a tendency to worry I will be holding people prison to conversation they're not really interested in --but she was very easy to talk to, and I very much liked doing it. One of my favorite things to do with somebody is walk around talking about things, so it was nice for me to just wander through the suburban parts around here. Good exercise, good time, and with good company. I will have to see that this happens more often.
 

Feeling in better sorts after some time without the press of too many other people. Did some studying, did some chores, went out to a nice dinner with bronzite, and came back and chatted with lightgamer a little after the Buffy game. Sleep was welcome and appreciated afterward.

Today is my last day to study for my last final, so that will take priority. Also, my parents will be in town to help my brother pack up his stuff from his room for the end of the year, so I need to be available to see them for a minute. Also, tonight Kindness has very kindly offered to take Marissa and I out to dinner in thanks for modeling for his paintings. As to this, my attitude is "You want to feed me as a thanks for... flattering my vanity? Suuuuuure." :-) He's a very sweet young man.

Also, tomorrow Jared's parents will be here to help him pack up, and I have offered to make dinner for them in the evening. I am in the process of planning the menu, and a trip to the kosher market to buy meat. I am also endeavoring to not stress myself out like crazy for this, as I just want it to be a nice evening. I have a tendency to panic over the impression I'm making.  

Yesterday was a very good day. Spent most of it hanging out with and working  with Jared, then rehearsal and a very fun BSCF. Rehearsal went well; I enjoyed the blocking for the scene I get Bottom transformed into an ass. I am quite impressed with Kindness in the role of Bottom; he's doing so much with it, and as I told him, he's going to blackjack this show from behind, throw a bag over its head, and carry it off over his shoulder. I'm feeling better about my end of things as well, if not perfectly. For Puck I have to creep along in a crawl a lot of the time, and I'm able to do it but not without some soreness afterward, but fortunately after a week of it my muscles are starting to get used to it. I'm still not a hundred percent feeling the Puck I'm being asked to play, but it's getting better now. I do enjoy the creeping sneakiness of it. I had a breif pang of nervousness when I realized this would be the first rehearsal I'd have with Frances, and I was slightly insecure about what she'd think. But of course, she was as generous and and unjudging as always, and said some nice stuff about what I was doing. That made me feel good.

I also got my costume yesterday. I love getting my costume, it makes me feel so much more in character. The various elements of it are strange-- an extremely long red coat, a red sash, an orange obi-thingy, a weird beige thing that looks like a tablecloth with a hole in the center --but when put altogether, I really liked it. The coat goes on first, then I put my head through the hole in the tablecloth, then the red sash gets crisscrossed over my toso so that the tablecloth becomes a tunic, and the orange one goes around my waist. It looks cool and Asiatic in a strange way, and the coat gives the impression of a tail. Marissa is an incredibly talented costumer; it really impresses me how she could look at such random pieces and figure out a great way to put them together.

Went to see the art show tonight. As always, I'm very impressed with Kindness's work. His main piece was inspired by a fairytale called The Girl with the Silver Hands. It's fascinatingly strange and really beautiful. I'm not sure I can describe it well enough to do it justice here, you'll have to go see it for yourself, but I am proud to say that my arms were used as models. I love modeling for him, I want to do it more often. It's an honor to be able to be represented in the work of someone as talented as him.

Additionally, we had a great surprise in Ernest's work as well. He had two gorgeous large portraits, one a boy I know represented as a monk called Keeper, the other Jared dressed as a Victorian gentleman called Quandary. It came out great, though it isn't totally finished at the moment. It's taken from some really great pictures he took of Jared in Castle Commons with all this great orangey sunlight filtering in through the window. I wasn't expecting to see it there, so it was a wonderful surprise to see a certain familiar face hanging on the gallery wall.

It's a very interesting show, so if you can go to see it at any point, I suggest you go check it out. Congrats, talented ones. :-)

I actually did this a week ago, but I forgot to mention here that I bid Alice for Festival. That means I can nag all of you who have yet to play in it to join me in my beloved little nightmare world. It made me grin from ear to ear when morethings5 said to me last night, "We need to get together and talk about who to cast linearequation as." Oh, yes, indeed, we do.

I'm tempted to bid Oz for Festival as well. Having a hard deadline might make me finish it, and I'd love to have another game to run. It would be a medium-sized game rather than large like Alice, and though I still have a lot of research to do, I think I could probably pull it off. Running next to Alice, which is really good and by now highly polished, makes me worry Oz won't compare as well, but hopefully I'll be able to write it well enough to stand on its own.

What do people think? Good idea, go for it, or bad idea, put it off?