Monday, December 14, 2009

Loving the Gamer in my Man

It's possible that I write better when cold. Like wine or ginger ale, my thoughts are best when chilled. Though that could be said for most of us.

In this case I don't mean that my thoughts have been given a chance to run their course and thereby form themselves into greater literary greatness, but the actual physical temperature of my fingers. When I'm cold, I have a greater proclivity to write. So I guess in a way I will miss these horrible single-pane windows when we move.

My children are nestled snug in their beds. My husband is playing Modern Warfare, which explains at least in part why I am blogging. It is really all I can do online while he games. Watching a movie or catching up on a network T.V. show is out of the question as it slows his game play and might make him or his team lose.

I do not begrudge him his nightly games with such friends as Phred, The Scrub, StOffdog and DecrepitSpoon. No, in fact I often nights find myself at his feet, absent-mindedly massaging his "doggies" (my brother's term for feet) or scratching his legs as I watch and cheer him in his virtual victories. Sometimes those head shots are downright incredible. I even get so wound up that I have been know to yell, "Oh come ON!! You were robbed! You SO got him first!!!" I would say that I am just doing my duty as The Most Awesome Wife Ever, but I would be telling a half-truth.

Yes, enjoying his games as he games does secure my title, but I don't only do it for the glory. I also sit there because the visuals of the game are pretty great. Some more than others, though. For instance, I could sit for a few hours together watching Muad'Dib playing Assassin's Creed I or II. I just think they're beautiful. I also enjoy the story and the all around game play. I also liked Star Wars: the Force Unleashed, and the Prince of Persia series. And the music of Morrowind still takes me back to our second apartment: me pregnant as the day was long, lounging on the couch and scratching Muad'Dib's head as he played and I fell to sleep.

I seriously don't get the women who whine and complain about their casual gaming husbands. I mean really: have you ever even TRIED it? I actually enjoy playing a few choice games myself on Xbox 360. I certainly enjoy the look on my husband's face when he arrives to find me curled up on the LoveSac, finishing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, or winning a game of Settlers of Catan.

Not to mention all the family friendly games that can be had on the consoles nowadays! In fact, we just held an impromptu "Family Night" and finished it off with a few rounds of Battleship and Connect Four. Rivulet and Lemur were actually able to play against each other! Muad'Dib helped and all the while I sat on the floor with a bottle of lotion, massaging little and big feet while cheering on who ever was not in the lead!

Well . . . I suppose that is all I have to say on the matter tonight. And when it comes down to it this post is really just a reminder of how much I love my life, my children and especially my husband. Even if loving him means I can't watch an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" before bed. Instead, I will go snuggle with him while he games. And, rest assured, I'm going to like it.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Thinking Willy-Nilly

Spurred on by the comment of my long-time-not-seen Mother-in-law, I write before retiring to bed. At least this time it's my own bed.

Ah, and casting for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is complete! So now if I am beset by theatrical images, they have faces and bodies to them. I can finally begin mental blocking, which I then run by my better half. And I mean the good kind of mental blocking, not the mental blocking that means things are gummed up and unmoving, but in fact the blocking that means I know exactly where everyone and everything will go. I outline their traffic patterns and reasons for said traffic patterns.

Muad'Dib is dangerously right: I'm going to enjoy this.

Part of me doesn't want to. Part of me is holding on with both hand and all ten fingernails to the Sayyadina that came home from "Into the Woods," hung up her theater shoes and just was. At home with my children, keeping up the house; staying within walking distance from my own front door . . . these are the things I want to hang on to. I was released from all the garbage that overwhelmed me last winter and spring. I was unshackled from the drama of the theater. I was looking forward to more home and more family and more children.

And now . . . the TheaterGeek inside is scrambling for secure footing in my head. As well it should be, seeing as The Husband and I are co-directors, and I'm the only one between the two of us who has done it before.

I have noticed in the past two weeks that I have lost a part of myself. It's a small part - but I have begun to miss it. I used to be a ListMaker. You know: To Do, To Buy, To Bake, Gifts, To Clean, To Pack, etc. Any process that could be made faster and clearer by having a list laid out before hand HAD a list. And then, as we were gearing up for Auditions I noticed that I had not the slightest inclination to list.

I then sat down and TRIED to list. It was very difficult. After a few minutes, holding my head between my hands, staring down at the lined paper of a purple notebook thinking "Where do I start?" I realized that I was unable. I remembered that I was once able, and was no longer so.
Over the aforemeantioned two weeks, I have attempted lists numerous times - just today, in fact - to little avail. It is much like trying to break an egg by squeezing it in your hand. Or like walking through a maze while hungry and dehydrated. You know there's a rhyme and reason to the twists and turns - or that there could be if you thought about it hard enough - but you're so miserable, you don't give a damn. You just want to sit down and - dude.

I apologize for the "dude," but it really fits my brain right now.

My infamous "Give-up Attitude" is not gone! It's still here! I wonder that perhaps it always has been.

No . . . I was not a "Give-up"-er my entire life. Were that so, I would not have ever been a singer, dancer, college student, good cook or good daughter. Or good wife or have well behaved children. No, this is a new-ish malady.

It's likely that the give-up attitude is directly linked to my weight, in which case I do not desire to further discuss it. In fact, I am now going to abandon this thought process altogether.

Except that in doing so, I shut off my mind from the free flow of inspired thought. And still I choose to keep it that way. So I will go to bed as I have been advised and try not to think of these things anymore.

No; not to think of possibly being over-run by TheaterGeek. not think of being a "give-upper" or an "Issue Skirt-er." Nor will I dwell on my being the "Dream Breaker" as I'm sure I was for some people while casting.

I just have too many thoughts I don't want to have. And the thoughts I do want to have and DO want to write about keep getting shoved violently aside, bombarded and trampled over by all the other yuck that I have taken in over the last few weeks like unaware shoppers on Black Friday.

Perhaps I always will need Theater. Sitting before my laptop, thinking that thought - I let out a low whine like a dog. How do my posts become so terribly personal like this? I suppose it has been quite a while, actually, since most of you were invited willy-nilly into my brain and heart, to be lost along the routes that my thoughts travel from one to the other.

Well, I guess then for those of you who missed these "Wonka Factory" type explorations, you will be pleased by my vulnerability and unwillingness to really see myself - and the opportunity that this give you to see me so clearly. From so far away.

And those of you who just skipped to the bottom of the post hoping to see pictures because the blog itself looked dangerously wordy: you were right to do so.

Good night.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

"YOU rise, YOU shine!" *grrr*

It is now 4:53 am on a Wednesday morning. I went to "bed" at 11:45pm and little more than dozed until around 3 am.
Muad'Dib and I had callbacks for 7 Brides last night. The dancing and the faces and the movements and the judging and the nuances of casting has been mosh-pit-ing in my head. Couple that with an uncomfortable couch, weird noises in my parent's house, an ill-sleeping Rivulet, a stuffy nose due to dog hair, and Lemur talking in his sleep a foot from me . . . and it translates to a night of un-rest.

So, what is a girl to do this early in the stupid morning? I've already watched a few things on Hulu. I've cursed the fact that I didn't just go home and risk being up until 1 - at least I would be asleep right now. I've debated eating something and tried to focus on all my bodily sensations so I wouldn't over-react and assume I was suffering from Anxiety or something. No, just dropping blood sugar. It feels the same, though.

We've been up to alot, really. Muad'Dib finished his run as Gaston in "Beauty and the Beast" at the Playhouse. I helped out my mom by running mic's for her show "Ebenezer" which finished performing just after Thanksgiving. We held auditions and the first set of callbacks for 7 Brides, which Muad'Dib and I will be directing together (to open February 19th).

Lemur has continued school. He's doing very well and his teacher is forever commenting on his art skills. I guess he's got a bit more "Robert" in him than we thought! Rivulet has continued on her path to turning four, but not on the one that passes potty-training. She avoids that path like it's a dark and spooky tree-lined Walk of Doom.

We will be moving into a new house sometime before the middle of January. Yay. A house. I'm exited for the open floor plan, superfluous closets and two car garage!

That exclamation point took a lot out of me. You'd think that because I'm so tired, I'd be able to sleep, right? Apparently not.

And I'm becoming aware of just how loud my keystrokes are, with my little ones sleeping almost peacefully not 10 feet away. Perhaps I should try another go at sleeping. I'm just concerned that I will merely continue the parade of theatrical judgement and so forth that thus far has kept me from sleep's sweet respite.

Oh that my mind would turn off; that I might be in my own bed, listening to my husband sleep and the heater click on an off periodically. My parent's apparently have a real gor'ram DRAGON under the stairs to serve as their furnace! Seriously! Every twenty minutes or so, this incredible belching grumph interrupts an otherwise close-to -silent environment. My heart does hopscotch - missing a beat - and then my brain tries to make sense of the feeling. "What the . . .!?" And despite that, despite the monster bellowing and roaring to life: my hands and toes are like little dexterous icicles. Okay, my hands are. My toes are regular ice blocks, not being very dexterous at all.

And yet, if and when I lay down, I quickly become overheated which - as most of us know - causes a normal nose to stuff up. Great. Now my back is cramping AND I can't breathe. Ugh.

I am meant to wake up and begin my day in one hour and twenty minutes. 6:30am to those of you not keeping track of the time. How will I be able? Suck it up and move forward, I guess.
Take the boy to school, clean the house . . . it's likely I'll be able to fit in a nap after the boy returns from his futile half-Wednesday. I mean really, if one is going to award a half-day to children, shouldn't it be on a FRIDAY so we can begin the weekend early? A Wednesday just messes everyone up!!

Meh. It's not like anyone listens to me. Particularly not during or through a ranting, incoherent and barely cohesive cognitive rambling at 5:12 in the morning.

I suppose it would behoove me to try again. If I fail, there is always "V" on Hulu. I haven't watched past the first episode. And I've just given up on FastDumbward. If I wanted to be spoon-fed a "Lost" type show, I'd just watch those horrible two hour ABC recaps. At least it'd be over in two hours!

Fine, you don't like me cranky-funny and sleep deprived? neither do I. I thought this would turn into a beautiful and majestic geyser of creativity . . . but it's just not. So . . . whatever.

also, if anyone knows what movie my title comes from, I will be most impressed."