Theatre for the first time in a while

My computer has decided to monitor my page content via not allowing me to add any pictures to my page. Due to this...hmmm...minor inconvienience (I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong) I am not blogging on knitting today. Today it's theatre. And musicals. And mine.

So school theatre is looking complex. we don't know what we're doing in the fall despite having everything laid out at the end of last year, completely ready to take on the next five years of production. We have no scripts. We have no administration approval. We have nada.

Church theatre is a wee bit more interesting. We're doing a dinner theatre called "Phil's Diner" and I'm hoping for Flodine. (think waitress extrarodiare...spelled that wrong, too...with a southern accent) If not, I'm hoping for some jovial part with next to nil lines so that I can interact with who ever is at my table. Either way I'm good. I have to laugh though. They want audience participation. ha. Did they see Cinderella's Cruchy Christmas Cake (C4) last year? we had to beat them with a club to get them to sing jinglebells. I scoff at the attempt.

Right now I'm really into the drowsy chaperone. I think it's hillarious. It's got Sutton Foster (my hero...one of my heros.) as a leading lady, and Ethel Mirmen-esc anthem from the chaperone, a latin lover--Aldolpho (who sings very close to the funniest song I have ever heard) and a very forgetful hostess ("Love makes lovers worry, Love makes lovers fret, but here's a fact on which we can depend: just like long ago when Romeo loved Juliet, Love is always lovely in the end""I must point out, madam, that Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy""Oh, I never read reviews.")

I'm also in love with Jane Eyre, which has the most reoccuring themes I've ever heard. Songs will have a reprise of at least 3 other songs tucked away in them (I look for unifying pieces, so reoccuring themes are a big one for me.) I love Sirens...and Secret Soul. I feel like the first few bars of Farewell, Good Angel were ripped off from the concept version of Facade from Jekyll and Hyde, but that just means I know the score way too well.

As to my musical(s) I've got two in my head right now. The first is the story of a dance hall run by a really controling manager. He kills his leading lady by not allowing her to leave despite her visibly declining health. After her death, the understudy takes center stage and makes a mess of things and the Cellist is forced to sing, (insert troubled past here) which she happens to be quite good at. The Cellist takes over center stage and overcomes her fear, the understudy learns who she is and where she belongs and the manager realizes that he needs to loosen up or more of his girls are going to die. Lots of good lyrics

Lullaby sweet darkness
Goodnight my stars
Goodbye my angels
Who dwell in my dreams
Lullaby hear it calling
Feel darkness, overwhelming
Let go of your fears of what will come
Let go, Lullaby
Goodnight my darkness
Goodnight
Lullaby
Sweet dreams
(think melodic and sweet for the first four lines and all of the sudden it's in a minor key and you're powering out the high notes. It makes me happy. and it's a reoccuring theme (: )

The second is a love story between very ugly man and a blind girl. They have to overcome their issues before they can be together. Toss in a sister who wishes the blind girl would leave and a best friend who thinks the blind girl is the best thing since sliced bread and it turns from your basic love story into a plot that opens with a shooting and teaches people not to judge things based on their appearances. (Ugly man shoots best friend for trying to rape/kill his girl and saves her life.)

In my world of darkness
You were my one light
In my night parade
You broke the masquerade
You gave me hope
And showed me true site

Come save me now
Find me again
I'm lost in a nightmare
A dream where there's no happy end
Come save me now
Find me here
Please find me, my dear
(etc.)

Yeah for that. Now you know.

More on knitting when my computer stops hating me.
Much Love.

Why I hate computers. And some other stuff.

I know that computers are supposed to make life easier and help me out. They let me get free knitting patterns. They let me download my musicals. I can type out my giant papers and research to my hearts content. I can meet up with my friends. There are so many wonderful blessing that the computer gives to society. My personal favourite is an object to throw at the wall.

It currently hates me. I don't know why, but I have tried to post a blog 3 times this last week and all three were rudely interupted by random crashings that resulted in my mock swearing (snazzlefracken...rasifrassen...grumble) I hate computers. I'm going to grow up and be amish. I swear a life without the scourge of technology seems like a serious blessing at this moment in time.

There are other reasons why I hate computers which I will spare you. You just need to know I hate them.

Stewart is coming along slowly (funny how that works when you never take it out of your purse...) I've been neglecting him as of late in favor of actually finishing my homework (which I only have biology left. I read the mayor of casterbridge in 4 days. I finished it 11:58 last night.) He's great for KIP, especially since he's done aside from one forearm. I'm not quite frustrated with him yet, just bored. He's good monotony.

The short-row hat
is almost done.
I just have the top left.
(I couldn't help myself. It needed to be explained in short rows...I'm a horrible person)

I started the swallow tail shawl (from now on ethel) from this season's interweave and I probably shoudn't have because my yarn choice means that I have to use needles that give me a gauge too small (24 rows in 4" instead of 18 rows. bad) so I've spent a measurable amount of my life trying to make the lace work. Initially I thought it would work fine if I just added 5 repeats of the budding lace. No. the border is repeated over 8 stitches. Everything else is over ten. So I set to work (i did six pages of math) and re-wrote somethings (lace charts. dont' do that. It'll kill you.) and redid the math 5 times and contemplated gouging out my eye. Then...and epiphany.

19 reps budding lace
1 rep lily 1
2 reps lily 2
edging.

It works out perfectly. I am at peace

I'm going to close this with Henchard's will and the last line from The Mayor of Castorbirdge: (well, a portion of the last sentence. It's kind of long.)

Micheal Henchard's Will

That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death

or made to grieve on account of me.

& that I be not bruy'd in consecrated ground

& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell

& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.

& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral

& that no flours be planted on my grave

& that no man remember me

To this I put my name

Michael Henchard.

"The one to whom such unbroken tranquility had been accorded in the adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain."

I threw the book at the floor.

Much Love.

Righty-ho

So, I finished Crime and Punishment and started Hamlet, which is turning out to be a bit more difficult to read than I anticipated mainly because I'm feeling exceedingly fidgety today (to put this in perspective, it took me 5 tries to type that sentence correctly) and so to remedy the problem I started knitting some new stuff.

I know. I'm a horrible person, but I'm 90% done with the short row hat. (basically I have to go and purchase size 6 double points because every pattern will call for some product that I don't own.) It's pink. It's cute. And right now there's a giant hole in the top (what the 6's are for) that makes my sister call it the "riders of Rohan" hat as she pulls my hair out the top.

And because I am not content with having just those projects going, I started the swallow-tail shawl in brown chenille. I've got 5 of the 14 repeats done before I start the edging. I should probably put it down. To be fair though, the edging is about a third of the finished length of the shawl. But I'm just making excuses.

The princpal has shot down all but two of the one-acts that the drama teacher submitted (this is the man who lets us read Antigone (think Oedipus Rex part 2) and The Way of the World (soap opera. everybody's sleeping around) but gets weirded out because the backdrop to a lady's basement her beer making area. He said maybe she could make root beer. We said we don't have to use the backdrop. He doesn't get it) So we're having some...hmm...artistic differences right now and the administration has hijacked the dinner theatre so that they can steal all of the money from it. (There is no cost for them to pay. The food is donated. Drama parents bring the desserts. we make$8000, we get $500. It's extortion.) and I didn't get assigned Thespian Society this year (they're assigning clubs now...) which should be interesting since I'm the President and our advisor gave them a list with people who had to be in it. yeah. they're trying to screw me over. fabrous day.

Much Love.

Icarus--a story in pictures (but not in process)

So I finished Icarus today. Like, actually finished with the blocking being done and the ends a-woven in in that way that I hate to do because it always screams "I will distort your fabric which you have dedicated a measurable portion of your life to producing! Mwa ha ha ha!"

And so...
Pictures!!

After much fighting with my computer and dial up connection just now, I have given up on arranging them in some make sense manner. the crazy background is a giant costco beach towel doing it's job. All I can say is "I told you it was blue and shiny :)

I have a sleeve left on the giant orange sweater...it needs a name...stewart...the giant orange sweater henceforth to be refered to as stewart. I love it but I really need to get my reading done. I finished crime and punishment (insert Handel's The Messiah here) and started Hamlet, which should only take a few hours to read. I am not worried about that. Biology is the only thing really keeping me from knitting right now. I really want to do the short row hat from interweave. It makes me happy (pattern: http://www.interweave.com/knit/interweave_knits/web_projects/win_05/Short-Row-Hat.pdf )

All said and done, I am content.
Much Love.

Knitting Pictures

So we got a camara.

And now I have pictures

(but my daddy ran away with it so you won't get to see pictures of the shawl until tomorrow-ish/the next post)

Baby Sweater

And the hatAnd the orange sweater of wonderfulness

And the bag (which I made eons ago, it just never made it to this page...)

Yeah, It's a pattern that was for a little hand purse almost the size of a clutch and if you make it a bunch bigger around and knit it so that it can hold a sleeping bag, it makes a loverly sling-over-the-shoulder bag :)

Now you have pictures

And I should probably go read my book now. Much Love.