Thursday, February 24, 2011

And Hair We Are...

OK, that's the name of a salon across the street from my salon. For some reason, I find it endlessly funny. Partially because I imagine the day the person thought of it, and presenting the idea to someone. I imagine the presentation involved jazz hands, a sunny smile, and one of those loaded pauses that happen when you're waiting to be praised.

In any case, I got my hair cut a couple of weeks ago. Those of you who do not know me in person may not realize that I have twice the head hair of a normal person. I have a lot of hair, which is very thick, and vaguely wavy. I know, I shouldn't complain. Lots of thin-haired people (I thought about coming up with a clever name for them, but it's too cold to think)would love to have my hair.

Except thick uncooperative hair can get crazy looking, y'all. And my new haircut, which I loved loved loved styled curly (the ends are now thinned out enough to make this possible), has had some kind of mental event since it encountered the horrible, nogood, verybad cold and dry weather we've been having. It's kind of a disaster at the moment. I hesitate to flat iron it every day, but maybe that will solve the problem. I don't want to start fooling around with a curling iron on a day when I actually have to be somewhere, because we all know that makeup and hair experiments will invariably go awry when you have to be at work in 45 minutes. And my hair's too short to go with the ever-forgiving ponytail.

In other news, it's really fucking cold! I think it's been around -35 to -40C with the windchill the last couple of days, with no real end in sight. I always feel like bitterly cold weather is the most wearing on the soul. A lot of people will talk about the lack of daylight in winter, but for me, it's the cold.

I got another couple of requests for complete scripts based on submissions, which I consider to be a victory. One of them is a new play festival in the US. One is a theatre company. So fingers crossed, I guess.

Still working on the first draft. We've also been assigned to send in the title of our favourite play, the play we worship and never tire of getting excited about. I'm not sure about this one. I have to resist the urge to impress and make some kind of honest choice. I'm curious to see what everyone else will pick. I have an idea of what mine is, but it's completely different than anything I write, so I have a feeling everyone will be surprised.

Back to work. Happy Thursday, friends!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

When is a day off not a day off?

a) when you have to go in to work at 5pm
b) when you can't get your mind off of your real work passion
c) when you get excited about having "free time" because it means you can get all the stuff on your to-do list done.

Yes, I'm working a late shift today, which is kind of a treat. Normally I would go out and have a bit of a shopping adventure, but it's bitterly cold here (so, so sick of that), and I'm broke. So I got some groceries, and am currently making lunches for the rest of the week.

On the menu? Besides the regular fruit and veggies, I'm giving the famous Veganomicon chickpea cutlets another shot. I kind of overdid them the first Christmas I went home as a vegetarian-- my parents were less than accepting, and I didn't want to be a huge bother. Hence I packed a stack of these in a tupperware in my luggage, and ate 2 every day over the holidays. Needless to say, they needed a break from the menu rotation.

I've spent some time working on a couple of submissions-- currently my half-to-one page play summary is close to two pages long. Oops. I'll be spending some time trimming this down tonight. And my somewhat ambitious goal is to get the complete first act of the new play in draft form by the time March rolls around. Leaving March and part of April to write the second act and do some rewrites.

Sometimes, I wish I wrote more commercial stuff. I've been looking at all the audition notices for the summer rep companies, and reading the synopses of the plays they do... it makes me wonder if I'll ever get produced. Not that I'm writing out there, controversial pieces about poop and abortion and child literacy. And I think there's already plenty of easily digestible, tv-like plays out there already, that completely absolve the audience of any need to think.

But still.

Anyway, the oven just beeped. Chickpea cutlets are calling!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I've decided to do a bit of a blog makeover, so until I find the time and knowledge to design my own, I'm going to try a few free templates from the wide, wide world of web.

What do you think?

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Happy Valentime's!

Hello, friends. I know, it's been a while. My life has been both busy and insanely boring, at the same time. I've been working a lot, to try to come up with some cash to (1) pay off some debt, (2) go on a holiday at some point, (3)attend my brother's wedding, (4)get some new clothes, and (5)not to feel like I'm broke all the time.

It's been a coupon-clipping, grilled-cheese-and-soup-eating kind of month. And it looks like next month isn't any better.

However. I need to do something creative and cheap for Valentine's Day. It can be cheesy and lame, but I am having a hard time coming up with ideas. Apparently I blew my wad on the best Valentine's surprise *evarrr* the first year we were going out (it was cheap and cheesy, involving a scavenger hunt and drug store chocolates). But I've had a request from J to "do something cool again" for V-Day.

Hmmmm.

Now, you'd think that the perfect place to look for ideas of this nature would be the internet... the interwebs, with their vast selection of blogs, repository of women's magazine articles. You'd think that if there was an idea to be had, the inter-tubes would have it.

And I'm sure there are plenty of awesome ideas to be had, they just may not show up on the first page of Google. Because I have to say, hug coupons are not that great to give between adults, Canadian Living. And Martha Stewart Living,while your taste level is unassailable, I can pretty much guarantee that I'm not going to make my sweet baboo a floral arrangement made of painstakingly glued, hand-cut, crepe-paper flowers. Nor do I agree that decorating a heart-shaped box with antique lace and baking "precious jewel" candies to go inside is a "quick and easy gift". I'm sorry, but you just don't get that time back.

Do they write magazine articles for this predicament? Being normally a cool and clever person who is a little strapped for time and cash, and needing to come up with an awesome gift that can be assembled from things found (1) at the drug store or dollar store, and (2) during my extremely limited lunch breaks, and (3) is not a gift certificate for a foot rub, or an hour of watching sports without complaining, or some other bullshit like that.

What magazine would that be? Why am I not reading it? If it doesn't exist, why am I not publishing it?

Actually, I do have a few ideas. Some of them may or may not be ripped off from that great waiting room literature, Canadian Living. But I have to be careful to save up some DIY gift ideas for next December, because I've been informed that we may be experiencing Imagination Christmas.

Which at least saves me from trying to knit a pair of socks in the next three days.