Weekend done

[bethlakshmi]

... it's time to go back to work to rest up.

All in all a frantic weekend. It is time to realize that I can't do everything, and I must cut back, or risk loosing my mind and doing serious damage to myself or those I love. I knew the point would come - it aways does. I'm an over-commitment addict and the only way to stay sane is to suck it up and cut back. There's a good chance that the dancing ladies won't see me this month, and that I won't be out and about doing randomly fun things with anyone. Instead I'll be sleeping, coding, dancing, sewing, and saving the remaining spare ergs of energy for family and for people who desperately need my help.


Friday

A mix of fun and work. Met mermaidlady and new_man for delicious BBQ at RedBones (didn't hose the diet too bad, but was not what one could call 'good', no points for today), and got to meet their lovely guest merchimerch, who happens to be into Uzbeck music. Not just into, but studying-it-for-PhD into. Wow. Neat. We managed to keep our geekery down, for fear of lulling the others into a bored and confounded coma, but it was very neat to meet another world music geek. We know so little about each other's area of concentration, that we could readily have geeked for days, I think.

Packed ourselves into the car and went to a swing dance on the Cambridge/Watertown line. It was good music, OK dancing, and generally work-oriented, for me. As a dancer, I remember why I never went to these - not knowing people when the dance form is for couples is very lonely. Luckily, we had a mission - our goal - hand out fliers and hype the Baby Dolls at Axis to people who like this type of music and may wish to come out. Flier handing out is not my favorite thing. I'm outgoing, but I'm not a marketing/sales sort of person - I'm a geek. I am outgoing in the sense that I like meeting people, learning about them and sharing cool stuff that they would be interested in. I am not so good at running up to strangers with a random peice of information, and trying to figure out how to become well-recieved. But I did it. I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I was really, really scared when we entered, but I faced it down, and felt good about both the quantity and gusto of my flier distribution. Unfortunately, someone told us we couldn't hand out more fliers, so we left more by the door and exited.

Finished off with a late-night run to Serenity - I had skipped out on another trip to see Serenity, and the others also wished to see it.

SPOILERS

I hadn't seen the shows, I had merely heard my friends raving about them. So... I was that unbiased viewer who may or may not get hooked having seen the movie. I'll probably watch the shows at some point, since new_man and mermaidlady assure me they are better than the movie. But ... all in all... it was O.K. I don't feel I wasted 2 hours of my life, but I also feel no need to jump up and down and clap my hands in delighted glee.

General impressions:
- I felt like I was walking in on a conversation between friends. I was welcome to catch up, but we were clearly midway through a story here. I wasn't lost, it got me up to speed, but I had less invested than people who sat through the whole thing.
- The quips are certainly funny. The costuming is pretty. And, oddly, the Chinese + Western was pretty neat - and I thought it might be not-so-great.
- Everyone's been raving about the characters - without a back story, they are pretty flat and archetypical - rough n tough captain, brainy, ornery doctor, wierd chic, sexy chic, smart chic, couple in love.
- As has been said - the Courtesan was pointless in this movie. Just an excuse for really pretty sets. To bad. I'm a sucker for Courtesan characters...
- In my mind, the Shepard was a Yoda-like red shirt. We meet him once, he's a cool guy, now he's dead. Sucky, but whatever.
- I did get how much the lovers love each other, and understood the suicidal desperation at the end.

It did manage to snag me, though. I cared, by the end, what happened and was rooting for the good guys. I laughed at the funny, and got sad at the sad parts.

END SPOILERS

Saturday

Nothing went quite as planned.
- woke up late
- worked out anyway
- original brunch destination was closed for renovations
- got lost getting to alternate destination
- forgot wallet, had to drive home and back to pay for brunch
- helped pax industria

All adds up to starting homework at 6:00, not 10:00 or even 2:00. Broke for dinner with mermaidlady and then nose to grindstone until 4:00 AM. Collapsed into bed, and woke up at 9:30, still coding in my sleep.

Sunday
More coding. Break for brunch with new_man and mermaidlady -- a pleasant surprise. Go up to Garment District for shopping with lady_sprite. Score! We each leave with bags, including a divine purple velvet number for her, and a vintage drop-waist dress for me. No sewing a new dress! YAY!!!

Grabbed a snack the two of us, and then dinner, as there was no time to drive back before rehearsal.

Baby Doll Rehearsal went pretty well. 30 minutes of Burlesque intro by Mina, worked full cast finale with Haley Jane, split into two groups for the smaller choreographies and were able to work them in two different rooms, multitasking. It's interesting to see the differences in directoral style. Haley Jane came with a small part of her choreography, fully baked, and went through move by move. I came with an outline and copious notes. Not sure what Jezebel did - as we were multitasking. This should be a fun way to get exposure to different directoral styles.

Headed back, more coding. Got my homework done to the point of having some questions that are best asked in person to prof - so a perfect stopping point.

Class tonight.

Blech. I did have fun on the weekend, but boy was it busy.

Comments

[mermaidlady]

It's interesting to see the differences in directoral style.

Yes, it was. I was sorry not to be able to watch Jezabel's rehearsal to see how she did it.