6.18.02 – from the slithy tove inbox:

From: “ZenCom” studio@zencom.fsnet.co.uk

To: celia@slithy-tove.net

Subject:

Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 13:29:36 +0100

jesus what a bore you must be in real life. And the arrogance to put it up for others to read is astonishing. Helloooo – you are very dull.

boo hoo hoo. someone out there doesn’t think i’m very funny. i appreciate the anonymous comment, tho. maybe we should have a better forum for anonymous insults. anonymous tip: your blog is boring. anonymous tip: your feet smell. anonymous tip: you overused the word “anonymous” in today’s post. well, i suppose i shall pick up the pieces of my shattered ego and continue to use slithy tove for what it is: a creative work space for me to explore anything that might be on my mind at the given moment, with zero responsiblity for being exciting or funny. it’s terribly liberating. i can mispell things if i want to. i can use the wrong form of “it’s”. i can publish pictures of last week’s trip to bruneau sand dunes (below) or lists of what is in my fridge as the fancy strikes.

the 80-hour work weeks have been keeping me from posting, but i had two (count ’em!) whole days off in a row this weekend and then the above piece of fan mail inspired me to get off my butt and post some pictures before i go to bed tonight.

Bruneau Sand Dunes, 10 June 2002

6.1.02 – lists of three from 3300 lake harbor lane

this is my first experiment in living alone. not that i’ve been home much to try it out, but some of the advantages seem to be:

– spontaneous living-room-dancing whenever the fancy strikes

– i can drink o.j. straight from the carton without checking to see if anyone’s looking

– the freedom to wander around the house in various states of undressed-ness

given a choice i’d much rather have a roommate, particularly given that i’ve had pretty good roommate karma thus far, but i can’t complain about the fact that i’m living in a two bedroom apartment rent-free, courtesy of the theatre i work for. zeke even has his own bathroom. the lake is 20 feet from my back patio, and there’s a trio of ducks that visit the back porch to snack on stale sourdough bread every morning. i’ve named them Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Maria. it’s not a building with character – it’s a beige box in an anonymous apartment complex midway across town, but i love all of the greenery and the lake just outside my window, i love that i can move in with my box of japanese wall-hangings and my paper lanterns and tapestries from london and a box of thumb tacks and make this place feel like mine, even if it’s only for a few months.

the fridge contains:

– an empty brita pitcher (minus the filter)

– honey

– a bottle of thai cooking sauce (unopened)

rules for the new house:

– there will be music, quality lighting, and laughter here.

– the work stays in the office; my bedroom is for sleeping and chilling out and not for working.

– zeke shall not sharpen his claws in the brand-new carpet, as i have just put down a $400 pet deposit.

5.27.02

i logged 89 hours at work this week. that’s what i get for asking for this promotion, i guess. i’m exhausted, and this week have alternately been frustrated, confused, lost, excited, amused, proud, awkward, uncomfortable, and a whole array of other emotions that come along with a new job and a really steep learning curve. i have 27 actors i’m responsible for scheduling into costume fittings, rehearsals, dance rehearsals, vocal rehearsals, photo shoots. i know where all 27 of them are on stage at all moments of the play, which props they carry, and when the sound, light and sets change. i’m rehearsing two plays simultaneously (much ado and twelfth night), i have three assistants, an electronic leash (cell phone), my own office and finally a paycheck that actually pays the bills. not that i’ve had a lot of spare time to spend cash anyway. much ado opens in 12 days, after which my schedule ought to slow down considerably. still no internet access at my house, and i have to get out of this fluorescent box that is my office now.

tomorrow is my first day off in 15 days. no one had better call me before noon. i’m going to unpack my apartment and go see star wars and do NOTHING that is theatre-related at all.

5.22.02

i am stretched beyond the limits of creative endurance at work this week. and i don’t have a phone/internet access at my new apartment. more soon.

5.19.02 – plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery

er, yeah. i’ve been a busy girl this week. i have a new apartment, a new job, my own desk, and an assistant. been working lots, and spending my free time stressing out over things i can’t control. so, in lieu of my own interesting thoughts, i defer to some of my other favorite blogs:

paul paints!

lauren brings up the question of best beginnings/endings: my contribution is Tony Kushner’s Bright Room Called Day:

Now.

Before the sky and the ground slam shut.

The border is full of holes.

and enjelani once again says the things that i meant to say. (may 15).

as i was typing those lines from Bright Room Called Day, i suddenly smelled cinnamon. i sniffed the book: nope. how does a disembodied smell just suddenly drift by? perhaps i burned a cinnamon candle while reading Bright Room once? but no, i read it in the airport, in a patch of warm sunlight; i recall tears blurring my vision as i closed the book, not because it was so sad, but because it was so perfect.

5.15.02 – ahem

non-PC-IE-browsers seem determined to twist, stretch and yank slithy tove’s layout out of alignment, but time is short and supporting cross-platform browser compatibility issues is something that i left behind in my start-up days. that, and i have a job now, and this isn’t one where i can sit back and tweak my blog all day and make people think that the rattle of my keyboard is me writing code at 60 wpm. although that was a perk of the office jobs i’ve held in the past. hell, that’s why slithy tove came into existence at all – the start-up where i worked was tanking and i didn’t have much to do besides building and racing lego cars with the other engineers, and so boom! slithy tove was born.

5.14.02 – food envy

item! i can make crepes. i am a crepe-maker. i learned how to make sweet crepes (recipe courtesy of ti couz) this weekend. the first crepe was a disaster, the second a pleasant surprise, and by the time i’d finished cooking the batter, i could make them come out evenly browned and crisp on all sides. we stuffed them with fresh-sliced strawberries and whipped cream. yumm. sort makes that tuna salad i just packed for lunch tomorrow look kinda blah….

5.12.02 – sweet, idaho

a hypochondriac’s guide to ordering at a road-side cafe with questionable hygiene practices:

order freshly-deep-fat-fried everything; the temperature of the grease ought to kill most forms of bacteria. the grimy plastic table-side ketchup bottle is crawling with germs: either don’t use it at all, or, if you have to touch it, the rest of the meal must be eaten with a knife and fork. order soda; the water from the tap comes out the color of light draft beer. don’t think about where those ice cubes came from. never chew your fingernails.

5.11.02 – you can always be gone

the obsessive behavior paid off: after a month of compulsively checking my phone messages on a hourly basis, i’ve been hired by a educational theatre company for a national tour next fall/winter. *sigh of relief* unemployment staved off another four months. and, i get to travel the countryside in a de-lux 15-passenger van and 24-ft rental truck. better hope that the other nine actors/technicians are cool, cause we are stuck with each other for a while.

staying employed in this business can be a full-time hobby.

5.10.02 – lost at barnes and noble:

i’m not making this title up: An Idiot’s Guide to Near Death Experiences

do they actually sell many of those?