The Laundress is In

New Posts at The Winchester Canon!

2011-12-01T11:47:00.001-08:00

It's been quite a few months since I was last able to update the adventures of our intrepid Winchester ladies Adah & Margaret-Ellen, but if any of y'all are interested there are 2 new letters waiting at The Winchester Canon. Margaret-Ellen is well-recovered from her pneumonia scare, and now both ladies watch as their families are sundered in the beginning months of the War Between the States . . . *cue melodramatic music*

Gettysburg Tintype

2011-11-26T15:47:00.001-08:00

Adah Ridenour & Margaret-Ellen Copeland, Gettysburg, 1863.

Tintype taken by Dell Hillpert at Victorian Photography in Gettysburg.

http://www.victorianphotostudio.com

(My scanning machine at work is worthless, so, sorry for the wonky reflections ;-D A better version can be found on Samantha's blog.)

The Navy Dress

2011-11-24T14:52:00.001-08:00

When Sami left us for Michigan in August, I remember standing out on the street saying a tearful goodbye at 2 a.m. "Don't worry," she said, "you have a dress and a bonnet to finish before we see each other in Gettsyburg in November. The time will fly by!"

Boy, was she right!

I had finished two 1860s dresses before this one - a green work dress that was unlined and only slightly fitted, and a cotton ball-gown with a lined, fitted bodice. So, having done it once, I figured I had it down.

Hah.

After an evening mostly spent cutting-out my navy wool and my cotton twill lining and then crying when I couldn't figure out how to get the right "fit," (and missing Sami-My-Sensei immensely), I made a pair of undersleeves and embroidered them 'cause, dammit, I'm good at SOME things.

Then I gave a call to good ole' Niamh O'Conlon. She had me fitted in no-time, though truth be told we were probably a little too enthusiastic getting a snug fit. More on that later.

My problem, of course, being that whenever I need help sewing, the person helping me ends up doing most of it, and I just end up making the same mistakes later . . .

My wonky by-hand running stitch on the darts . . . Had to restitch the day before the Gettysburg event b/c the wool had pulled out of the seam. I backstiched it that time around . . .

With the piping added, it takes shape!

That done, I decided I wanted to line the sleeves with this lovely rose silk I found at Joanne's. From there I figured it would be nice to make some silk-covered buttons and a matching belt as well. Luckily, I didn't take any pictures of the how wonky the wrist-edges of the sleeves ended up. And the trim (finished in the car on the way to Gettysburg) covers it up pretty well . . . ;-)

Next time I'm going to ignore the pattern and make the sleeve, modified pagoda-or-not, much roomier.

You know, one of these days, I'm gonna learn how to effing sew . . .

Once I procure more ribbon, I'll be doing this same idea around and then up the side-seam of the sleeve to the shoulder.

It took a couple moresewing sessions with Niamh before the sleeves were attached well (it took me acouple tries) and we'd figured out the waist treatment. I decided to defyhistorical accuracy and go for large, dramatic box-pleats, a distinctly late-60sstyle. At that point it was starting to actually look like a dress,though the closure, as you can see, was ominously snug! I think thispattern needs some serious re-adjustment next time I make it. I thinkI'll go for the B-cup pattern, the C was too baggy, and tightening the dartsdidn't seem to help much.

I put my hand to thedetails, and came up with a collar, belt, and buttons. Pinned-in, I couldfeel the excitement/panic rising!

I made the collar from scratch - I'd like to find a good pattern to work with next time, because it really does fold weird around the curve. I should have cut it out on the bias, methinks. Live & Learn.

Embroidery to match the undersleeves - just for the fun heck of it and it to make me feel better for being incompetent with the larger concepts of seamstress-ry.

I don't think it was 'til I took this picture that I believed I could finish the thing on my own.

A hop, skip, and somefrantic car-sewing later, and I had finished the belt, bow, and minimal trim onthe sleeves. I'd also managed to make some hat-pins, a matching reticule,and trim a straw bonnet Samantha bought for me last summer, which I think Iwill put in a different post. It's amazing what an immovable deadline cando for a project!

Gettysburg wasfantastic! An amazing time-traveling adventure with Samantha and her lovely friends - so much inspiration for later! Mydress was definitely not in the same league as those of the costuming-geniusesI got to hang with, but I was proud of it, and proud that I'd paid attention toperiod construction and trim tips so that I could hold my head high and helpcontribute to the 1863 atmosphere with the best of them :-) All thanks to Sami's inspiration!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-27T00:04:00.000-07:00

For your spookification and amusement: some set-pieces I put together for my department's Halloween Party, which had a Haunted Hotel theme. Too many Dr. Who in-jokes for my own good, but, what can you do?
Nice to have a creative outlet, for a little while, that doesn't involve thread [well, okay, I did whip out my handy dandy sewing box to stitch garland to a curtain and hand around pins to secure signs to said curtain . . . once a crafter, always one, I guess ;-P]

The Miniactment - July, 2011

2011-10-17T00:16:00.000-07:00

In honor of my new blog-look - a new post! This is one I've been meaning to write for . . . months. Since, July, actually. In my defense, I recently finished a 12-week commitment to a play (acting & costuming - I'll see if I can get my hands on any pictures of my slap-a-dash creations) that allowed time for little more than driving 2-hours-a-day to Hollywood & back.

Over the past couple years, our reenacting troupe has grown and shifted in demographics - from mostly families to mostly teenagers. With so many new recruits, the more "progressive" members were eager to put together a low-key, costume-optional, weekend troop-event to help the "young'uns" (and the "elders" - everybody could always use a brush up!) develop their impressions, learn more about the history of our regiment and grow more familiar with the specific area that they would have lived and fought within. So, after kicking the idea around for a few weeks, I agreed to take on the bulk of planning for the 18th VA's First Annual Miniactment.

Near Casper's Wilderness Park where we held the event

I finished reading Beleaguered Winchester, put together a class on the 18th's hometown during wartime, and trekked down to Caspers Wilderness Park in San Juan Capistrano to talk to the rangers about holding our event there. Sami agreed to teach about historical sewing and help with food & set-up duties. Cpl. Tim planned a singing workshop and a class on the military record of the 18th VA. And after some gentle coaxing I convinced the indomitable Logan Creighton to speak on putting-together and maintaining a first-person impression in front of the public.

Of course, nothing ever goes exactly according to plan, so when none of the 18th's young troopers could show up, the weekend became more of an "Officer's Retreat." This turned into a blessing: giving the opportunity for our newly-appointed officers Lieutenant White & Sgt. Ridenour to plan out the year and brainstorm about the direction of the troop.

Logan's class was especially inspiring & interesting, and even gave the group an opportunity to try out their first-person skills on a passing group of curious campers. We showed them our camp & tents, answered their questions, and brought out a jar & heavy cream to show them how butter is made. It was really the perfect match-up! Of course, Sami & I (and the next night, Marissa & I) as event-coordinators made it an adventure all their own: proving ourselves in tent-setting-up skills, the fighting off of rampaging squirrels, and making fire without a guy around - sporting our battle-wounds under matching Charlie-Brown band-aids. A smashing success, in impact, if not in numbers!

Our new Sergeant teaches us about the 18th VA

I guess you could call these the nosebleed seats ;-)

It's thanks to my bug-out bag I even had these . . .

A mess o'biscuits with sausage an' apple hash served fer dinner

Filling out character-worksheets by firelight

Me with my teaching materials

Samantha decided to switch eras on us halfway through

Our campsite offered the perfect big tree to hold classes under

I HAVE MADE FIRE!! (Without setting my hoopskirt or the surrounding brush aflame. *Phew!*)

Oh boy, a blog award!

2011-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Nothing like a blog award to get a girl to post, eh? ;-) Thanks, Samantha of http://couturecourtesan.blogspot.com !!!

The goal of the award is to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers. The rules of the award are:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have fun!

My picks are.... *honorary cannon fire*

http://happyvirtue.blogspot.com/ (the sundry adventures of a young & artistic mom!)

http://dougheroftheword.blogspot.com/ (the sundry adventures of a young & artistic teacher)

http://pinewoodcastle.typepad.com/my_weblog/ (I'm not actually sure how big a following these guys have, but it's a fantastic look at homeschooled family life)

http://pickwick12.xanga.com/ (wise reflections from an old friend of mine)

http://brookslampe.tumblr.com/ (pleasantly odd poetry from an old schoolmate of mine)

The Ball Gown Epic - A Journey in Pictures

2011-06-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

My OCD cutting-out process

A lovely - and surpisingly easy to understand - Kay Fig bodice pattern

Sami helped me fit the lining to my body, then we cut the fabric from there. I pieced it on the machine that night.

I was amazed at the difference fitting it to one's corseted form makes.

Back seams and boning channels.

Car-sewing the piping on during my Great Midwest Adventure.

And ever-more piping! Took FOREVER.

Didn't use a pattern for the skirt - Sami showed me how to do respectable knife-pleats. Per period photos I looked at, I pleated toward the middle-front in the front, box-pleats on the side, then towards the middle-back in the back. I had pleated one whole side before I realized I had pleated in the wrong direction and had to start over . . .

Wish I had a picture of working on the sleeves. . . It took me a couple tries. Everything is pinned together in this pic but it was starting to come together!

Spent the day of the SDI ball at Sami's house, frantically finishing eyelets & trim, + attaching the darn thing to the skirt.

When sombody at the ball asked where I "ordered" it, I knew I'd done something right.

Wish I'd had time to add some matching pink trim to the skirt - oh well. There's always other balls ;-D An Epic Journey, one wherein I continually surprised myself. Couldn't have done it without Sami, though!

Amazing Trim in 3 Easy Steps!

2011-06-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

As an addendum to the pics I will soon post of my (FINISHED!) ball gown, I thought I'd take the time to recommend a book: The Complete Photo Guide to Ribbon Crafts. There are literally hundreds of photos and instructions for everything a reenactor (and member of the public) could ever want to do with ribbon: rosettes, flowers, embroidery, trim, etc. etc. etc.

Who knew there were so many ways one could gather a ribbon? Here's how I did mine:

1. Go find a ribbon ;-) If you're a stitch-nazi freak like me, you'll go find some genuine silk ribbon from a place like Piecemakers in Huntington Beach (but note: silk ribbon does tend to fray around the edges, especially if dragged across 5 states in a purse like mine was. I'm willing to trade a worn look for historical accuracy's sake, but nobody has to!)

2. Measure ribbon width and mark this amount of inches down the ribbon's length, staggering the marks on each side. Sew a gathering thread in a zig-zag from mark to mark, wrapping around the ribbon each time to change direction:

3. Pull gather thread and adjust for desired "wave-width!"

Tack onto bodice/skirt/bonnet of your choice!

I promise, a post is coming!

2011-06-19T16:53:00.000-07:00

My apologies for being so far-behind in my posting schedule! Coming-up: the epic of a ball-gown, miniactment planning, and being (quite-randomly) cast in a play!

4:30 a.m. Eastern Time - April 12th, 2011

2011-04-12T01:48:00.000-07:00

To the 600,000. *clink*

(A lovely French Chardonnay imbibed in honor of P.G.T. Beauregard, and a some Sea-Salt chips munched in honor of Major Anderson's gallant defense of his island fort)

Introducing . . .

2011-04-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

The Winchester Canon - postings from the Copeland/Ridenour papers, dated 1860-1865. :-) Join Adah and I as we travel through time and write as our characters, contemplating the joys and tragedies of ordinary women who lived through exceptional times.

Letters dated late-1860 now posted.

The Winchester Canon

2011-04-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

Reenacting has brought many amazing people into my life. One of them is my partner in hardcore crime, the Sunny Seamstress (who blogs here and here), who's just as crazy as I am when it comes to de-farbing camp, eating period-correct food, and obsessing over tiny details of historical accuracy in our costume choices. We also find that reenacting in "first-person" really helps inspire our research and adds an extra edge of challenge and fun to events.

One of the brilliant ideas Sunny, or "Adah" as I more-often call her, came up with was that we would write letters back and forth in character, tracing our respective journeys from the election of 1860 'til (God willin' and the creek don't rise...) the end of the war. Adah insisted that we write them all out in our best Spencerian ("Spencerian? What, like, swirly-letters?" said I . . .), with pen-and-ink, if possible. After a few tries, this letter writing has turned into quite a project:

Being the Literature Major/Author that I am, I came up with 2-3 pages of back-story for my character, Margaret-Ellen Hamilton Copeland of Hillsborough, VA (near where I used to live in Purcellville). Adah came up with about as much, and right now we are writing as long-separated childhood friends from Hillsborough & Alexandria, respectively. We will both eventually end up in Winchester, VA - just in time for the mid-days of the war and the muster of our unit, the 18th VA Cavalry, in 1863. We call our character-world "The Winchester Canon," a title which will remain ironic until Spring 1862 or so, when my character will move to Winchester for reasons which will be revealed in the future.

Thus, in order to write my letters, I bring out "Beleaguered Winchester," (a book on civilians in Frederick County during the War) for help with character atmosphere, "The Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee" for style reference, "The Civil War Almanac" to keep my timeline straight, and the original 1828 Webster Dictionary for vocab. help. This in addition to the several web-pages I keep open on my iPhone: 1860s farming research, an 1861 calendar, and an example of Spencerian penmanship.

I told you I was crazy.

I write out everything long-hand in a journal before I commit it to ink-and-paper, so I can craft a good letter w/o having to worry about the handwriting, as well as have a good copy of my letter once the finished product has been mailed. I've been getting better at the Spencerian (practice makes perfect), and am really enjoying getting to know both of our characters in depth.

Which is why we've figured that maybe it's time to share the wealth. Beginning this week (if all goes according to plan), I will begin transcribing our existing letters onto their very own blogspot. We hope that the rest of you will enjoy reading about the Adventures of Adah and Margaret-Ellen as much as we have enjoyed writing them. I will post new letters as they become available. Check-back in a couple days to begin the journey through time.

Some Pictures from Last Year . . .

2011-03-31T00:20:00.000-07:00

. . . Set to music (that's me singing, and the intrepid Lt. Michael on the guitar & drums)

So picturesque, and yet . . .

2011-03-28T00:56:00.000-07:00

Having successfully finished a new muslin chemise with pretty-pink trim, I set out this evening to get a good start on a matching set of drawers. After 4 hours of cutting-out, pinning, and stitching, I had two decent-looking drawer-legs, facings, plackets & all.

2 decent-looking drawers legs - for a left leg.

Ballocks.

We'll start Round 2 tomorrow. Score so far - The Sewing Gods: 2, Margaret-Ellen: 0.5

The Art of Laundressery

2011-03-28T00:40:00.000-07:00

Laundressing? Laundresship? (Vote for your preferred noun in the comments section).

It wasn’t long into my reenacting “career” (3 or 4 events) before I realized that being a woman in a Living History Encampment can get downright boring. The men are up and about, for the most part, from first call in the morning ‘til evening gun-cleaning – but the ladies, outside of preparing meals and getting ready for dances, mostly just sit around and sew. Which is awesome, and a great opportunity for fellowship with one’s fellows - if you’re the “sit around and sew” type. I am not.

I considered the different types of activity-centered living-history-impressions available to the weaker sex: nurse (done a lot – and no longer allowed on the battlefield in our association), cook (no really good cooking equipment available in our unit’s camp), vivandierre (period correct for SOME units, but definitely NOT the Virginia Cavalry), female-soldier-passing-as-a-man (no matter how hard I tried – there’s no way I could conceivably pass for a man, and I’m just stich-nazi enough to care), camp-follower (Now REALLY!?) . . . laundress (ooooh).

The thought brought me back to a thrilling “Adobe Days” reenactment at the Rancho Los Cerritos when I was a wee tyke, during which I (in addition to stomping mud into adobe bricks and learning how to write with a quill pen) got to scrub laundry on a washboard and send it through a hand-wringer. I begged my mom for days afterward to give me a tub and a board and let me do our laundry in the back-yard (just like in the “Kirsten” books and Little House on the Prairie!!!). Here was an impression that was involved, informative, and possibly interactive. I also couldn’t recall the last time I saw a laundress at a Civil War event.

I was lucky to find an affordable, large wooden washtub and an old washboard in working order at the first antique store I tried (there IS a God). Add a couple buckets, a large tub for rinsing (Yes, yes, galvanized-metals weren’t used until the 1880s. I won’t tell if you won’t!), a boiler (only to display since we’re not allowed ground-fires in So.Cal), a table, some bottles for “stain-remedies,” a clothes-brush, a ledger, an old iron, and the Laundress was in business! I bought a booklet from the Kansas Mercantile on creating a believable Military Laundress impression, and studied up. The following is the “system” I employ at events, but it is always changing, and I would welcome any comments/questions/suggestions for improvement that any of y’all might have!

1. Boil Water – I start with cold-water washing, but the water takes a long time to boil over an open flame and by the time it’s off-boil I’ll probably be ready for it. Yummy breakfast optional ;-)

2. Carry Water for Tubs – Sometimes one can rely on a friendly trooper or two to help with this chore, but not always. One starts to appreciate the hard work that went into this job right about now. Also important to remember that the clothes will replace their volume in the water so one needen’t fill the tubs as high as one might think at first.

3. Soaking – In real life, the clothes would’ve been mended, treated for stains, and left to soak overnight. I take some “warm” clothes (semi-soiled shirts, etc.) and throw them in a soak-bucket to illustrate these steps without actually displaying them. As I wash, I’ll throw the next “batch” of clothes in the soak bucket so there’s always something in it.

4. Plunge and Scrub – I wash wools and delicates first, with a milder soap while the water is still cold and clean. When I’m done with that, I’ll start adding the hot water from the stove to shavings of lye-soap (people often ask me – “why do you need a knife?” “For my soap and naughty children,” says I . . . Mid-19^th century laundresses didn’t rub the soap directly onto the clothes – though I’ve personally found this removes dirt a little more easily – they dissolved the soap in hot water and then added the mix to the water in the tub) and wash the “warms” – wearable cottons, etc. This is a great point to get kids involved – they always want to come and help!

5. The Hot Load – this part is always fun for me because it feels the most realistic of all the steps. I’ve been saving any really dirty whites for the end, when the water is nice and murky. I throw out most of the cool water and add the rest of what’s been boiling, then (because it’s too hot to pick up and scrup with your hands) I agitate the wash with a wooden spoon (I need something bigger, but a spoon will do for now). Then, when the water’s cooled a tad, I scrub until my hands are sore. I’ve worked out some really tough cast-iron stains with this method before!

6. Rinse & Hang – In real 1860s life, laundry (especially linens and whites) would’ve received 3 rinses and a boil (in addition to starching & ironing – whew!!). I can only really display one rinse, though I do bring a boiler to show what one would look like. This part can be fairly back-breaking – it’s always nice to grab a couple of passing kids to help you wring stuff out – ESPECIALLY the woolens!

7. RELAX. Sit. Spin. Sew. Cook. Rest aching back and wonder about washer-woman’s elbow. Hound troopers to pay-up for last-month’s long-johns. And/or Start-Over, depending on if one sees some promising public heading one’s way . . .

Typing Through my Time-Machine-Lag (Knott's Encampment, 2011)

2011-02-24T23:42:00.000-08:00

My friend Miss M. says that "spending a weekend at a reenactment is like hitting Life's reset button." For a few days work, bills, and other concerns fade away into the light of campfires and the smell of woodsmoke, hay, lye soap, and canvas. One's cares are condensed into remembering one's research for the benefit of the public, keeping the fire under your laundry-water going, and praying that the rainclouds pass you by. No fashion-statements to make, no deadlines to remember, no alarm clocks - just an enthusiastic rooster at 6:30am on-the-dot.

The Knott's Encampment almost didn't happen this year. For one reason or another, most of the troop wasn't planning on coming, but the few crazy "hardcores" in the group, chafing for action after a long winter season (well, long for us So.Cal. types. I guess you East-Coasters still have to wait 'til around April. HAH!), wanted to make a weekend of it anyway. We planned to take advantage of our smaller numbers by planning a period-correct menu (no sandwiches or pasta salad allowed!), a farb-free tents, and hoped to practice our 1st-person impressions on an unsuspecting public.

Then the weather man predicted rain. This being So.Cal., everybody panicked. 4 of our originally-planned 8 participants dropped out. Half of that 4 didn't plan on camping. But the few, the happy few - namely, me and the Sunny Seamstress, refused to give in. We'd been sewing and planning and cooking and gosh-darnit we were gonna see this event through if it drowned us. I took off Friday afternoon to try and get everything in my truck and set-up in camp before the rains came (they were predicted to start @ 5pm).

Of COURSE the first droplets hit my windshield at 3pm, just as I was pulling away from my house, "Gettysburg" soundtrack blaring. But, thanks to the Seamstress and a couple brave Yanks, we got camp set-up without TOO much soakage.

You can see the nice dip in the canvas where the water started collecting almost right away. But Sunny & I put buckets under the leaks and refused to fret. We bunked in our tent, protected by a ground-layer of tarping, canvas, and (*farb alert*) plastic bags, while most of the bold men and boys of both armies retired to motel rooms and "tin teepees." We stayed remarkably dry, considering. We sewed and chewed on sugared ginger and held a "sing-off," taking turns singing folk songs we could remember, until a strong gust of wind called us out into the wet to re-stake 4 fly-poles. Then it was time to retreat to the sleeping bags.

Next morning, our leak-catching buckets were full:

But the sun was shining against-all-odds, the public showed-up despite the relative lack of reenactors, and there was breakfast to be made and laundry to be done!

It took all four of us to figure out a good strategy for keeping the fire going long enough for our oatmeal, but by 10:30 we had made breakfast and had started the water boiling for my load of whites:

Hauling my own water is always an interesting part of the laundress-impression. Sometimes I can get the boys to volunteer to haul the necessary 10+ gallons, but I was on my own this time. That is, on my own only until I beguiled a kindly Yank to help me finish my haul. A hearty Southern "thankee" to D. of the California 100!

I didn't work as hard at the laundry on Saturday because the public was relatively sparse, and I knew my clothes had no chance of drying before the rains came again:

But we did get in at least one delicious period-camp-food dinner and some time for spinning before the skies broke:

Bacon, corn-bread, and "Hoppin' John:" a mix of black-eyed peas, brown rice, and more bacon :-D

Sunday was the day that really hit-it-out of the park for me as far as reenacting experiences go. The weather was warm and gorgeous, the public was really engaging, and the dearth of other civilian portrayals meant that my display got a lot of traffic. I stumbled on my "spiel" the first time someone tried recording me, but the by the 3rd & 4th times I had it down. The kids were the best:

They were incredibly exicted and eager to come stand on an upturned bucket behind the display and help me wash the last of my clothes. Once you let them wash once piece, they wanted to hang around until the last little article was scrubbed, rinsed, wrung and hung. I'm thrilled by the idea that I helped bring their minds into history in the same fun and creative spirit with which long-ago Civil War reenactors inspired me to love history when I was that age.

I also got the "laundry process" down pretty well on Sunday. I was helped by the fact that there aren't any scheduled battles at Knotts, so one can pretty much continue one's impression for hours without the public disappearing at regular intervals. I started with cold, clean water and mild soap for the Lieutenant's woolen trousers, gradually adding warm water and harsher soap as I got towards the dirtier, heartier fabrics. By the time I got to the ultra-soiled dishrags, the water was nicely boiling, so I threw out most of the cold, dirty water, poured in all the boiling water and a lump of lye soap, then "agitated" the clothes with a wooden spoon for a good 15 minutes. Another 20 minutes of scrubbing per item brought out most of the cast-iron-and-bacon-grease stains . . . and by that time I'd been going at it for 3.5 hours and was plain bushed:

I took up my spinning again, but still drew a bit of a crowd that'd never seen a drop-spindle in action before. I was able to tie it into the practice of Southern women patriotically showing-off their homespun dresses, and was bemused listening to a couple of Indian families comment to their children that "that is exactly how Gandhi used to do it." The Sunny Seamstress was asked a question about her costume, and she had the bright idea of stripping down to her undergarments (*gasp of Victorian horror*) to demonstrate all the layering that went into a dress of the era. Of course, the minute her dress came off the small crowd of 5 grew to something like 30, and even after she had finished the demonstration the crowd stayed put, firing off questions for another 20 minutes. It was really incredible to feel like we were helping to educate and enlighten those that listened to us rattle off our half-confident answers about mourning practices, laundry, mending, cooking, and "days-in-the-life."

The last hour was quiet enough, filled mostly with picturesque food, including Miss M's delicious "Martha Washington Cake:

We packed up and came home. We put away the washboards, jars, cast-iron, and cage-hoops. And Sunny Seamstress and I awarded ourselves the "Plum Craziest Pair of Hardcore Reenactors We Ever Did Know in 2011" trophy. Being young and vain, we browsed the web and tried to find pictures of ourselves and stories about the weekend.

Now come the weeks of what I like to call "time-machine lag," when one listens to nothing but roots-music and can think of nothing but what one's next sewing project should be. It can be hard to "reset" oneself back into contemporary life.

Which is why I'm glad I only have to wait 8 more days 'til the next reenactment.

With much affection,

M.E.H. Copeland

Company Laundress

Welcome to the Preenactment...

2011-02-13T23:44:00.000-08:00

Preenactment: n. the weekend before a reenactment, usually filled with various and sundry reenacting-oriented projects, only 50% of which will actually be finished before zero-hour.

This weekend consisted of finishing off the button-holes and hem for my new workdress. Tah-Dah! (It only took me 3 months to make...).

I made the mistake of going to Joanne's to pick up more thread. After being sucked into the vortex of New-Seamstress-Retail-Doom (40% off final purchase coupons!!), I came home with this new fabric in my bag (NO idea how they got there):

So, I decided the dress needed something - maybe a bonnet? I set to work:

Then, of course the cat wanted in on the action:

I ended up having to call for back-up in the form of the Sunny Seamstress, who cheerfully spent this afternoon coaxing me through my first slat-bonnet. Here we have the finished product modeled by a local:

Self-titled, "Bro-Peep"

The Seamstress also helped wax the inside of my washtub (a two-person Preenactment task if there ever was one) and together we planned the menu for Knotts. Now I just have to pick up laundry to wash from various non-participants in the troop, wash my dresses, collect and pack my various sundries and I'm ready for the first reenactment of the year!

At this point in the game I always wish I had done more research - my book on Winchester civilians is still languishing, and my laundress manual isn't near memorized. This is where the improv skills learned in acting classes at LBCC come in handy.

"What is this demonry??!!"

2011-02-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

Conan O'Brien gets it.

A Touch of Self-Abasing Nostalgia

2011-02-01T23:40:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a long while since I wrote what I consider to be a "good" poem. But shuffling through some old writing of mine today, I was reminded that my writing passion was birthed, truly, at a reenactment. The first "series" of poems I ever wrote were composed shortly after visiting both the Gettysburg battlefield and the Huntington Beach reenactment for the first time at the age of 13. I can laugh at their maudlin awfulness now, but am still delighted and bemused by the continuity of my hobbies 12 years later.

For your tongue-in-cheek pleasure, I give you a sampling of the "best" to be had from my budding, 13-year-old pen (present-day comments in italics):

Thoughts at Devil's Den
The following is what happens when you let junior-highers read Pablo Neruda and forget to explain the purpose of enjambment.

Pale grey sky
Overhead
Seems
to Mourn
For souls
long ago
Gone.

The brook
Tumbles
Down, down
From the hill
Did it once
Run red?

Wind, past my ears,
Cool, it goes by
Was it once
Filled
With the smell
Of Death?

Cold stone
Monoliths
Piled like blocks.
Were they once
On a fine
summer's day,
The Last to
Cradle
The bodies of
Boys?

Wind pas

Maybe I was channeling the memories of an asthmatic octogenarian veteran climbing the famous pile? ;-)

The next one did once make Karen Turner cry. From joy or pain, I'll never know. Come to think of it, she was probably imagining it set to music - as you can see, it came complete with a chorus. Now, just imagine the "warbler" (some of you will know who I mean) singing it through, and, yes, the tears will come . . . Miss Copeland would tell you that comfrey is a great remedy for, you know, ear-bleeds ;-)

Sons of the South

Sunlight streams down through the trees,
Upon the Grey and Blue,
Their banners ripple in the breeze,
Their hearts steadfast and true.

Ah, look! How young is the cheek of one,
How grey and old is another -
Oh, do they know that across the field
Stands a man they once called brother?

And so they stand and lean
'Gainst the muzzles of their guns
How many souls will die today,
How many mothers will mourn for sons?

CHORUS:
For every cannon, an empty embrace,
Every order, they're down by one
Every charge, another orphan,
Every bullet, a mother's son. (I obviously overestimated the accuracy of blackpowder rifes...)

Without a warning, fire pours forth
From the dark blue line ahead,
"Charge!" shouts the man on the great, grey horse
As he rides o'er the fallen and dead.

Fast and thick falls the snow of lead
Hear the shriek of the Rebel Cry!
Brave as lions they charge the lines
And silent as panthers, they die.

What now becomes of that Barred Red Flag?
Is it flutt'ring atop the hill?
Or does it hang now from the hands of a boy,
As he lies, cold, and still?

As you can see, I have not grown any less morbid in 12 years... If I don't get alot of "stop, you're making my soul hurt" comments, I may later choose to inflict y'all with an almost-decent-ish poem about a cannon, and the pretty-much-tripe poem I once dedicated to Steve Fry of the 3rd Texas, 9 years before I knew everybody who knows him . . .

Thoughts a

The Vagaries of Character Development

2011-01-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

One of the delightful things about reenacting is the opportunity to invent one's own character. Lately I've been researching the War's effect on Winchester, VA (where my character, Margaret-Ellen Hamilton Copeland, grew up), hand-spinning techniques, letter-writing, and agricultural practices of the 1860s Shenandoah Valley - and trying not to get overwhelmed with all the stuff it's possible to know but that I don't have time to learn!

Not everyone creates a first-person impression (it seems less common in Civil War reenacting than in earlier periods of living history practice), but I find that it gives me incentive to delve into the place and times of the actual people who experienced the War, as well as gain a deeper understanding of their motivations and thinking. In addition to the personal benefits, I think having a convincing first-person impression offers the public a truly immersive historical experience (I don't do reenactments purely for the fun I have - one of my main goals is to make myself available for the education and edification of the public). My memories of going to reenactments as a child are filled with the living historians who actually took the time to take your hand and pull you into their times with them - they wouldn't break, no matter how much you tried to get them to talk about TV and the Lakers, and they weren't afraid to portray the underside of their historical eras either.

This is the issue I've been mulling over lately. I reenact with a Confederate unit, for various reasons which I hope to ponder in a future post, but, perhaps unfortunately, this means that my interaction with the public will always work it's way back to the question "what do you think about slavery?"

Sigh. I don't want to avoid the question, or give a pat, P.C. answer that will satisfy the school-children and their teachers. I also don't want to give an answer that gives a false, 21st century sheen to an issue that was a very ugly and unavoidable issue of living in the Shenandoah Valley in the 1860s. If there's one thing I despise, it's when moderns appoint themselves "Official Envoy of 21st Century Ideals to the Dark and Ignorant Past." But I also don't agree with the kind of wooly-eyed, paleo-conservative idealism that sometimes prevails in Confederate reenacting circles - wherein slavery was just a grand misunderstanding and slaves were basically fat-and-happy farmers who didn't get paid. I wan't to be able to portray a character convincingly - and the reality is that my character, with 2 brothers in the Confederate army and 2 slaves at home, probably wasn't a closet abolitionist.

I recently ran across this very thoughtful and satisfying article on the ISI website, which discusses the aristocratic culture of the South as observed by deToqueville in the 1830s. Believe me, it's very easy for a Berry-ite agrarian like me to get starry eyed over "defending the Southern way of life." But this meant far more than beating Yankees away from one's hard-plowed, hand-sown cornfields, this also meant keeping an entire people-group enslaved in order to keep the agricultural wheels turning. I don't think this gives us free-reign to lord it over our "ignorant forebears," especially since much of our modern way of life also depends on other people or animals (farther away this time - at least Southerners had to confront slavery every time they walked out their front door) being exploited in order to provide our modern comforts (chocolate-harvesting slaves in Africa, oppresive coffee monopolies in South America, plus a carelessly anti-life culture and disgustingly cruel animal farming in the U.S. spring to mind), but it is an aspect of southern life which is hard to explain in a "sound bite."

As a farmer's daughter in Northwestern Loudon County, I imagine that Miss Copeland, with her Quaker relatives and agricultural surroundings mostly-free of the large-scale slave-holding operations which flourished just a little farther south, thought slavery was an unfortunate, but necessary, piece of the southern landscape. Like most around her (from both North and South - even abolitionists often wrote in terms which to us would seem unabashedly racist), she probably accepted the idea that the black culture was suited for and desired little better than slavery. She was probably something of a Unionist before Lincoln won the election, and her father was probably part of one of the abolitionist societies which dotted the South before the Nat Turner rebellion and which thought the best solution to the "negro problem" was resettlement in Africa. Perhaps I'm lucky I picked a character from a part of the South where it would be possible to be both anti-slavery and pro-Confederate - if I were interpreting a woman from Mississippi or Georgia it might be even harder to address this issue. Margaret was a virtuous, hard-working young lady who worked just as hard as and respected the slaves in her household, though she did not question the idea that she was right-and-properly their mistress and they were right-and-properly her property. I can recognize the slow-acting poison which this attitude was to the South, while also remembering and honoring the Margaret Copelands of the time as regular humans who faced the challenges in their lives and times the best way they knew how, without the benefit our our 20/20 historical viewpoint.

Now if only I can get the public to sit around long enough to listen to that explanation . . . ;-)

"Close by the window, Young Maggie is spinning . . ."

2011-01-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

Blame my Aunt. She listened for two seconds about my Laundress Impression last Thanksgiving and decided she needed to impart some inter-generational wisdom: take up the spindle (...as have thy mothers before thee...). It would give me another period skill to share at reenactments, she said, plus it was hipper than washing long-johns. And it's a more portable than a washtub.

Since then I've come to appreciate the hypnotic, meditative "groove" one can find while spinning. Once you get going, the thread seems to almost make itself - you get into the rythmn of swiftly-drafting wool, winding on to the spindle, humming little old tunes to go along with your 10,000 year old hobby. It's a great conversation starter, and demands less concentration than hand-sewing or knitting. I admit, I'm a total geek reject for bringing it to parties, but somehow I find it's easier to talk to people when I'm doing something with my hands. Don't ask me why.

If any of you are interested in giving it a try, leave a comment and I'll point out some resources you might use to get started!

Fightin' fer my rat . . .

2011-01-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

Oh, the dangers of trying historical experiments without communicating with one's house-mates/family.

I got the idea from these lovely ladies to gather some of my own hair from my brush everyday in order to make a "rat" - a net-wrapped clump of your own hair which can be used "Bump-it" style to create the symmetrical-and-wide-on-the-sides hairstyle which was so popular in the 1860s (now if only it looked good with my facial structure - sigh. I can see the suffragette slogan now: "Style Rights for the Round-Faced!"). Of course, unless your hair falls out in reliable clumps every time you brush, it can take a while to gather the right amount of hair needed to make 2 rats. But I was willing to give it a quasi-patient try. I got a plastic bag and began to diligently deposit strands of stray hair from my brush each day. I also forgot to label it.

So, one day, Mama-Bear comes along and, reaching into the bathroom drawer (did I mention she likes to do things without turning the lights on?), pulls out a plastic bag in which to store her toothbrush for a weekend trip . . .

My baby "rat" was thrown away in horror and disgust in a hotel somewhere in Orange County. Why is it people are so freaked out by hair simply because it is no longer attached to someone's scalp? It's made of the same stuff and keeps the same properties off your head as on it . . . but everybody shivers when they find hair anywhere but growing from their own bodies.

So, yes, starting over on the whole "rat" project. And mom knows it's there now, so, hopefully there will be no more defiling of toothbrushes.

Until, I, oh, I don't know, try making toothpaste out of chalk and Strontium . . . ;-)

Living Histor(ies)

2011-01-15T00:14:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking of ways to better focus this blog. It's harder to think of things to write when you've got your whole life waiting to be picked-through and written over. But one aspect of life is easy enough to make a little public art of.

So, I'm selecting to emphasise the little hobby which has slowly-but-surely been taking hold of my life lately. It combines two loves of mine - histoy & theater - without the tedium of the first nor the "drama" of the second (well, depending on your unit, I suppose). It allows my storytelling side to craft a persona, my crafty side to learn new skills, and my geeky side to delve into reams of quasi-useless historical facts. Did you know, per exemplum, that Loudon County, VA, grew almost no cotton or tobacco in 1860?

Since plunging in to this strange world of canvas, gunpowder, and multiple-layers-of-clothing-on-hot-summer-days, I've learned the basics of sewing, spinning, Spencerian handwriting, soap-making, period-laundering, and giving impromptu historical lectures to curious high-schoolers, notebooks-in-hand. I've danced, sung, and pitched my tent on ant-hills. But there's definitely alot about the hobby I'm still learning and experimenting with, and I plan to use this blog to map the journey a little.

My first batch of hand-spun yarn.

Welcome aboard - the Laundress is In!

Ink can be a pain in the bustle.

Costume Triumphs & Disasters

2010-11-11T02:15:00.000-08:00

First it was the 20-minute bloomers and the Ebay-sale corset.

Then the chemise - a piece of undergarment that is definitely not worth killing oneself over, but I tried, I really did . . .

Didn't quite sew the whole workdress I was hoping for, but I did acquire a decent cage hoop and figured a way to extend the skirt without adding barmaid tassles.

Then, in a fit of I-don't-know-what-I-was-thinking, I tore my (admittedly anachronistic) bonnet to bits and inadvertently invented the baseball cap . . .

One of these reenactments, I'll actually have a new DRESS to show off. One of these days. . .

Moorepark: The Chore List

2010-11-03T22:02:00.000-07:00

Reenactments (in this case, the biggest one of the year, for the West Coast: Moorepark) only happen every 2 or 3 months at most. Seems like that would be plenty of time to get stuff found/sewn/finished/gathered, etc., right? Hah. Not so much.

Usually, you get to the point where it's 1.5 weeks down to the wire and you're sitting at your computer in your period-underwear wondering where the dickens the time went.

This list is mostly for my benefit - but I thought it might be best posted to a public spot so I can get a little accountability into the picture ;-) By category, in no particular order:

For Laundry Display
1. Go to antique-store/curiosity shop and look for laundry accoutrements: clothes brush, bottles for bluing and starch, period clothes-pins, ledger-book (Check).
2. Make up a chalk-board with "prices"
2.5 Write out 2-3 pages of "ledger"
3. Wax/Seal the inside of main washtub
4. Wash-out copper boiler
5. Buy some more lye soap. (I give up trying to make my own until, um, next time)
6. Solicit donations of un-needed period clothes from fellow reenactors so I actually have washing to display (Check)
7. Buy a wicker basket (Check)
8. Ask Joel if I can borrow some of his boxes to use as tub-stands. (Check 11/4)
9. Lay out your tubs in back-yard and decide how you want to display things.
10. Read-through how-to manual and take some notes. (Half-Check 11/4)

Clothing:
1. Wash/Iron dress. (Ugghh!!!) (Washed, 11/4)(Skirt & Apron Ironed, 11/8)
1.5 Sew finishing touches on Apron (Check, 11/8)
2. Take-out waist on new petticoat/add button (Check 11/6).
3. Remind Katie to bring dress for me to borrow so I don't have to go all weekend in one gown (Check).
4. Take-in yoke on chemise so it shows less back (Check 11/5).
5. Add trim to bottom of skirt (fairly low on priority list. (Check 11/11).

In General:
1. Send-in eating money. (Check)
2. Practice drop-spinning (Half-Check)
3. Pack trunks with food/eating utensils/accessories, etc.
4. Pack bag with clothes, under-clothes, toiletries.
5. Pack warm sleeping-bag & good mat.
6. Print out sheets with songs in case people want to sing some folk-songs together.
7. Learn lyrics to "Garden Hymn," "Friendship Hymn" and "Occam's Carol."

Phew!!! Okay, now I'm going to go to bed and put all this off 'til TOMORROW!!! Or the next day . . . ;-)

In Honor of St. Crispin's Day

2010-10-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

In honor of Henry V, The Battle of Agincourt, The Running French, England & St. George, a very depressing poem (written by little-old-cynical-anglophile me a couple years ago for The Stylus) for a very momentous day:

The Stripped Sleeve

Upon St. Crispin’s Day

I have had some idea of war,

Watched the news specials,

Read all the right articles

In the encyclopedia,

Memorized all appropriate

Passages of poetry.

I can tell Perry from Patton,

The Argonne from Agincourt,

Have measured out thin red lines,

Toe, heel, heel, toe,

Between the rocks at Devil’s Den.

Yes, I know of her.

But I met her just the other Tuesday,

Clinging like an oily, tattered coat

To the shoulders of her latest son.

“He has outlived my day,

And come safe home,” she said.

He had a frank face, I remember,

A humble kind of honesty written in his cheekbones -

But I could not look at him.

He was blind.

Seven teeth were missing.

The smile, they whispered, had been sewn back into place.

Only one surgeon-sautered eye was left to shine,

His last, single star of youth:

Wandering in the socket,

Looking for its mate.

He surely felt me look away.

Could he forget the acrid nights

And bitter mornings,

That burning city putrefied by passions?

And was his face his honor or his shame?

I will not guess.

For all I have are maps, and books,

And scraps of iambic pentameter

To go by.

“He will remember with advantages,” she said.

Yet - What good was all my humming of Non Nobis,

Recitations of someday feasting neighbors,

Of showing scars on a saint’s day?

For here a son had stripped his sleeve,

And I could only shudder.

These wounds I had upon St. Crispin’s day.

"Rest in Peace, you city streets . . ."

2010-10-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

This is a poem/song I wrote years ago - after my first experience of Jury Duty landed me on a month-long triple-gang-murder trial. It reflects the fear and fundamental cultural divides I noticed between the jury (mostly white, well-off retired or near-retired people) and the accused and his victims (teenage Black and Asian gang members from the "westside" of Long Beach). Daniel Chantha was a gang-member, ambushed and shot in the head in the alley behind his home. He was 18. Woody Bunthong, also a gang-member, left a family behind. Sakorn Phan, not in a gang, was shot accidentally in his car when an mp3-player in his hand was mistaken for a gun. Reuel Dishon Hulbert, age 24 at the time of his conviction, went to prison for life. On the trial, I sensed an atmosphere of "well, at least they only kill their kind of people." This poem was a reaction to that attitude.

I imagine it put to music, but I can't come up with tunes to save my life. If anybody wants to put it to a tune, be my guest :-)

Anaheim Street – R.I.P – 12/10/08

Hear the song of a city that’s dying

And coming to life again:

The matter of self-immolation,

Asked only in where and when.

Your shops cry out for the living,

Your nights call out for the dead,

And what can I really be giving,

Except what’s already been said?

Then rest in peace, you city streets,

Rest in your broken pride,

It’s we who sold the place for graves,

Then ran when the ghosts came untied,

Our fear of your sons and daughters,

Might well be justified,

But Daniel Chantha’s mother

Still held him when he died.

“Why weep for what’s already broken?”,

“’Let him perish,’ good riddance, it’s done,”

While the empty ideal of brotherhood

Gets lost in the setting sun,

When we took all the work that had meaning,

And shipped it to Mandalay.

So the fathers strangled the children,

‘Cause at least the cameras would pay.

Then rest in peace, you city streets,

At least we know you tried,

It’s we who have forgotten,

The difference in truth and lies,

Our fear of your sons and brothers

Might well be justified,

But Woody’s daughter Bella

Was orphaned when he died.

Jesus, when will the war be over?

Christ, where does the suffering cease?

Could it be that the hope we’ve been offered,

Was a street kid just like these?

You’ll rest in peace, you city streets,

Just whisper this hope in the night,

Perhaps there’s a justice waiting,

That’s stronger than police lights.

Our fear for our sons and daughters

Is always justified,

But Daniel Chantha’s mother

Will hold him when she dies

Trips Down Memory Lane

2010-10-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

Is it incredibly egotistical to enjoy reading over one's old blogposts? I went back to my old PHC blog the other day and spent much more time than I should've re-living old romances, adventures, and many, many nights of "Oh, God, am I still going to be alive when this paper is over?" (On a related note, I think I should get "prophetess points" for seeing ominous portents in the sky the January before the Great Recession reached it's low-point ;-P)

Comparitively, my life is so EASY now.

It's also a lot less fun.

Well, okay, it still is fun. Pretty soon I'm gonna have to write a good post on my new hobby - Civil War Reenacting - which is a BLAST. So, I'm not going to mope (sorry if my last post came across as overly-mopey and self-pitiful - it's been cloudy and cold here and I think it's affecting my mood). But it might be nice for an adventure or two to come knocking.

In books, the heroes always say things like this before the Evil Dragon comes and burns down their village, kills there family, and squashes their cows.

*Pause*

I TAKE IT BACK!!! ;-P

"Apathy Breeds Death"

2010-10-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today was the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity.

Trying to think of something profound and inspiring to write - but it isn't working. I admit, after many years of pro-life advocacy one way or another, I've reached the "tired and guilty" stage. Dare I even say, the "apathetic" stage? Not that it's come around suddenly - I've always struggled with making the whole thing matter to my heart. Maybe this is a consequence of my already over-morbid mind, but even videos like this (WARNING: GRAPHIC ABORTION IMAGES/VIDEO - if the link doesn't work, go to www.abortionno.org) fail to arouse that righteous anger which inspires amazing men like Bryan Kemper and Fr. Tom Euteneuer. I'm unable to get much more past "wow, that really sucks."

I see the reality of abortion in the West today, and I know it is deeply, fundamentally wrong. But it's been a while since I did anything about it. I wonder whether the kids who wore red-tape over their mouths today, who got that thrill of counter-cultural rebellion for a cause they know is just, will feel the same way I do in 10 years.

Earlier this year, I used to go down to the local abortion-mill and pray on Saturday mornings. It wasn't much. I didn't sidewalk counsel - there were plenty of ladies doing that already at our local mill, and I was terrified to talk to anyone anyway. I didn't hold a sign or pass out flyers or strum a guitar and sing. I just stood there, Rosary in hand, begging God for mercy as one woman after another passed through the nondescript doors and came out one life the less. Another exercise in feeling rather useless. I told myself that prayer was powerful, that it reached into that unknown world where, I let myself imagine, angels and demons clashed above that squat, brown tombstone-of-a-building. At the very least, I was standing witness - as useless and yet as meaningful as a German civilian standing outside the gates of Buchenwald and pointing it out to his neighbors.

And then the abortion-mill got the hint that Saturday mornings were a ripe time for us to show up - we would sometimes have four or five different groups of people, maybe 25 of us all lined up on the sidewalk on a good morning - and stopped performing abortions on Saturdays. There went my one opportunity to feel like I could actually wear the moniker "pro-lifer."

I can't wear red tape on my mouth at work. I'm not free to volunteer when most pregnancy-centers are open. I vote pro-life. I'll talk pro-life with anyone who asks.

But I'm wondering how to break the silence in my particular corner of the pro-life world.

The Return of the Maggery (if only for a moment)

2010-07-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

Well, if only to prove to Mr. Sackrider that I haven't chewed my fingers off, I'm back. Happening in my life at the moment:

- A HECKA LOT OF THEATER. I finished stage-managing the AMAZING 2nd annual Shanks & Giggles fight-show at LBCC in May. I then volunteered to assistant-stage-manage The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged!) at the same institution. We're in the throws of rehearsals for this show at the moment, and it's been exciting, to say the least (We have no conclusion but that the Bureaucrats who run LBCC hate theater: nearly lost an actor to registration woes and Certain Insurance Rules forced us to rehearse in a local park w/ 1/5 of our props for a couple days.) Play goes up the 22nd-25th of July, 8pm at the Black Box theater at LBCC, Liberal Arts Campus. Come see this amazingly hilarious parody (which I may write about in more detail later). And in a couple weeks I'm also going to be jumping in as (stage manager? production assistant? tech-person? Hasn't been made exactly clear . . . :-/) for a local-theater production of Romeo & Juliet (may also we taking a small part as a "dancer" during the party scene). I'm pretty much sure I'll be dead of theater-induced heart-attack by the end of August.

- HOUSESITTING. Almost always in houses with cats. One of which attacked me the other day (Nasty four-claw swipe. NOT a cutter, people, I'm just taking care of a small, clawed, psychotic mammal)

- I, er, went on a very pleasant, er, date on Friday. That's all I'm gonna say. :-P

Latte vs. Mocha

2009-09-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

In answer to Otters' question: a Mocha is a Latte made with chocolate sauce instead of some other flavoring or no flavoring at all (that's what a basic latte is: espresso + hot or cold milk). It's just a very popular KIND of Latte, so it gets its own category. The WORD "mocha" actually derives from an Arabic term for a region in Yemen where they grow a type of coffee with a chocolately aroma.

I am such a Starbucks geek. It's really, really sad.

In other news - I got my first really freakish Starbucks-Princess-Customer experience today. Lady threw an utter tantrum - called me an idiot and worse, cussed out my manager, was in general a complete you-know-the-b-word-I-want-to-put-here.

Because I charged her 40 extra cents for Soy milk in her Venti Americano.

40 $%#$!! EXTRA CENTS.

The thing is, if she had asked me nicely to take the charge off - I would've. But no. She called me an idiot right off.

Clue to Getting What You Want at Starbucks #1: BE NICE. It won't kill you. And we will give you what you want, most of the time. But treat us like our only purpose in life is to lick your Gucci high-heels and we will smile and very politely tell you, "Sorry, that's our policy."

The Birth of Marxism

2009-09-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

A plain young man, sitting alone in a ragged coat at a Paris cafe. A handsome young couple walks by, well-dressed, in-love.
Young man: "Man, other people have everything . . ."
*Pause*
Young man: "That's it!!! OTHER PEOPLE have EVERYTHING!!!"

And that's the way it went :-)

Starbucks Snob Becometh I Am

2009-09-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

So, the bagging job at Pavilions (a slightly snootier Vons/Safeway grocery store) upgraded to an in-store Starbucks position. Which means I get to learn how to make Starbucksy drink and deal with Starbucksy customers and learn all about why Starbucks is the BEST FREAKIN' COFFEE PLACE IN THE GALAXY. I'm a very loyal employee, you see. But (before you ask), I'm still a Safeway employee technically, so I don't get free coffee, discounts, health care, or tips (yeah, I think it sucks too. As do the customers who don't want to put their change back in their wallets but would rather gift me with it)

It's kinda scary, actually. Work five hours straight making yummy sweet milky frothy awesome whip-cream topped espresso confections, and one all of the sudden begins to crave coffee. Even if you're a Tea Nazi, like me. I find myself needing coffee fixes during breaks. Scarier still, I find myself MAKING COFFEE AT HOME! And drinking it! Coffee! Me!!

In addition to actually liking and/or drinking coffee, I find myself becoming one of those annoying people who takes pleasure in the fact that she is initiated into the Mysteries of Starbucks Awesomeness. So I'll go into a Starbucks, rattle off an order for a "Triple-Grande 7-pump upside down non-fat caramel machiatto with extra caramel" and then smile obnoxiously at the person behind me, as if to say: "You WERE just going to order a "medium latte," weren't you? You were GOING to betray your uninitiated status! But now you're going to stand there for an extra 30 seconds coming up with an extra adjective or two to throw in there, trying to recall which size a Tall is!! BWAHAHAHAH!!"

I think Starbucks may actually be evil. It's brainwashed me. But I'm not that evil. In fact, I'll let you in on a few really yummy drinks that aren't on the menu, so that you, too, can feel like a Starbucks snob. I came up with the names. The quoted portions are what you should say while ordering. I figure grande is a pretty neutral size, so that's what they all are...

1. The I-Don't-Care-About-The-Calories Mocha: "Grande Breve Black & White, Extra Whip". This will give you a mocha made with both regular mocha sauce & white mocha sauce, (it also goes by the term "tuxedo" or "zebra" and, maybe, legend has it, "penguin") The breve means they make it with half-and-half instead of 2% milk. And, yeah, we do put vanilla syrup in our whipped cream, which is why it tastes so good. Yummy!!!

2. The Holiday Mixer: "Grande Soy 2-pump Pumpkin Spice Latte with 2 pumps of peppermint" Some of you may not like the taste of this one, but it's interesting, and you can only order it during the Fall when we have our PSL syrup (but we DO carry peppermint year round, so, feel free to ask for it in almost anything). I recommend you guys try adding soy instead of milk to any of your drinks - it's different, but not radically out-there as far as taste goes.

3. The I-Seriously-Hate-Coffee-But-I-Need-Caffeine-and-Sugar-NOW Frapaccinno: "A Venti Cinnamon Dolce Frappaccino with an added shot." If we have a flavor, you can basically get a frap made with it, so NEVER be bound by what's on the menu. If you don't want ANY caffeine, you can also order a Creme Frap in any flavor (no coffee involved - just yummy milk products).

Other Helpful Starbucks Tid-Bits:

a.) You can get espresso added to anything for 55 cents. Except Iced Tea...and I mean, if you REALLY WANTED TO we'd do it for you. But that's just gross, so don't.

b.) You can order a drink in a size-larger cup in order to accomodate things like extra ice or (my favorite) extra whip cream (we don't charge any extra for this, but you do run the risk of the cashier making a mistake and charging you for the bigger cup)

c.) Ask what flavor syrups we have. We have alot that aren't on the menu, and they're all interchangeable.

d.) You can substitute nonfat, whole milk, or half-and-half for regular if you wish. Soy costs a little extra, but I recommend trying it sometime.

A little later I'll post one of my traditional "Things Every Hourly-Wage Laborer Wish the Person Across the Counter Knew About Being a Decent Human Being" posts, which will pertain both to my Starbucks job and my bagging job (which I still do from time to time for the extra hours).

Happy Wednesday, People! Go spend money you don't have and fatten Starbucks' evil corporate coffers!!! :-D

Might as Well

2009-09-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

As long as I'm on here researching Civil War dresses (anybody out there want to sew me a reenacting dress?) and watching New Moon trailers and being more disgusted with Nancy Pelosi than usual, I might as well get around to explaining that prayer request I posted at the beginning of the summer. Many of you asked for further explanation, and I never kept my promise to blog on the subject. I figure I owe it to you, and probably should be transparent about the situation to any LBCC people who might read this blog (though I doubt any of them do...).

I crewed three shows last semester. One of these was called "Til Death Do Us Part," and was a fairly off-color satire/farce about marriage. More on this later. The third show was a Stage Combat Revue which I stage-managed. I did a relatively good job - my directors will tell you I did an amazing job, but that's only because a coincidence involving prop-shopping convinced them that I was a mind-reader :-P During that show, a friend from school approached me and asked if I'd be interested in assistant stage-managing under him at a local community theater (which does free Shakespeare during the summer that I'm a big fan of), which was producing Moliere's Tartuffe.

I was, as you might understand, thrilled. This was going to be my chance to break out of school-theater and get a little exposure in the larger So.Cal. theater community. It wasn't going to pay, but when has that ever stopped me? And though Tartuffe has it's off-color moments, I had read it and knew it to be a funny, morally-centered farce that targeted religious hypocrisy and greed.

Then, a couple weeks later, I heard from the stage manager that they were changing the play, and would be producing Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw instead. At first, I wasn't bothered. It sounded, to me, like a murder mystery or parlour farce or something Wildean of that nature. But I was foolish and didn't do research on the play until a little later. When I did, I discovered it was a 1960's era sex-farce that involves, among other things, near-nudity and a plot that revolves around a psychologist's efforts to bed a young lady during a job-interview.

After discovering this, I did another foolish thing: I sat on it. It took me two weeks to get up the courage to tell the stage manager that I might have a problem with the play's content and that I wanted to read the script before I could let myself participate. He was fairly understanding (considering this was @ 3 days before auditions), and let me borrow a script.

It was a very funny play. It rips up mid-century British sexual hypocrisy, psychiatric silliness, and is a rather good demonstration of one lie leading to a bigger lie and hence to all kinds of degenerate doings. But it wasn't a funny play the way Tartuffe is a funny play. I wish that I had been able to find the words to explain it well to my stage-manager when I pulled out of the project (he didn't seem to think there was that much of a difference between the two plays), but for me the difference was this: Tartuffe compares a crooked thing (hypocrisy and greed) to a straight thing (the way Moliere's audience knew a family and a Church OUGHT to be run), and asks us to laugh at the crooked thing because it is crooked when compared to the thing which is straight. WTBS takes a straight thing (the Beauty of the human sexual relationship), breaks it, and then expects us to laugh because it is broken. I suppose we can laugh to keep from crying, but that's about all we can do.

And still, I argued with God (after posting that blogpost and sending out a rather overdramatic prayer-request email). "But God this is my CHANCE! I thought YOU wanted me to do theater! You gave me these gifts! And now that I finally get to use them, you pull THIS on me? My stage manager is going to think I'm a flaky, over-reacting, fundamentalist HICK!!!" And He just smiled and gave me a very nice Sunday sermon by a Romanian missionary on Shadrach, Mesach, Abednego, the Fiery Furnace and standing alone for Christ. And then He handed me a fantasy novel (God is SO SNEAKY sometimes) wherein the hero, an Irish Christian pretending to be a priest in pagan Norway, learns what it means to forget how to be comfortable and to stand in The Loneliest Place, where the Cross is, no matter what it costs us (thanks ALOT Lars Walker). And then He looked at me and said, "Seriously? I died for you, and you don't want to give up a play you know you'll regret in the end? You've been praying for a way to show yourself my Daughter - well, this is it."

So I bought my stage manager a cup of coffee and rather stumblingly explained why I couldn't do the play. Everything always sounds so eloquent in my head, but I admit, I've never been very good at getting it out past this tongue thing. I think I got him to understand, in the end, that I was a Christian who believed that certain sexual mores were important for the existence of a Good Society and that I couldn't put my name on the production of a play that flouted what I believed. He was understanding, God bless him, though he did wonder why I had a problem with this play when I had already done Til Death Do Us Part. I could make the argument that Til Death was one of those plays that only laughs at what is crooked-when-compared-to-the-straight, but when I think about it, my witness probably WAS harmed by my participation in that production (any play that inspires one to write a poem with first and last lines that read "My eyes have grown accustomed to the darkness" is probably morally questionable in some way... Remind me to post the rest of the poem later).

Anyway, I stumbled out of the coffee shop and into the rest of my summer, bitterly disappointed that my summer-theater opportunity was shot to pieces, but also feeling lighter and better about myself and my Faith than I had in a long time. I had come out into the light and declared sides. I had stopped sulking in the shadows, wondering what people would "think of me" if I drew a Christian line in the theatrical sand and refused to cross it. I had stood in the Loneliest Place, and it really hadn't hurt as much as I assumed it would. God is Good, the Cross is Glory, to live is Christ, and to die is Gain.

But now the summer's over, and I'm back at LBCC for a little while. I've got a part in a one-act, the script of which I haven't read yet. PLEASE PRAY that, a.) I won't actually be asked to do/say anything that would harm my conscience, b.) if I am asked to, I dunno, wear underwear-as-outerwear onstage or make out with another character or something, that I'll be able to stand up and declare sides once again. Courage isn't just something that you can use once and then trust that it will be there again when you need it. You have to nurture it within oneself, and I'm a pretty bad courage-gardener all told.

But in Christ, I can do Anything.

Samples

2009-09-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from what I've been working on lately (the main reason why I haven't been blogging). I suppose if any of this gets plagiarized, I can take it as a backhanded compliment:

"'. . . At the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God . . .'
They had to lean close to hear him. Aunt Jo swore she felt the soul pass through the skin of his fingers as he said it. But all Lucy saw and heard was a slow wind of breath and an old man's body growing somehow thinner before her eyes.
That was the end of Glenville for Lucy Chesterton-Shaw.
'Some things is meant,' said Aunt Martha as she and her grand-niece pulled out of the driveway a week later, Lucy's bedroom boxed and piled in the backseat. 'Some things is meant to be one way. The Lord writes a good paragraph on our world. Don't rewrite it. You're uncle would want you to remember that. Especially now you're having to live, God forgive us, with your Uncle John. Especially.'
Lucy was only half-listening, watching the oak-nestled pastureland glide by. After a while she was no longer in the car listening to an exposition on Romans 8. She running for the horizon under a bold sunset, arms outstretched, listening for the trumpets of God. She imagined the Rapture, her feet growing wings as she was caught up and carried off. She imagined the suddenly-unmanned Buick spinning across the empty highway. She imagined Glenville, abandoned in a heavenly rush like the body of her grand-uncle, dead seven days."
- From "Things Is Meant," a short story about a NorCal farmer's daughter who has to go live with her homosexual uncle in SoCal.

The following is the last bit of the first act of a play @ the Twelve Disciples(right now going by "The Good Dozen", set in the modern day. At the moment, it's a very wierd cross between Godspell, The Godfather, and Friends. Yeah, I don't know what to do with me either. At this point in the "action," Josh (Jesus) is sitting down with his followers after breaking up more than one argument and miraculously multiplying some pizzas so that they can all eat:

JOSH
Thank you, Father, for providing everything we need. Let us always remember with gratitude the reason that we live.

PETE
Yeah – friends, football, pizza and beer!

THE GUYS laugh, but JOSH looks at PETER – not unkindly, but serious.

JOSH
Peter, why are you here?

PETE puts his pizza down and meets JOSH’S gaze.

PETE
Because . . . you invited me.

JOSH
Yes – but why did you take me up on my invitation?

PETE
Well – ‘cause . . . ‘cause you’re this city’s only hope.

JOSH
Why?

PETE
‘Cause I figure it’s at the point where only God Almighty could fix things – and I believe you are . . . God.

JOSH leans back in his chair, a huge smile on his face.

MATT
[uncomfortable]
Well that’s putting it . . . bluntly.

JOSH
Your faith is as big as your heart, Pete. Don’t lose it, when you’re beat down and everything that’s good in the world fades away. I won’t always be here to put pizza on the table.

THE GUYS pull forward in their seats a little bit, listening intently.

NAT
Are you going away, Doc?

JOSH
Yeah. I’m leaving soon.

JACK
Where?

JOSH
I will finish the job my Father sent me here to do – and then I’ll go home to him.

MERCY
You mean – home to Nazareth? Why go back there?

JOSH
No, not Nazareth, Mer. The Endless Mountains are a flimsy shadow compared with my Home. My work is done in Nazareth, and it’s nearly done here in Pittsburgh.

SIMON
On to New York next?

JOSH
For you, perhaps, if my Father wills. But I will never see the Endless Mountains again, and my days in Pittsburgh are numbered – so don’t get comfortable. Don’t think I’m here to feed and teach and comfort only . . . Violence will break into your lives because of me. You will be arrested. You will lose what reputations you have left. You will lose jobs. Homes. Savings. Some will be gunned down in the street. Your families will disown you and your friends will pretend they don’t know you. The government will call you terrorists, the Mob will call you troublemakers, and the underground will call you sell-outs. You will Love everyone, and make no one happy. Can you face that?

JACK
I think I could – with you.

JOSH
You are good and brave, Jack. Don’t be afraid – it is when you are alone that I am nearest to you.

ANDREW
And what about us?

JOSH
You guys? You will all die for each other.

He picks up a piece of pizza with a knowing grin.

JOSH
If you don’t all kill each other first.

ACT I CURTAIN.

If you're still around . . . thanks for reading. Hopefully the time I'm spending on these will be worth something to somebody someday. I'd welcome any comments you might have.

Harumph

2009-08-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

My mother insists that I blog. She's convinced that blogging will somehow magically alter me into The Writer I Am Destined To Be. I - after a longish, errand-filled, rather dreary Saturday and a four-hour work shift - am decidedly NOT in the Blogging Mood.

So, it is with a grouchy spirit that I set about this task.

I've moved back home after two months cat-sitting in a hip downtown apartment. So, I am once more beholden to someone else's chore-list, transportation needs, shower schedule and grocery preferences. In return, I get regular human contact on a daily basis, which, I admit, is something I need for bare sanity's sake. (You know you're not as much a loner as your thought you were when you start singing silly children's songs to cats...)

I got a job - a permanentish, more-than-part-time-ish job. At a grocery store. Bagging. Three-cities over in Westminster - a 1.5 hour bus ride for my utterly car-less self. I console myself with the fact that Mrs. Noe once worked at a MacDonalds, and Dr. Hake once worked as a chimney sweep. I probably need to get over my pride for good and admit that I got _myself_ into this economic train-wreck.

I'm writing little eensy weensy bits and pieces of EVERYTHING, it seems. The fantasy novel. The graphic novel. Poems. The play. The screenplay. The short story. Occasionally, I stop typing and think: "Where the hell is this all going? Where the hell am I going? Why the hell am I doing this?"

And then I start typing again.

The Cat Files

2009-07-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

I'm cat-sitting @ my good friends' apartment this month -which means I have consistent interenet, which means I should probably blog more. (I will, I promise, eventually blog about my recent theatrical moral crisis that many of you have asked me to expound upon)

Cats, I must say, are interesting creatures. I like them, but perhaps just because they strike me as the only creature alive who is lazier than I am. They sleep ALL the time - and feel no guilt. Then again, their life seems fairly boring, especially when cooped up 24/7 within a four-room apartment. But they are also careful, fastidious, wonderfully clean creatures (dogs are more fun, but, yes, they do smell). I imagine they don't think themselves lazy at all, in fact, I imagine they have each day carefully planned out, something like:

12am-4am: Sleep.
4am: Wake Maggie up
4:30-6:30: Sleep.
6:30: Wake Maggie up
6:30-9am: Sleep
9am: Climb on Maggie's lap during breakfast and demand that she eat not one more bite until she gives me a world-class massage.
10am-2pm: Sleep
2pm: 2nd massage of the day. Use litter box.
3pm-6pm: Sleep
6pm: Yowl until Maggie feeds me. Then leave the feed in the bowl just long enough to let her know that I'll eat on my own schedule thank you very much.
7pm: Play on Maggie's lap while she tries to write. Really, I have no idea why she thinks she has any other purpose in life than to make me happy . . .
9pm: Eat again.

You get the idea :-)

But It's MY Body!

2009-06-14T15:36:00.001-07:00

For those of my friends who believe the State should have no business "legislating morality", some food for thought.

Vita Theatrum

2009-06-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

So, having successfully finished out a year of theater classes at LBCC, crewing two shows and stage managing a third, I've landed a (non-paying) "gig" at Little Fish Theater in San Pedro as Assistant Stage Manager for their late-summer show (it was going to be Tartuffe, but now I think they're changing it to something else instead).

Anyway, it seems the theater bug has kept firmly attached even 3000 miles away from Eden Troupe, and it's not letting go any time soon. Thus, I'm fairly sure this is something I'm supposed to pursue further. I've signed up for more theater classes at LBCC next fall, with the hopes of earning enough credits to merit applying for a grad degree in techinical theater sometime next year.

In other words, I now have a plan. Or something like it. (Whether I'll have the money/time/job/etc. to implement the plan is something else altogether . . .)

A plan which makes me wonder whether I should've just gotten a degree in theater in the first place. PHC was, I suppose, central to my realization that I LOVED this stuff. And writing will always be my first love, I suppose. We'll see how effectively I can implement my writing skills in with my theatrical skills.

Anybody feel like producing the play I'm writing: The Good Dozen [working title], a play about the Twelve Disciples set in a contemporary context? :-D

My dark, low-sodium life . . .

2009-04-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

I and my father share the same curse: we actually give a *&#^#!! what people think of us. I've been almost a year at LBCC now. I've gotten over my initial vertigo at being unexpectedly dumped in a secular environment after four years of PHC cushy-ness (and yes, it was extremely cushy by comparison). I talk to people. I volunteer for things. I flirt mildly with the guys. People like me, and I like them. And yet . . .

1. Why, when given the opportunity to talk about God's blessings last night, did I stupidly start spouting crap about "karma?"

2. Why, after having been subjected to an absolutely FOUL screenplay in screenwriting class, did I not say _anything_, even though I KNEW I wasn't the only one in the class who was uncomfortable?

3. Why do I always change the subject when someone asks me about the school I used to go to?

4. Why is it easier for me to admit to being a conservative than a Christian?

5. Why, when I hear my friends ridicule other, more-vocal (Christ bless them) Christians on campus, do I keep my eyes down and my mouth shut?

I am so ashamed of myself. But I don't know how to stand up for what's right without people thinking I'm a jerk (a consequence, perhaps, of growing up with a mom who _didn't_ give a $#!!% what people thought about her, and who constantly embarrassed my over-cautious teenage self...). God put me at this school for a reason. And I feel like I've majorly blown it.

I've been reading through old PHC quotes, and I'm crying. It all seems very far away... is it possible that the joy and friendship and virtue and love that I shared there really existed? It all seems rather like a dream from where I sit . . .

The angels are laughing . . .

2009-04-07T18:29:00.000-07:00

So - after a week in which I had realized how rapidly povertous I was becoming (&%$#!!% health insurance!!), and a night in which I cried alot over my rapidly approaching poverty, I answered my cell phone today and who should be on the other end but an interviewer from the U.S. Census Bureau, calling about the application I sent them back in February (Uncle Sam: "We get the job done. Late."). Seems they want me to start work for them as a "Lister" starting next week (sounds like a position at Dickens' "Circumlocution Office"!! I think it mostly involves interviewing people and verifying addresses . . .)

I'm limp with relief. Of course, it doesn't solve all my problems (God knows I still need to learn how to Trust). Pray that the hours will be flexible enough to allow me to finish out the semester at school, stage-manage the Fight Show, and still get hours at my other job (Laundress Extraordinaire!).

God is good.

In Mundum . . .???

2009-04-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Can I spiritually justify being involved in a fun, funny, farcical play which is heavily sprinkled with sexual innuendo and adultery?

More on this later.

Bonum Verbum

2009-03-02T15:52:00.000-08:00

It's odd. It seems like every late-winter for the past three or four years, I've found myself in spiritual darkness: depressed, struggling to hope, struggling to trust, susceptable to the curl-up-in-your-room-and-don't-come-out coping strategies. Sometimes it's because of personal struggles, sometimes because of things happening around me . . . but it always comes to a fore during Lent. I keep the Season, so to speak, but never in a very distinctive way, so I'm wondering why Satan seems to enjoy knocking little-old-foot-soldier-me out of commission anyway. Darnit, I really don't see myself as that much of a threat, especially these days.

Is it just 'cause he's bitter?

Anyway - while curled up on my bed the other day, crying my eyes out, I lit upon this verse, which I had never read before and which I proceeded to write large upon my forearm and memorise:

Rejoice not over me, o mine enemy,
When I fall, I shall rise;
Though I sit in darkness,
The LORD will be a Light to me. Micah 7:8

A goodly life-verse for those of us prone to darker melancholies. Late-winter will wane. Spring IS coming, and with it . . . RESURRECTION!!!

Ah, the Joys of Tech Week

2009-02-18T15:28:00.000-08:00

So, 12 Angry Men opens tomorrow, and I am one of it's official Light Techs.

Which basically means I show up, sweep the stage, mop the stage, channel-check (push a series of buttons that cycle through the different light-chanells and pretend to know what I'm doing), then sit with an important-looking head-set on in the Tech Cave and push a button 34 times over our two-hour show :-)

There have been no ladders involved, so, I'm happy (though I did get to push my boss around on one while he balaced thirty-feet above my head, focusing lights). I did get a piece of wooden-riser embedded in my thumb, which I've been wearing around like a badge of honor for a few days.

There are sooo many things I know now that I wish I'd used back in my ET days!! How to adjust a source-4. How to put together a cue-script. How to organize and call cues. What the function of a Stage-Manager actually is (in ET, the Director actually did most of the things that a Stage Manager handles in professional theater. Think of all the work I could've delegated if I'd only known!!).

I love theater. Wish it paid ;-)

Fly, little Eaglet!

2009-02-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

Saturday was my brother's official Eagle Scout Court of Honor. He "graduated" to Eagle with five other guys, all from his troop, which makes @ 10-12 scouts from Troop 140 that have made Eagle in the last few years (to put that in perspective: only 2% of Boy Scouts ever reach Eagle rank, so, for those 12, 588 young men didn't make it).

There was something so good, so decent and . . . healthy about the whole thing. Before the "pinning" ceremony, the other Troop 140 scouts - the little guys who haven't even made Life Scout yet - gathered onstage and went through this thing where they all read from a card about the significance of the Scout Oath (a Scout is brave, reverent, clean, obedient, etc.). Then each of the new Eagles came up and honored both of their parents and a mentor with a special pin, before they themselves received their new neckercheifs and Eagle badges. Each of these guys had to finish a substantial community service project in order to gain their rank, which they must organize, fund-raise for, and execute with the help of their troop - so, not only did they finish their own projects, they also had to help out on several other Eagle projects in the mean time. We watched slideshow after slideshow of these six guys organizing charity food-pantries, regrouting grimy women's-shelter showers, pouring cement, re-planting gardens, as well as other boy stuff like climbing mountains, filming backyard war-movies, throwing tomahawks and setting things on fire :-)

I really hope the things they learned will stay with them, that they'll remember them when it counts. Watching the ceremony gave me just a teensy little ray of hope for the future of mankind. Hurrah for the Boy Scouts, long may they be gender-segregated!

Academic Bureucracy Strikes Again (and/or "Bad Times at LBCC - Everybody Start Panicking")

2009-01-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

So, two of my favorite classes just got cut b/c of budget contraints. No more Theater Management or Stage Lighting. :-( Which means I need to find another 3 unit class to take. Should I go for the practical, and take a Microsoft Office class? Or something more fun and take Intro to Film?

I shouldn't despair too much: I'm still planning on crewing for the shows this semester, no matter what. So, I'll keep you updated on the ladder situation :-)

Ladders (or lack of) and Sword-Wrist

2009-01-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

So, yes, focusing a stage-light is not that complicated, but it does involve techie things like knobs and wrenches and knowing which way is left. Luckily, stage-light-pipes lower down to the stage, so no ladders were involved today. They will be next week, I'm told. Oh dear.

In other knews: rapiers are hard on the wrist. We practiced flourishes in Stage-Fighting yesterday for an hour. I'm sure I looked like D'Artagnan's incompetant little sister most of the time. Oh well. Here's to ET stage-fights and not knowing what your doing!!

With a Shake of the Head

2009-01-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

So, Random (African-American) Stranger walked up to me in the library:

RAAS: May I tell you something?

Me: Hmmm?

RAAS: You are so beautiful.

Me: [blank stare/dazed smile]

RAAS: Are you part black?

Me: [blanker stare/more dazed smile/shake of the head] I don't know.

RAAS: Do you know why I ask that?

Me: No.

RAAS: [Makes complimentary but innappropriate comment about certain "attributes" that I have that my "white sisters," er, lack] . . . If you have Jenny Craig's telephone number lying around you need to tear it up and throw it in the trash!!"

Then Random African-American Stranger disappears as quickly as he came [note: this guy had to have been in his thirties or forties, at least].

I'm not making this up.

I don't know whether to feel complimented or horrified . . .

Happy First Day of the Obamera!

2009-01-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

The great thing about our new president: you can do so many interesting things with his last name. So many helpful vowels. No, I won't be writing any adoring sonnets any time soon.

So, yeah, woke up this morning all excited, but Santobama Claus hadn't come in the night: no hundred dollar bill under my pillow. So much for Change ;-P

Anyway, trying out blogspot for a little while (yet another refugee from Xangadom - oh well). We'll see how it works, and if I ever even show up with 15 theater-related credits at good ole' LBCC. Thursday we're getting up on ladders in Stage-Lighting class.

I'll be sure to tell you if I'm still alive afterward ;-P