Gnaw, pile, rip, thump, squeak! Heh.

Out of all the items in their cage, my rats’ favourite is their hammock. As many as possible are always trying to pile in at the same time and they regularly manage to pile in all four, although I can’t see how having three of your friends sleeping on your head can be comfortable.

What I understand even less though is their need to EAT it! Imagine getting into bed and thinking, ‘Ooh, this is comfy – I think I’ll chew on a pillow for a bit.”

After the digestion of the last hammock (which took a number of months), I bought them a new one. The first holes appeared in under twenty-four hours!

By the seventy-two hour mark, things were looking decidedly precarious.

I hope the little fools all pile in and cause it to give way.


Gnaw, pile, gnaw, pile, rip, thump, squeak! Heh.

Biotrash incident

This fellow looks cute, doesn't he? All innocent and brimming with environmental friendliness. Yet this confounded imp is my NEMESIS!

Biotrash bags are designed to decompose quickly. If only they could hold out until the dumpsters.

Yes, I just had a biotrash incident. I don’t think I need say anything more than ‘trash water’.

King & Court

I thought twice about the wording of my last entry - and more than that about posting it - as I didn’t want people to think I was throwing a ‘pity party’. It seems I failed. And maybe I’ve finally found time for that turning thirty crisis postponed by the production. But let me try to explain better.

King & Court is one of my favourite games from our Winter’s Tale workshops. Everyone is given a random playing card signifying their rank. Sometimes you know the value of your own card and not other people’s, sometimes the card is stuck to your own forehead so you know the value of everyone else’s card but not your own. The point is to practise social interactions and structure for the Shakespearean world, or others where such things matter ever so much.

One variation involves mingling with a card on your forehead, everyone reacting according to the ranks of people they meet. At first, everyone gives absolute reactions based on the cards they see. The highs and lows soon suss out their status and act accordingly while giving their reactions to others, making the interactions increasingly complex and creating an intricate social structure that enables more and more people to find their place in the grand scheme of things.

The final test is to line up in order of rank and see if we get it right. I thought of this, even in the words I wrote.

Most of us find ourselves in a number of tightly-knit social groups throughout our lives, some forced, others voluntary. I carried such a negative stamp throughout my school days that in the first years after I left, I couldn’t relate to the odd (read positive) reactions of the brand new people I met. I still wore my playing card on my head, even though it was now face down.

Unless we’re mad enough to join the army, most of us never experience such an insular society as school again; although many will experience lighter versions in our jobs and social circles. Although I work at home alone, much of my free (!) time is willingly spent on activities either directly or indirectly related to the Players’ or people I’ve met through the society.

If I were to look at the Players from outside, I’d probably describe us as some weirdo, foreign-talking clique. It’s a natural aspect of human nature to start comparing yourself to your peers, and theatre in a small group is unfortunately the kind of hobby that brings this up more than is healthy. Most hobbies you can just do, no matter how much of a useless beginner you are. If you keep falling on your arse every time you step into your skis, hey, all you need to do is put in those hours on the slopes. But if you want the chance to improve in am dram – to work with experienced fellow actors and directors who can and want to help you do that – you need to pass a test first. And the cruel truth is, you probably aren’t going to pass that test. At least not in a group with a large active membership.

I’ve been to a lot of auditions in the past few years and have been consistently pulling a five of hearts off my forehead in the final line up. I’ve seen established members take large role after large role and be courted by the directors to audition, and thought ah, so you line up in order of who’s been here longest and who’s best friends. But then I’ve simultaneously seen numerous new members jump straight in with leads and thought, no, that was just the devil on my shoulder talking, it is about merit after all. Which leads on to the obvious conclusion.

I always made myself unpopular in my previous job by giving my bosses honest answers to their questions, e.g. my thoughts on the true definition of ‘intensive project’, as my colleagues squirmed in horror, even though they’d said as much themselves over coffee break. I didn’t care much for making a career for myself, so I had nothing to lose. I know I’m not alone in thinking the above, but it’s just not the done thing to say it aloud. Especially if you’re not a director’s darling and you want to get cast. I care more about theatre than my former non-career, but there aren’t enough parts on offer in the spring to reach far enough down the playing card line, so I’ve still got nothing to lose. Apologies for my big gob, but sometimes it just won’t stay shut when it ought.

People can have a go at me for being negative, but when you discover you’re the five of hearts, how exactly are you meant to feel? Is it against the law to feel temporarily down on hearing unfavourable news?

Don’t get me wrong, being part of a production has always been a great experience and I have played a number of roles I’ve enjoyed (both on and back stage) and once even got one I really wanted. But for once I would like to land a role, preferably a meatier one, that I feel I’ve earned through merit and not a bit part I’ve inherited because no-one else better was available or willing.

The more you put into any role the more you get out. In our Winter’s Tale trio of ‘lords and ladies who stand around the court and don’t say much except to occasionally snitch on everyone to the king’, I decided I was therefore head of the secret service and the other two my agents. Playing around with this amused us and gave us something to work with, seeing as we didn’t even have names.

There are some very memorable and fun small roles. One of the scenes I recall most vividly from a production of Anthony and Cleopatra this summer was the end of V:2 where the Clown brings Cleopatra the basket of snakes – and for the Clown’s performance. There are others too, but let’s face it, many small roles are simply humanity lightly sketched in for a practical plot purpose and are never really going to be that fulfilling, however much effort you put into them. At least not when compared to the challenges and rewards posed by a central, rounded character with numerous interactions. Come on, I dare you all to say it isn’t so!

We spend our whole lives looking for who we are in both an absolute and relative sense. My previous post was meant to be a record of an epiphany – when I finally got to look at my playing card – and maybe more importantly, a reaction to my disturbance on realising that a poem I’d written this summer may have unconsciously come too close to the truth. How did I create that particular character, one that different people have described in terms ranging from pathetic to malicious? Because she was a great character that popped into my head? Or because she is the old lady I unknowingly feared I was going to become?

Better start stocking up on scarlet lipstick

How close you can get to the truth without realising it?

In the space of a week, I will have two auditions for ‘real’ acting jobs. (‘Real’ as in there could be the chance of earning something out of them, however small, and not that they’re any better or more fun than my usual stuff with the Players. Probably less actually!) Although I really don’t know why I’m bothering. After coming out of the first casting yesterday, I heard that I’d just followed one of the Players’ most talented members, who had herself followed another member, and who knows how many more.

I have a habit of auditioning for parts I’m never going to get. If the audition form asks for my preferred role, I’ll always put an honest answer, even if directors end up trying to suppress laughter when they read it.

Looking back over my years with the Players, I realise that out of the active female members, I am only one of two who has never had a lead role in a major production, while most have notched up a couple - and I’ve auditioned for literally everything in recent years. The parts I have done are all minor ones, and ones it seems I’ve only landed because the first choices were either unavailable or not interested in anything other than a principal role.

I’ve enjoyed all the roles I’ve done, and will continue enjoying them and making a fool out of myself at auditions; but ultimately it is hard when you realise that you’re the crap one of any group.

Undone, undone, even here undone!

The production has been down for three weeks and many of the avid bloggers involved have since made entries about the show that were absent, or at least scarce, during our three plus months of rehearsals. And now it seems too late to start writing about it. Just as I didn’t write a word about the theatre festival in June that I produced and also wrote, directed and acted for!

Were we not blogging about The Winter’s Tale for deeper seated reasons, or simply due to lack of time? I posit time in my case, although more down to my sewing slavery than rehearsals. This pile of undone ironing is a perfect indicator of the disorder my flat descended into during October and which I’ve spent the last few weeks gradually tidying up. More I dared not record! I’ve found clothes in here I don’t remember owning.

As usual, there were the post production blues to contend with, although I tackled these before they began by jumping straight into another project – some Pinter sketches for the Finn-Brit Society’s 80th anniversary. And to be honest, I was rather relieved to be free of the dreaded Costumes, much as I loved doing them. Love, hate, love, hate, lote…

Lote – I hereby pull a Shakespeare and invent this adjective for something that one both loves and hates.

The Woman Who Buys Wedding Dresses

The staff - and no doubt also the customers - at UFF (Nordic second-hand clothes shop) probably think I’m a bit odd. Every time they’ve had a sale in the past few months, I’ve gone in and snapped up all their wedding dresses. They were, of course, for my Sicilian ladies in our Finn-Brit Players production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.

It was only after the show I realised that, because our set was minimal, the costumes defined the world of the play. And seeing as I both designed and made the costumes, it was my world. I wonder how much different the play would have felt if someone else had taken on this role?

I’m disappointed that I didn’t have time to take proper photos of all my forty-eight (!) costumes. Many were blurred through lack of time, and half were taken in the stairwell during the final performance, but at least I got some kind of record, even if I lack decent shots for a couple of the best costumes and practically all of ovine Bohemia :(

Cold turkey

I’ve just been without my broadband connection for forty-eight hours … and I’m freaked out by how much of a torture it was.

Granted, I need the net for work (without it I am unable to send, receive or research assignments), but the actual deadness of the connection itself seemed a far more disturbing experience. I’d keep trying to load my gmail in vain, even though I knew there was no connection; and then get dejected when my browser told me I wasn’t connected to the Internet.

Only two years ago, I had a modem and used to dial in once a day. Once a day! In the last two days, I’ve been needlessly stressing about not having twenty-four hour access to mail, blogs, Flickr…

I’m not too worried yet though. At least on holiday this summer I felt no such anxiety and, although I did check my mail in an Internet café a couple of times, I probably wouldn’t have done even that if m hadn’t wanted to.

My connection has been up for about fifteen minutes. Now I am plagued by the fear of ‘yes, but for how long’…

I've pulled my slouch muscle

I think I've pulled my slouch muscle.

Sitting on a straight-backed chair or standing (as long as I'm not carrying anything) are the only bearable postures. Sofas and beds are agony.

How is this possible? Someone who knows something about anatomy, please enlighten me....