Oh blogging...

How quickly you fall by the wayside...

In which I admit I am the worst...

At blogging EVER.

I have a horrible attention span when it comes to well-intentioned projects.

What I really need are people who are willing to bug the hell out of me when I don't do the thing that I swore I would do religiously.

For example, now DH and I are no longer in Russia. We live in sunny Southern California now, and I'm weirded out by sunshine. It's my Northern upbringing, and my Scottish skin.

Looking for work, and makin' it through.

People, seriously. If there is anyone out there who reads my stuff, please bug me when I appear to be AWOL. Because that is EXACTLY what is happening.

Even better, tell me what works for you in keeping to a blogging schedule/goals.

A Bit of Embroidery from St. Pete!

Awesome design by Corvus!

I wear this sweatshirt every. Freakin'. Day.

From Russia with Love...

St Petersburg is kind of da bomb.

Boating along the Neva River with that boy I married.

And who goes boating without their knitting I ask you!?

We are in St. Pete because the lad is now a graduate student at a Southern California university for theatre set design (so super proud of him!) The professor who runs his program grew up in St Pete, defecting to the US in the 1980s. He still runs a theatre company in St. Pete that his father started, and a required study abroad course is having the students come to Russia and assist for a semester on whatever play they are working on at the moment. The company has been working on Maxim Gorki's play "Dachniki" (usually translated to "The Summer Folk" or "Cottagers") for four years, and we have been mounting the production, and now that the show is in production, we serve as technical staff.

Me chillin' with Maxim Gorki

Gorki is a bit of a controversial figure in modern Russian theatre. His writing is very clearly pro-communist at a time when people were still warming up to communism as a concept. He was touted as the theatrical voice of the Soviet Union by Stalin, and was a very popular playwright in the USSR. However, Stalin did that thing that he had a habit of doing when he claimed to think someone other than him was the best ever: he had Gorki assassinated. Yaaaayyyy.

As a result, a lot of post-USSR theaters have really shied away from performing his plays, given the strong Pro-Stalinist Bolshevik overtones and memories. This production has been really interesting to work on, and to see even how the company reacts to the material.

The company has been amazingly warm and welcoming, helping us navigate the city, Russian drinking, and how to use the metro. In spite of limited English (and less than limited Russian for the Americans), everyone is relatively understood, and everyone gets along.

Some of the amazing things we have gotten to explore: Mushroom picking in the woods around Pavlosk Palace, exploring Peterhof (the fabulous gilded palace of Peter the Great), going to the Hermitage in the Winter Palace (for free with student IDs!) every week (or even a few times a week), going to the Russian Museum (where amazing paintings by Russian artists that Americans have never heard of are stored by the score), and several shows at the Alexandrinsky Theatre with mindblowing sets and costumes. All funded by the Russian Government.

Nothing make me want to be an artist more than being in Russia. I hear that people also feel this way going to Paris, but it smacks you in the face here. Constantly. I have seen more people who actually make their living by painting and acting here than I ever did in New York. 

On Monday (after the husband's birthday), we will be heading to Moscow to visit for a few days. Can't wait!

That's it.

I suck at blogging. But to be frank, a lot has been going on.

May: Got married.

June: Designed lights for and helped mount an off-off Broadway show.

July: Turned a quarter of a century.

August: Packed up apartment, put everything in storage, and got on a plane to Berlin. Amazing, mindblowing theatre.

September: MOVED TO RUSSIA. (until December, but still!)

So. Starting this up again.

I am terrible at this.

But I am not terrible at this:

150 yds of silk thread and a few almost-blistered fingers later, I am ready to sleep.

Sometimes I break a chain...

But I can't take pictures of what I'm embroidering! It's a belated birthday present for my sister... So once it's in the mail, and she has it in her hands can I post it.

ONLY. THEN.

In other news, Amanda, writer of Proverbial Pen and Ink, is one of the best and most thoughtful people in my life, and I am glad every day to be associated with her.

More photos, and NERDS!

It seems that Sundays are just getting to be lazy slug days, so here are some photos. I was accomplishing things, I swear!:

Sashiko and Vlogbrothers

So much love.

 

 

 So for readers who don't know, The Vlogbrothers are vloggers... Who are brothers.
They are totally amazing and smart fellows (John, the elder brother, is an awesome New York Times bestselling young adult author, and his brother Hank is an environmentalist/head of a record company/creator of VidCon, a Youtube convention that I WANT TO GO TO), who encourage their viewers to make the world a better place and think about issues complexly.

They spearheaded a movement for their viewers and the world to embrace being enthused about things and people, specifically encouraging such obsessions that will make you a smarter, more thoughtful individual. Some call it nerdy. They call it NERDFIGHTERS. (Not like fighting the nerds, but like being a freedom fighter.)

To demonstrate my love for Nerdfighteria and all that it stands for, here's a quick example:
The rallying cry of a nerdfighter is the phrase, said in many a video, "Don't Forget to be Awesome."

This has also been shortened to an initialism, which has become the name of Hank's music company, and is a good reminder for life in general. That's maybe why...

It's tattooed on my inner arm.

 Along with this, which is not a nerdfighting quote, but which I'm pretty sure that any nerdfighter will agree with:

Other inner arm. It says "I am still learning" in Italian.

Now
1: You know the things that I need to remind myself of every day

And

2: You can identify my corpse, if need be.

Now

3: I am hungry and am going to eat dinner.

I need to go to bed,

So I'll just leave you with this bit of amazing.

Enjoy:

You're welcome.

Late with a post, but here it is!

Today was pretty terrible. I hate crying at work, and I really hate when people who have no idea how to do my job tell me how I am not doing it properly, when I have been doing everything in my power to make the business run as smoothly as possible.

But, I managed to make it through the day without taking any headache meds (trying to save my stomach lining) but it was mostly thanks to some surreptitious Sashiko that I smuggled into the office:

Because I busted out the macro lens for the Sashiko photo (y'all deserve better photos), I decided to take some detail photos of Joan!

Enjoy!

Those eyebrows and ears are microscopic...

Torso shot!

 Just need to finish Joan's books and Pen necklace, and then this girl is good to rule the office!

The evening got significantly better by meeting that boy I like for dinner and a movie; We went to the AMAZING Landmark Loews Jersey to see the original "The Producers," as part of their "Screwballs and Screwups" weekend. I love this theatre-- if my readers are ever in the Jersey City area, they must try to see something at this extraordinary 1920s movie palace.

I am tired.

I need to figure out a way to write during the day. These posts are getting sad.

Today was gross.

I felt icky and vomitocious all day, so I skipped going to get blood drawn this evening and just came home.

The only things that will make situations like today better are reading some Game of Thrones, cuddling up on the couch to watch Seinfeld with the boy, and

 

working more on Joan.

I need to take better pics of her... All of her skin is done in microscopic single-threaded backstitch and stem stitch. 

I really need to remind myself that these are towels, not museum pieces. Nobody cares if her ear stitching is the sort of thing that I really should be doing with a magnifying glass.

But it still makes me so proud.

The next project to tackle with some embroidery is a project that is much bigger. Roommate and best friend/best man Alex is a gifted cartoonist, who has developed a family of characters that (fictionally) reside in the crazy turreted house at the end of our street. They are rather Addams-like in tone, but much angrier and more neurotic. I have a series of embroideries planned, so that he can have someone do something with these characters. I don't think that I will be able to make all of the smaller, individual portraits before we move to foreign parts, but I want to see if I can get a group portrait done by his birthday. Blamsfords, here we come!!

Accomplishments of the Day:

1:Day from hell at work, where everything went wrong

BUT

Decided not to care too much.

And that made all the difference.

2: Went through 200+ applications for stockperson jobs (not technically my job, but something that we have figured out that I am quite good at doing) and narrowed down the search to nice people who know how to do the job for interviews over the next few days. It feels nice to potentially be able to offer a good person employment, and to have a supervisor that I am not overly fond of let me do something I am good at AS WELL AS admit that sometimes my judgement is better than hers.

and

3: Joanie got a face/Outfit:

 

Looking good, Joan. Looking good!

Lazy sluggy day, full of stitching!

In the best possible way.

I've been embroidering all day on my Joan Holloway/Harris towel:

Still working on Joanie...

but the typewriter is finished!

Embroidery is perfect for sluggy days.

I think that I am falling in love with stem stitch. It looks so ropey and pretty... It is funny that it took me YEARS to figure out how to do it. Now I can't stop!

The Book Thing.

So, I was talking with Ben about the papers I had written in college, specifically the papers that I wrote in my senior year. I wrote a paper about the nuclear bomb as portrayed in Cold War film and media which proved meandering but completely engrossing to write and research.

I was explaining to him that the film The Manchurian Candidate came out at the height of the Cuban Missile crisis, and than contrasted the media reaction to films with sensitive material coming out after the attacks of 9/11 (specifically the postponement of the release of the film Big Trouble, which featured a plane hijacking as a major plot point.)

After a lengthy discussion, we started compiling an outline for a book about the systemic shift among the American public and media in their reactions to film and television from the era of World War II to the post 9/11 era, specifically regarding violent conflicts and their portrayals.

The real reason I think that this book is worth pursuing is that my generation and I were the target audience for the films made after the post 9/11 period, both from an escapist, "comfort-food" angle, and in the films examining the whys and wherefores of the 9/11 tragedy and Iraq War.

Whaddia think, reading audience?

4 minutes to go.

I have four minutes to post.

Today was spent meeting about Box Colony Theatre, and trying to beat the heat.

Tomorrow I will think through book things and I ask that you question my book ideas as much as possible! I need critics to poke holes in my ideas!

OH!

So I had this idea, whilst talking to my husband, about media and movie stuff. The idea was too big for a paper.

It's gotta be a book.

So. That's happening. So so slowly.

Outlines and stuff.

Still tired.

tired. So tired.

I am so bad at the blogging thing.

In which I am a dirty rotten chain breaker.

So.

That happened.

BUT:

While I know I broke the chain, important things were happening.

Things like this:

I got married!!!!!!


It was pretty amazing, and I am thrilled to be married to my favorite human in the world.

The chain is back on!

I had a super busy day

And have no real time to write.

But DAMNIT, I WILL NOT BREAK THE CHAIN!