All Eyes on Me

At home for the weekend. Things are stressful given the situation but at least we're able to spend some nice time together as well. Today I've been helping my dad plant his garden. First we tilled the soil in two of the raised beds, and I even used the rototiller a bit. I didn't really pick up the trick of it, as for someone as small as me it's difficult, but at least I did some. Then we dug shallow furrows for planting two rows of spinach, one row of mixed lettuce, and one row split half and half between radishes and spring onions.

The seeds are so tiny they are tough to handle. But my dad prefers to plant too many and thin them out as they come in, so it's okay if I drop them closer together than they should be.

We planted a row of peas on either side of this wire fence. They'll climb up the fence as they grow and sprout their pods.

And this a grub we found when we were digging. He's about the size of a quarter all curled up. He's the only one of his kind we saw. I wonder what sort he is?

I like growing vegetables. Someday I want to have my own garden, but for now it's nice to help out my dad.

I am at home in Pennsylvania this week to celebrate Christmas with my family. It is lovely to be hear, and we spent a low-key day today hanging out and cooking. We made our Italian seven-fish dinner, including cheats like shrimp, smoked salmon, crab cake, fried calamari, and our special lobster bisque that we make every year. It's our way of enjoying each other's company and being together, and I like it.

So, after a week of mystery and obfuscation, I'm finally going to tell you about my recent new play. The piece I've been working on is Vivat Regina, the first sequel to Mrs. Hawking. I was rushing to get the first draft at least done this past week because I wanted to submit it in time for the first deadline for Bare Bones, the reading series done by Theatre@First. The first Mrs. Hawking had a reading there to great success, so I thought it would be a good place for the next one as well. Some people at the reading's talkback afterward even wanted to know if there would be sequels, so I think it would be likely to gather an interested audience. I even wanted to have back the three lead actors, Elizabeth Hunter, Gigi Geller, and Ryan Kacani, back to play the recurring characters of Mrs. Hawking, Mary, and Nathaniel.

I was able to get Vivat Regina done to decent results and sent it in, but sadly it was not accepted for the upcoming date. Still, John Deschene, the excellent fellow in charge of the reading series, strongly encouraged me to submit it again, so I think I have a good chance to get chosen later this year. It's by no means the end of the world, but I won't lie, I'm a bit disappointed. I really wanted to get this piece out there sooner rather than later. I mean, I could arrange to have a reading of it myself, but Theatre@First has a sizable audience base that I don't have access to that would come out if it were a Bare Bones reading but not otherwise. I've been struggling to find a good way to get people to go to the Mrs. Hawking website, so its audience base might expand, and I thought directing people who just heard a new reading to it would give it an infusion of interest. It can still do that if I get it accepted with Bare Bones at a later date, but that will be a ways off yet.

This might ultimately be a good thing. I will have plenty of time to edit the script, which, as I mentioned, is still in need of a decent subplot to pad out the length a bit. Maybe with a bit more warning I can ensure I can get Elizabeth, Gigi, and Ryan back, if they are interested and available. I'm kind of bummed about it right now, but ultimately this could be just as well.

If you are interested in reading this early draft and giving an opinion, feel free to let me know, and I will send along a copy of the script. I'd be happy to get new eyes and new opinions, and of course just spread the thing around.

I am at home in Pennsylvania for the week. I like being at home now and again because life is less busy, but this won't be a vacation. I've specifically set aside this time to help my mom and dad out with various labor-intensive chores around the house. We're going to be staining the deck, washing all the windows, and weeding all the landscaping beds, plus anything else that occurs to them. I am glad to be able to help them out, and I need physical labor to do on a regular basis to feel comfortable in my skin. So much of my life involves brain work, and that I find much more exhausting than anything physical. Chores are a good change for me to switch gears regularly and get off my ass, get some exercise, and give my mind a break. Also, my parents are amazing cooks, so I will be paid in excellent meals for my effort. Back to my usual grind this weekend. ;-)

I have been a bad blogger, not writing a single entry over my Thanksgiving break. But the break was so pleasantly low-key and relaxing I just didn't have the drive to do it. After the insanely busy three previous weeks I've had, doing nothing but hanging with my parents, cooking, eating, sleeping, and playing with the dog was all I wanted to do. It was very restful, though, so I hope I can proceed more energetically and productively from here. Merlin is a lovely dog, very gentle and sweet. He was a bit nervous when we first arrived, clutching his little armadillo baby and pacing around, but he calmed down quickly and became our friend. It was very good to have a dog around the house again.

Home, and the ritual of Thanksgiving, is much the same as it ever was-- there was something very comforting about the holiday being the exact same kind of nice as I remember it --except that my dad's beer brewing hobby has taken over large chunks of the space. The basement, which is finished and like another room of the house, was filled with huge cookpots and bags of grain and complicated rig used for boiling the water and transferring it from pot to pot. Werts in glass carboys sat in various locations around the house in plastic tubs with labels on them, covered by cardboard boxes to keep out the light. Dad has something like thirty gallons of beer going, and is really excited to talk about and show people what he's done.

As much as I enjoyed hanging around with the family, there were a number of things I meant to get done, and I didn't work on any of them. The first priority is getting the characters I owe for tonight's Resonance meeting written up. I've got two of my required three finished, but I'm not sure what to do about the last one. I also need to get cracking on The Stand. I got a few casting questionnaires back already, which pleases me immensely, and I hope that now that the holiday is over people will have time for them. But the upshot is I have a lot of writing to do, and I'm slightly annoyed with myself that I didn't use my time off more efficiently. Ah, well, nothing to do from here but go forward, and buckle down. 

I have been having a recurring dream lately-- remarkable if only because I very, very rarely remember my dreams --about going home to my parents' house. Though I don't realize it, In the dream the house is more like an elegantly-decorated home-themed Mario level than a real house. It's hard to describe, but it's is enormous, with all the structures massively oversized and soaring into the sky, with weird fancy automated functions involving lights and conveniences and things like that. And all the trappings are very elegant, even opulent. Usually in the dream the only thing that registers on me is how nice it is-- in real life, my parents' house is remarkably nice and tastefully appointed. I think I'm going up the enormous, skyscraper stairs trying to find my dad. But this most recent time it was different. The house was the same as in previous iterations, but my brother was there as well. And with him came the awareness was this was not the house the way we'd grown up with it-- it was different and strange, as if they'd changed it, in a remodel or upgrade or something. And Casey was saying to me, "I don't like it here anymore. The changes are all wrong. I don't want to come back here anymore." And then suddenly the house was scary and uncomfortable. I was no longer able to climb the massive moving stairs to get to the highest level in the sky, and suddenly I was afraid of falling. All the automated pieces were dangerous and over-the-top. The hosue didn't seem nice anymore, but too big, overdone, uncomfortable, inaccessable, even likely to hurt me. And I became very acutely aware of the fact, which I guess was consistent from both dreams, that I was unable to find my dad.

My nap today was the first time I'd ever had that version of this dream. I'm not really a believer that dreams have a lot of meaning beyond being random things that happen to be in your brain expressing themselves in weird ways. But I am curious about what brought about the shift in tone of a dream I've already had one rather innocuous way several times.

Yesterday I got back to Allentown for Easter, but it turned out to be more complicated than I thought. My train got cancelled due to flooding in Rhode Island, so at the last minute my dad got me on a flight that was technically full. I begged a ride early the same morning to the airport from the wonderful bronzite, to which I am very grateful for going out of his way. I managed to get home, had a lovely and enormous meal with my parents, and went to bed at around 10PM. Travel always takes it out of me.

Tomorrow we will be going out to an Easter brunch, but today will just be low-key. I have to arrange a time to sit down with Jared (though it will have to be over the phone) to cast Alice and Oz. I want to get the sheets out as soon as possible-- it seemed like the whole process of Festival this year started a lot closer to the date of the con, so I don't want to lose any more time.