Maria revived

Even by my standards, it's been a busy few weeks.  Something was bound to slip through the net.  Turns out it was Maria.

This is a tad embarrassing.

We are doing a reprise of Act 2 Scene 5 at Gateshead tomorrow as part of the RSC's Open Stages programme.  That's the scene when Malvolio gets the duplicitous letter from Maria and steadily convinces himself the Olivia is in love with him.  It will, admittedly, be fun to get back into Maria's go-for-it head again.  Wish I'd remembered sooner.  Even more more importantly, wish I'd read the relevant email properly.  There is another stage to this Open Stages malarky.  One of the four groups performing tomorrow will head onwards to another performance in Stratford no less.

We've just done a rough refresher rehearsal but will finalise tomorrow as it is a very different stage.  Will be fun.  I think.  45 minutes rehearsal in the space will be fine.  Tomorrow I need to load up the car with garden furniture and my costume and try to find Gateshead.

Urk.

P is for Phones and Predictive Text

P

Grrr...

My mobile and I have a vexed relationship.  It's right on the edge of irreconcilable differences and divorce.  Our needs are so different. 

I want something to make phone calls and send the occasional text for me.  It has much grander plans.  It nags me constantly about updated accounts, fresh ways to link to my friends, demands that I use all its gadgets.  Frankly, it's a bit needy. 

All of that is bearable.  Where our relationship really breaks down is over sending texts.  It thinks it knows me better than I know myself.  I have news for my phone.  It does not.

Take, for example, the little matter of Northallerton.  This charming market town emerges from my phone's predictive text mechanism as Mortgakleston.  Sondheim appears as Some hens.  School becomes scowl.  Winter turns to water.  Partridge in a pear tree became partridge in a rear tripe.  Grudging props for getting partridge right I suppose. 

I'm aware that I need to spell out the words for the phone.  It can't be expected to know these things without some input from me.  However, even after the relevant words have been carefully given to the beast it remains smugly convinced that it knows better. 

Carrier pigeons anyone?

Pain

Hit a block.

All the outline is in place for Odysseus.

Dialogue not coming.  Normally my strong point, but it's just not working this morning.

One phrase would get me started and I just don't have one.

Ideas please?

For goodness sake, give me a blasted break technology ...

Rant warning ahead.

I've got on fairly good terms with the borrowed sewing machine lately - to the extent that of the 32 clothing items I need to finish by Wednesday I've done all but the last eight and half.

The motor is giving up.

I am giving up.

I cannot find an easy way to replace the motor.

Have to admit, right now I want to do nothing more than throw jam jars at the nearest wall and scream a lot.  This was my mum's solution to the insoluble and it sounds incredibly tempting.

Rant over.  Blood pressure still up, but rant over.

Tax return

Done.

In my case, a ridiculously simple process which takes, at most about 15 concentrated minutes.

Why has it taken me a month?

Apart from basic procrastination issues, there's the whole "Urk, I can't remember my login number or my password" thing.  This involves deciding within about 30 seconds that I'm never going to.  The website is packed with helpful stuff, among which is the information that if you make three errors attempting to get into it, your account will shut down for two hours. 

Decided not to risk that.  Rang the tax office.  As they invariably are, they were sweet, helpful and soothing.  They agreed without fuss or bother, to send me a new login via snail mail. 

That accounts for 6 days.

Spent a day yesterday wondering if I could claim petrol money and deciding I couldn't as ironically, I don't earn enough to offset it against any tax.  Saddened by this thought, I stopped filling in the form.

Accounts for another day.  7 days.

Finished it today in a flurry of energy which took a whole five minutes - including the various "Error on this page" messages.

This means I spent at least 21 days procrastinating. 

I really need to take myself in hand.

Sewing machine ... how do I hate thee?

Let me count the ways.

• You will not let me thread you.
• If you do let me thread you, you will break said thread as I push up the needle.
• If the thread does not break, you will disgorge your bobbin.
• Should I be so fortunate as to get a piece of cloth into you, you will blow a fuse.
• Having replaced the fuse, you will stitch beautifully for one half of a garment and then your thread will run out.
• You will sulk ferociously while I rewind thread onto your no-longer extractable bobbin.
• You will make me go through this whole process again.
• And again.
• You are not my sewing machine.  I cannot, therefore, take a hammer to you.

Dear sewing machine, you are making my life utterly miserable.

Well . . . bum

Late night discoveries are not usually good and ours was no exception.

A wash was put on sometime on Christmas Eve - and typically for us was then forgotten about.  Nothing wrong with that.  Except for two things.

One, the wash in question contains most of my husband's wearable clothing.

Two, the machine has dropped dead and won't open its door.

Is it wrong that while this is plainly irritating and likely to be expensive, I also find it funny?

Words of doom

I'm a shocker at finding plots.  Dialogue I can do.  Plots, not so much.

In the spirit of "what the hell" that overcame me when I signed up for NaNoWriMo, and in the absence of any better ideas, I've gone with an old staple to give myself a plot.  And a genre.  And characters.  Dice.  What else?

Most helpfully, ckutalik over at Hill Cantons has a lovely set of random adventure title generating charts.  I used them once before to create the epic adventurette, Against the Hawk Giant so I've got a certain faith in them. 

Here are the rolls:

1d10=1.

Promising so far.  "Search for the [place chart] of [adjective chart] [being chart]

1d12=8

"Search for the Undercity of the [adjective] [being]"

1d12=5
"Search for the Undercity of the Forgotten [being]"


1d12=8 (again)

"Search for the Undercity of the Forgotten Demon"

Hmmm.  So, by my own rules, I now need to incorporate this into my story.  Sometimes I do very dumb things in an effort to make my own life easier.

Stamping my tiny feet here

Dear Blogger,

Ours is a new relationship and I expect there to be some ups and downs.  It's all give and take, I see this.  I give you my bits of blog to publish and you TAKE AWAY MY LIST OF FOLLOWED BLOGS without asking me.  Forgive me shouting.  I'll be calm now.

Sore eyes

In addition to my computer woes - Skype is still playing hard to get - I've also got some sort of feverish bug.  Apart from the random temperature, this particular infection has gone for the eyes and both are very swollen and watery.  I look like a soft boiled egg with yak hair.

The phramacist helpfully labelled up two batches of eye stuff for me ("Left eye", "Right eye") and I've spent most of the day gazing blearily through a film of ointment.  Boring and painful.  Not a great combination.

Technology and why it is both awesome and vile

It's a drug, this technology.  Since acquiring a taste for it, I can't readily remember how I did things before it was there.   In this instance, the culprit is Skype.

I love Skype and use it a lot - mainly because it's stable and reliable.  Was stable and reliable.  It has failed me.

Two days ago, Skype got fancy and decided to reinstall itself.  Don't ask me why.  Maybe it got bored with my refusal to use the webcam or something and wanted to teach me a lesson.  Anyway, since the self-imposed reinstallation it has not been working.  I've done all the things I normally do.  I've turned it on and off.  I've reinstalled it beause I chose to.  I've deleted myself and given myself a new identity and password.

I've also done several less technical things like jumping up and down and yelling at the computer, growling, hoovering the keyboard in case it's a hidden cat hair problem and threatening to throw the whole thing out the window.

I want Skype back.  I know, I know, there are other message systems, and G+'s talk feature is very good, but I like Skype.  Whinge.

Floors - and why I hate buying stuff.

Following the hideous discovery of chipboard under the leaking loo last week - which is both too much information and too much alliteration - we now have a floor in the upstairs bathroom.

Said floor is flat and firm and will support the weight of a bath.  It is also naked.  I therefore need to find a tape measure, get some figures and head down to the local carpet and lino shop to buy something for it to wear.

Inevitably, this will be accompanied by a lot of technical questions which I won't understand as enormous patronising men in overalls try to explain why I want something I never knew I needed.  This will leave me feeling insecure and grumpy.  Shopping often has this effect on me, which is why I do as much as possible online.

Plays for kids - where the hell are they all?

I've spent a large amount of time lately trying to hunt down a suitable play for a summer school next year.  This is pre-emptive.  A friend and I have started up an embryonic thing (so technical) intended to bring drama to people - and the summer school we just ran was our first venture.  It was a howling success by any standards, which is great as we've been asked to do the same thing next year.  Except that we cannot do the same thing next year.  We have to find a different play.  Something that isn't Ernie's Incredible Illucinations.  Ernie was tailor made for the job.  Funny, short, loads of parts, nothing that demanded too much in terms of lines.  Ideal.  Can't use it again.

At no point did this look like being an easy task.  Finding a one act play suitable for children aged between 9-14 is tricky anyway.  When you're looking for a cast of at least 25 it all gets a lot more problematic.  Then add in the fact that this play must be cast, rehearsed, costumed, lit and staged in four and a half days and the problem only gets bigger.  You know what, it's just as difficult as we thought it was going to be.  Agggh.