Tues. Jan. 30, 2024: Under Pressure
image courtesy of Gerd Altmann via pixabay.comTuesday, January 30, 2024
Waning Moon
Uranus DIRECT as of Saturday
Cloudy, icy, raw
The earworm of the title is deliberate.
Imagine that. We have no retrogrades for a hot minute. They start up again on April Fool’s Day, when Mercury goes retrograde. Yes, I see the irony.
Although the end of January has been a challenge, to say the least. I do not want to live in “interesting times.” I do not want “major energy shifts.” I want a few weeks of peace and quiet.
Today’s serial episode is from LEGERDEMAIN.
Episode 159: Some of Brone’s Memories
Some of Brone’s memories have returned, with devastating consequences for Ninel.
On Friday, I finished writing Episode 8 of REP. It was slow going, because I had to design a restaurant, a building, and a penthouse. I may cut much of what I wrote this week; not sure. Not sure if it’s necessary for the piece. I need to write a little further into it. Some of these episodes were a bit off the course of the original outline and notes. We’ll see. Of course, as soon as I tucked it away until its week comes around again, I got ideas.
Our cohort for the BHPC residency in October seems to be set. Two of the artists from last year are not returning, but two new ones are coming in, and they sound wonderful. I’m excited to meet them and work with them in autumn.
I got the car inspection/repair stuff settled for today. Fingers crossed it all works out.
I felt unsettled and restless most of Friday. The weather didn’t help.
Did the episode graphics for this week’s episodes of LEGERDEMAIN, the episode videos for all the serials, and a catch-up episode video for LEGERDEMAIN. Got those uploaded and scheduled on TikTok.
Turned around four coverages.
Read some for pleasure, some for research.
The contest I agreed to judge (as a volunteer) – which is already six weeks late in starting – sent the login request/credentials after 5 PM on a Friday. And people were complaining, within a few minutes, that they weren’t working anyway. What a disaster this whole experience is. How much do you want to bet that it will require several times more the time commitment they told us? I’d already signed off for the weekend, planning to do the login/setup first thing Monday. By mid-day Sunday, I got a scolding email from the coordinator for not setting up the account yet. No. This is my weekend. You’re already six weeks late, and I’m supposed to drop everything and answer instantly? No. I logged in on Monday, and of course the system still didn’t work. I sent a polite email Monday morning, saying that the emails came in after I had logged off and I had other commitments this weekend, and that when I tried to follow the instructions on Monday morning, there were issues. Also, there was a big red flag in the original invite: “You have been chosen.” No, boo, I VOLUNTEERED time for work for which I usually am paid. And it was supposed to be done by now, and it hasn’t even started. We seem to have sorted everything out, so let’s hope it’s smoother going forward.
Hard getting going on Saturday morning. Puttered around the house a bit. Got ready to take my mom to the Clark to see the HD stream of CARMEN, which she’s been excited about since October.
And. . .the car had a flat tire. Fortunately, it was in its spot in the parking lot. But there wasn’t time to call AAA – they take about an hour and a half to show up, then it’s changing the tire, then driving over, etc.
So I called a cab. We took a cab to the next town over, and made it in plenty of time for curtain.
Did I want to spend the money right now, with the other car repairs looming? No.
Was I going to disappoint my mom, who’s been looking forward to this since October? Also no.
Taxi it was. And, even at the price, it was cheaper than most cab rides up and down Manhattan. And we would have lost the money spent on tickets if we hadn’t gone. But was most important was that it was so important to my mom.
It was a modern production of CARMEN, streamed from the MET. Instead of 19th century Seville, it was set in modern day US at the border crossing. Carmen was a factory worker/gun smuggler.
The voices were terrific: Aigul Akhmetshina as Carmen, Piotr Beczata as Don José. The production design was good. While I appreciated the vision of Carmen as a traumatized woman at the hands of an abusive man, it was unclear whether she led the smugglers (as she did in some scenes) or was just caught up in it. And if you’re going to set it as the US/Mexico border, then you have to deal with the actual issues there, not just set it there and shrug them off, which is what this production did. Escamillo was a bull rider instead of a toreador and pretty much ignored in the production. And rodeo clowns? Really? Don José was very much an abusive, incel mamma’s boy. While the choice of killing Carmen with a baseball bat instead of a knife is in line with gender abuse (the whole “If I can’t have you, no one can”), it turned the knife choreography between them in Act II away from being the MacGuffin it’s supposed to be. She has the knife in her boot; they dance with the knife in Act II. That sets up the stabbing in Act IV. It would be logical, in Act IV, in the logic of the established world, that either she would try to defend herself and he disarms her and kills her (which, since she waves around so many weapons during the production would make sense), or he’d remember the knife in her boot, grab it and stab her. Instead, she basically stands there and lets him whack her with a baseball bat, which doesn’t align with the character that was built over four acts. EVEN if she believed “fate” handed her the death card in the earlier divination scene (and the tarot reader in me screamed about promoting that ridiculous trope), the character that was established would go down fighting. And Don José gets away with it without consequence. It was an “oops, bitch died” moment instead of “I’ve destroyed everything moment.” The curtain dropped immediately and it was like, “that was it?” There was so much dramatic and choreographic potential in that scene that was blown that it was frustrating. And I absolutely hated the projections at the top of each act. Peeps, I’m not here to see shadow puppets, and lengthening the time that the oversized image of Carmen placing her hand up against the scrim in each act was so heavy-handed after that first time that it was an annoyance, not an underscore of her emotion.
Daniele Rustioni, the conductor, was a delight. The joy he took in the work was infectious. He gave a really interesting lesson on the music in the intermission between Acts II and III. They showed the set changes. It was fun to watch the massive set crew move everything around, like a busman’s holiday. I even recognized some of the stagehands from my own backstage days (though I never worked the Met).
It was sung in French, which I realized about halfway through the first act when I found I wasn’t reading subtitles because I understood what they were singing. Funnily enough, I had dreamed in French a few days before the performance. Practicing in my sleep?
Called the cab again; same guy took us home.
I was wrecked by then, from the stress of it all.
My mom is already looking forward to MADAME BUTTERFLY in May; we may go to LA RONDINE in April, if things work out. I’d like to see David Tennant in the National’s production of GOOD in February, and later in February, Ian McKellan’s LEAR, but it all depends on how much the car repair costs.
Originally, we were told that we’d have 1-3 inches of snow Sunday into Monday. By Sunday morning, they’d upped predictions to a foot. I couldn’t get anyone out on Sunday to change the tire, and the car was safe where it was.
I did, however, plod down to Cumberland farm to get bread, eggs, milk, and coffee. I’d planned to stop at the store on the way home from CARMEN the night before, but that didn’t happen.
Had a horrible headache on Sunday. I wasn’t sure if it was a stress-induced migraine or pre-storm headache.
A rush coverage came in, and I needed the money, so I turned it around on Sunday morning.
The webhost renewal is more than they quoted me, but less than I feared, but still a stretch to hit on the day it’s hitting (and no, it can’t be moved; I checked). I’m being forced off the hosting plan I’ve been on since I started with this host onto a more expensive one. If I read the specs correctly, the price will double when it’s time to renew next year. It’s highly likely I will move hosts in January of 2025, which will be a PITA. And if I start worrying about it now, I will have a nervous breakdown. So I’m going to worry about paying for this year, and then start listening/looking/researching to see what else is out there. I did some of that research about a year ago for an acquaintance, so I’ll check that information first and build out. I need some very specific things from my host, but I also need the tech support, because I’m not a web developer (although I sometimes have to act like one to get the website work done). And it has to fit my budget.
The electric bill came in and was more than double last month’s amount, which is not okay. We don’t use that much. I have my theories as to what’s going on, but I need to get in touch with them.
The storm was supposed to start around one. Although it rained in the morning, and sort of snowed on and off in the afternoon, it didn’t start seriously snowing until well into the evening. And we didn’t get as much as predicted, thank goodness.
Read a book for pleasure that was cute, but needed some editorial restructuring, especially as far as the character arcs went. It was the author’s first novel, and it was obvious she used a beat sheet for it, instead of understanding structure and letting the story develop organically through characters. It was okay, but didn’t really work for me. Started a different book and loathed it, so put it aside. Read another book where I hated the characters for the first 80 pages and almost put it down, but pushed through. It got sweeter, sometimes to an annoying level, but I got too far ahead of it.
I decided to read Peter Lovesey’s SHOWSTOPPER instead. I originally met Peter back in the 90s at crime writing conventions in the UK, back when I was starting out. He’s a lovely human, and an excellent writer. The book is dedicated to Thalia Proctor, a good, long-term friend from that same chapter of my life, who died in 2022. I just bawled when I saw the dedication.
Once I pulled myself together and started reading it, I really enjoyed it. No surprise there.
Slept reasonably well, in spite of the stress of the week pressing down on me. Waking up at 4:30 rather than 2:30 is an improvement, but I’d like to stretch it to 5:30, when the coffee starts.
This week is dedicated to LEGERDEMAIN. The plan is to draft 10 episodes over the course of the week, and possibly rewrite one from last week. With pressures looming this week that can’t be changed, it is unlikely I will meet that goal, so I may adjust down to 5 or 6 episodes. I seriously doubt I’ll get any LIGHTHOUSE LADY episodes done.
I decided to leave the last episode uploaded last week as is. If/when I adapt the serial to another format, I will look at it again. I made some notes in the margin. But the episode, as is, reveals necessary character information. Is it the best choice for the piece? Still not sure. But it’s not the worst, either. I wrote two new episodes, which was difficult, because the overall life stress made it hard to concentrate. But I pushed through.
Tried to “authenticate” my domain through MailerLite (it was already “verified” but these fake security measures that are only created to cost customers and not really protect anyone are annoying). I had to ask my webhost for help. The plug-in should handle it; we shouldn’t be told we have to “add code” to our sites. After going back and forth with my webhost’s tech support (they used to be great, but they are now less than great, as the prices go up), supposedly the code is added, and it will all be fine in 24 hours. I am skeptical, but the MailerLite site claims it’s all done, so we’ll see.
Dug the car out, and tried to get AAA in to switch out the flat tire for the spare. The regular guy showed up; he’s really nice. A neighbor stopped to chat during it all. Turns out, they’ve known each other since the 1970’s. What’s interesting about people who stay and/or come back is there’s a sense of “I’m here because I like this place” rather than a sense of being trapped, which is different from a lot of other places. People here go and do things, and travel (when they can afford it and it’s safe). They see other things and get other perspectives. It’s very different to the places where people feel trapped or where people choose to be isolationist and exclusive.
New PayPal debit card arrived and I had to go through the whole “activation” process. But it worked, so that’s all set. The surprise from Spill the Tea Sis Apothecary over in Northampton arrived, and it was really fun. A nice bit of cheer for a stressful day.
I’m trying to maintain a positive attitude while taking realistic actions, but it’s hard not to be thoroughly discouraged.
On today’s agenda: I have to get the car fixed (if I can afford it), and, hopefully, it passes inspection. If I can’t afford the repairs, I have to let it fail inspection, and get it repaired within the 60-day requirement. I’m also nervous about driving until Friday without a spare, until I can get a patch on the blown tire and switch them back out. I need to go to yoga tonight (and it’s too cold to walk). I’m so frustrated. I budgeted so carefully, took on extra work, and was so frugal this month, and I’m still punished for not being rich. Let’s hope a lot of paid work comes in for February!
