Hope Junkie in Flight

Congratulations Are In Order (crossposted from Audacity of Hop)

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:23:02 GMT

As some of you may remember, I spent a good portion of last summer on a walking truss at 37 Arts, running followspot for an up and coming Off-Broadway show. The patrons were always either amazed or terrified by our assent (in full fall arrest harness) to the truss on a "rope" ladder made of aircraft cable, but once we were up there, it was surprisingly comfortable to sit on the edge of the truss rail and lean against another pipe until the show started. It was a fun show to run, challenging

Full post and comments at The Audacity of Hop

A Bump in the Road to Bunny Bliss (crossposted from Audacity of Hop)

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:10:09 GMT

We made the mistake of letting the bunnies have too much space to play in for their last date, as they had been getting along reasonably well in the confines of the pen, and it ended in flying fur. Just a little, and no injuries, but it's back to the pen for our furry friends. Interestingly, the dynamic appears to have changed significantly when we let them have the whole room. Now instead of Juno trying to be the dominant rabbit, Jupiter is chasing her around the room! He tugged out a small hank of her fur, but since she's shedding quite a bit, he didn't actually do any...

Read the rest of this post at Audacity of Hop. Comments are there, and there's even a cute picture of a dog...

In which some introductions are in order (xposted from Audacity of Hop)

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:20:28 GMT

This latest development will amuse anyone who knew me as a bunny mad child - my best friend and I wrote a newspaper based on the exploits of our stuffed animals called "The Bunny Press", for crying out loud. (Yes, I was a nerd, thank you very much.)

Dave and I have adopted two bunnies from the Manhattan Shelter of NYC's Animal Care & Control. We went intending to adopt only one rabbit, if that, but we both fell in love with separate bunnies, so we decided to take both of them. On the left here is Jupiter, Dave's selection (and now my favorite, if I can be said to have a favorite - they're both pretty great) and below on the right is my selection, Juno. (The Roman goddess, not the movie, just so's you know.) Juno is now Dave's favorite, being the more mild mannered of the two. I was actually starting to worry that Juno was too forceful a name for such a sweet and friendly rabbit, until the two of them met on their first bunny "date". Turns out that our sweet girl is quite the dominatrix!

I say "date", but the process of bonding two rabbit strangers promises to be quite the challenge. You can read more about bonding rabbits, or house rabbits in general, at the House Rabbit Society. The first time they met, Juno tried to exert her dominance, which, despite her size advantage, I didn't expect, and Jupiter resented it. Yesterday was their second date and they seemed to get along better, he mostly ignoring her and her attempting occasionally to groom him. Tonight we decided to skip the date, as there was a storm and both bunnies were a bit edgy.

So there they are, our new rabbit friends, Juno & Jupiter. Expect to see a good deal more of them as they learn to be friends with each other as well as with us.

I've moved my diarist tendencies

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:16:37 GMT

I'm hanging out at blogger now, for no really good reason. Come see me there. Or one of you guys with a paid or permanent membership could create a syndication feed for lj, and then friend that. (If you don't know how, ask me.)

The new url is http://audacityofhop.blogspot.com. I'll try to cross post for a while, but let's be honest, we all know I'll get lazy on that one...

OLPC, pretty nifty

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:35:47 GMT

Though I'm not going to lie, the little green keyboard is really little...

I'm visiting Alan and Beth on Dave's Easter vacation and while Alan was wrapping up some work I decided that I wanted to play with the child-like computer.

It's been really nice having Dave with me, visiting my family the past few days. I wish I didn't have to take him back to his tour tomorrow. Boo. I'm also not terribly keen on the return drive to New York, but I'm hoping to see txtarheel on my way out of the triangle area in the morning. I don't seem to have her phone number, so that may be a problem...

Ok, no more tiny green keyboards for me.

Boy am I stupid...

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:41:55 GMT

I can't seem to keep track of my phone today. I left it at home this morning when I left, but both our shows were out on Long Island today, so I swung by the house on the way to the first school to retrieve it. I was even smart enough to bring the charger.

Then I left the damn thing in the van when I parked it in the garage. I realized this only AFTER fighting my way to the 59th Street Bridge, so it's going to spend the night there.

When are we getting those phone implants?

edit: crap. Just realized that my phone IS my alarm clock.

Is this thing on?

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:34:32 GMT

Check, one, two, check...

Hey! I should be able to steal from my brother if I darn well want to!

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 04:04:03 GMT

I got home slightly too late to listen to the ballgame I was particularly interested in, though I did listen to the last two outs on the way home from the train. I haven't broken down and subscribed to either the cable Extra Innings package ($$$ but high quality) or either of the mlb.tv packages ($$ but medium to low quality with crappy support) but my brother got tagged by mlb's auto-renew on his subscription to mlb.tv from last year. (I avoided this fate only through the cunning loss of my debit card and subsequent replacement last fall. Clever of me, no? And quite foresighted as well. How did I know in October? Must be psychic!) Sadly for Thomas, he has the World's Worse Web in his apartment (or possibly a faulty network card) and isn't capable of utilizing said subscription. Besides which, with tonight's Sox game in the books, he probably wasn't watching anyhow, so I decided I was intrigued by the 13th inning Nationals/Phillies game and tried to use his log in.

There are two different levels of mlb.tv this year. The basic 400K version and a theoretically much better 700K. Thomas has the 400. So I click on the 400K link and am redirected to a page telling me that "You have reached this page because your current subscription does not authorize viewing 700K streams" and giving me only one option - pay them $30 more (presumably of my brother's money) to get the 700K. I tried it again. Logged out, tried again. Asked for a different 400K game (MIN/SEA - I really didn't care.) Same thing.

Apparently there were no 400K webstreams tonight. Screw you guys who didn't want to give big greedy MLB more money. MLB.tv is run extremely poorly, so I can't say that I'm surprised, but it sure doesn't make me want to subscribe. I think I'll be listening to my Sox play on XM, or I'll pony up the cash for cable.

And now, on with the countdown...

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:16:09 GMT

I'm listening to the Sox game on XM, like you do when you don't have Extra Innings. (I'm still seriously tempted by it - cable had a free preview on all last week and I loved getting to turn the game on and watch in on TV. (Wow. I feel like some sort of freakish throwback to maybe the 50's... "Holy Toledo, Mabel - we can watch the game on that thar television.")

Sometimes, during the commercial breaks, they play ads for other XM stations, and I swear I just heard one for Casey Kasem's American Top 40. "Do you remember waking up and knowing it was Sunday morning because you would roll over, turn on the radio, and hear Casey Kasem say, 'Now, on with the countdown.'" Why yes. Yes I do. I remember the little red radio I had too. It was rectangular, about 8 inches wide by maybe 6 high and few inches deep, rounded on the sides, and bright cherry red. With a handle on top. I remember going outside at the old house, setting the radio at the base of the big tree, and swinging on the rope swing for hours.

It's funny, because I was never actually that huge a fan of the countdown. I didn't care especially where Madonna hit, or anyone else for that matter. Sometimes I would tape the countdown because I knew that a song I particularly wanted a copy of would be in the top ten or so, but generally it wasn't a big deal to me. But it is evocative of the 80s for me, the way I imagine VH1 would like "I love the 80s" to be. Just hearing that quote made me virtually able to smell the spring grass in the front yard, and feel the thump of the hard packed earth under the swing where my siblings and I had worn away the grass with our feet on the swing.

It feels like a long time ago.

I just want to DO something with my life

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:52:23 GMT

I need to change.

I like what I do for a living. It's fun. It (mostly) pays the bills. The people are pretty great.

I don't feel fullfilled anymore though. I feel like I'm just muddling through, doing the work. I'm not accomplishing anything. Increasingly, I feel as though I should be doing something that has impact. I should be living a useful life. I should be helping people, or changing things. Perhaps I should just sell everything I own and join the Peace Corps.

Except that the Peace Corps doesn't want me. Remeber that college degree I set out for? I got distracted by the lure of work in my field and I have't much regretted that. I finished three years of college, and I got out of it what I wanted - good training and experience that helped me get an apprenticeship in technical theatre. Since then, I've been working continuously in a field where it seems like all jobs are transient. I can't complain. But it's hard to switch careers (assuming I can think of something I want to do) without a degree.

I thought about going back to school in VA, get a job at the nifty performing arts center there at CNU, spend a few years there doing the part time student thing. I just don't really want to move back to VA. There were, I thought, two good reasons to return there to finish. One, the director of the theatre department would be very helpful in getting me credit for lessons learned elsewhere (for example, he doesn't think that I really need to sit Lighting Design II since I've designed professionally) and two, going to school in VA seemed like it would be a cheaper prospect than going to school in NY.

Those advantages aren't what they used to be. I don't really want the theatre degree, unless perhaps it becomes an arts administration degree - for the technical applications, my work experience is far more importaint. So the additional credits for life experience at CNU are only useful insofar as they get me closer to graduation, with a degree I don't really want anymore. (Dave points out, accurately enough, that if I finished that, I could go to grad school in something totally different.) It turns out also that in-state tuition at CNU (I've been faithfully paying income taxes to VA while on tour and in random other places for that status) is almost twice as expensive as in-state tuition at CUNY. I should apply to City College and see what transfers. Especially if we're going to move to upstate Manhattan next year!

Problem is, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I always thought I would have that sorted by now!

"Restore from saved text?" Why not... Hey look - it's my comments from Oscar night.

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 04:46:53 GMT

Dear Al Gore,
You are a dirty dirty tease. That was hysterical. Thanks.
Love,
Yet another dissatisfied voter.

Dear Apple,
Stop advertizing that damn iPhone. Yes I want one. No I'm not willing to go to Cingular to get it. Alright already, it's cool. We know.
Irritatedly,
SprintUser

Dear AmEx,
Damn that commercial was long! My life is not that tedious, my card is not american express.
Snooze...

Dear Academy,
Why are you letting freakshow Cruise give humanitarian awards? He's a weirdo. Seriously.
Thanks,
Sarah

Dear Gwyneth,
Sorry I'm so late in picking this up, but you know I don't follow the celebrity stuff. You really named your baby after FRUIT? Are you planning a second chiled named Pear? Or maybe Plum?
Just wondering,
Me

An Unexpected Donation

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 18:57:27 GMT

I just got the sweetest note and a completely unexpected AIDS Walk donation from Dave's Grandmother. She really is the nicest person, but she was also one of the last people I expected a donation from - she's on a fixed income, and not even MY grandmother, so I would never have asked - but it turns out that Dave's mom told her about it, so she sent me a check. So very kind. Wow. I got a little misty-eyed, I'll admit.

On that note, the current list of my favorite people is:

Joshua Fowler
Ernie & Betsy Gates
Brina Guild
Alan Hoyle
Sue & Craig Phyfe
Yvonne Sternberg

There's plenty of time for you to be one of them too!

TV I like

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:38:57 GMT

I asked the passing question about a week ago "what cartoon is on at 11 pm?" I'd been wondering why I never see Good Eats, as Dave does a lot of flipping around and the Food Network is a regular stop on the dial, so I looked up the FN schedule on their website. 7 and 11. I know I would never see it at 7, since the Simpsons are on then, but I couldn't think what it was at 11. So I asked.

Since then Dave has been turning to the food network at 11 so I can watch Good Eats, which is awesome. It's a little thing, but thoughtful and it makes me happy.

Sweet! I influenced someone else!

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 02:31:36 GMT

One of the people I talk to on my diet website (yes, I have a diet website, shut up) just signed up for AIDS Walk in Florida (Ft. Lauderdale, I think) because of me. YAY!

My Current Favorite People In The World

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:14:29 GMT

My favorite people in the whole world are:

Josh Fowler
Ernie & Betsy Gates
Brina Guild
Alan Hoyle
Sue & Craig Phyfe

Want to know WHY they are my favorite people ever? Because they donated to AIDS Walk for me! And you can too...

Get a Thank You Card from Sarah!

Dear Google - you really are the best, love Sarah

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 01:40:05 GMT

So, while I am annoyed that Opera doesn't seem to support Google documents, I am super amused by this...

"If you are working to fix problems with a specific browser and would like to bypass this check, just add &browserok=true to the end of the Google Docs & Spreadsheets url.

Please note that it is a violation of intergalactic law to use this parameter under false pretenses, so don't let us catch you at it.

And, it won't work very well -- really."

I WANT!!!

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:45:15 GMT

Dude, check this shit out - Juice Bags. Seriously! My own little solar panel to carry around with me. Love it!

I just realized that my paid status expired. It made me sad. But then it's not like I've exactly been USING lj lately! What do you think?

Scratch n' Sniff Safety

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:47:57 GMT

Brilliant! I was waiting around the house today for the Keyspan guy to come and install a remote reader for the gas, and when he he was done he left us with a gas safety pamphelet. Perfectly reasonable thing to do. In it is a description of the added fragrance of their natural gas, so that people know what to sniff for in the event of a leak.

With a scratch n'sniff of the very thing. I couldn't resist, I admit, I scratched. Sure enough, absolutely wretched smelling, just like gas. (Yes, I know natural gas is odorless, I'm just talking about the added safety stench.)

I found this hysterically funny, though ultimately pretty clever.

Friends, foibles and flaws

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 02:27:42 GMT

I just realized something about friendships. When you admit something you are ashamed of to a true friend, instead of judging you, they love you more for the admission, for the trust.

Maybe I should just use FedEx...

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 04:16:15 GMT

Anyone else find it funny that UPS is using a song by, er, The Postal Service for their current ad campaign?

It annoys me a little bit, I guess, because I was listening to that album on the train this morning and found myself thinking about shipping. What can Brown do for me? Not use songs I like in commercials. That's what.

Dear God, please tell Gran-Gran that I said Happy Birthday...

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 05:33:47 GMT

I just logged on to Sparkpeople to log some late-night strawberries, and the tracker had already switched to Saturday, even though I'm still counting it as Friday because I haven't gone to bed yet. The date hit me like a truck. It's January 20th. It would be Gran-Gran's birthday today. And this year I can't call him later today and wish him a happy birthday. I won't get to hear him call me Sarah-beara and ask what I'm doing for my own birthday in four days. I always felt like my birthday was more special in some undefinable way because I shared the week with him, and I loved him so much.

I'm weeping just as hard right now as I did when mom called to tell me that we'd lost him, and that was at the end of last May.

Yikes.

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 07:35:42 GMT

Wow - I haven't posted since Dec 2. Boy do I suck!

If you're thinking this is the same exact poll from last year, YOU'RE RIGHT!

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 03:13:33 GMT

So, yeah. Not at all creative. Even if you think I should have your address, please fill out this poll, because I am a dope and did not back up outlook when I reformatted this summer, and there are only like three addresses I know off the top of my head. Two of them are my parents and grandmother, so your odds aren't very good on that third one!

View Poll: Christmas correspondence 2.0

Date Blue?

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 01:11:13 GMT

I am seriously amused by this.

Especially the statement that, "For the price of one month on Republican-owned Eharmony, you get a full year of liberal dating choices on Democratic Match!"

In case you were wondering, that showed up as a gmail ad link with my Weekly Grist email.

Macaca!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:10:17 GMT

Have you voted yet today? Go! Go now!

And if you are in Virginia, please, for the love of all that is holy, don't vote for George "Macaca" Allen. Webb's our boy...