tales from the closet

These days, it seems like almost all of my best/favorite clothes are ones only appropriate to wear in the winter.

I suspect that this is partly due to a longstanding body image problem that has always flared up particularly badly in the summertime (like Regina Spektor says – summer in the city, it's “cleavage, cleavage, cleavage,” and heaven help you if you don't want strangers on the bus staring down/rating yours), and partly due to my love of wearing tights instead of pants, which I can generally only justify under sweater dresses.

...Well, I say generally. I am becoming steadily more shameless as I get older. At this point in time, for example, I have been seen publicly in sweatpants at least once. I like to think of it as half of the special secret shame shared between myself and the guy working the late shift at the 24-hour pharmacy. (The other half, of course, was the quart of Ben & Jerry's that I purchased and took home to consume by myself. You're welcome.)

Showtime! (Part 1)

In case any of you haven’t picked it up yet, I’m kind of into theatre.

While I’ve been in London, I’ve (half-accidentally) fallen into the habit of going to see at least one play a week – usually on Thursday nights. Some of them haven’t been very good plays, but the practice has done a lot to help re-ignite my interest in the technique of theatre, expand my understanding of what’s going on in the field right now and, not least, remind me why I’m trying to get into this business at all.

If you’re interested, what follows is a list, with brief reviews, of what I’ve been seeing. Enjoy. I have.

the state of my brain this evening

I have been doing a lot - and I really do mean a lot - of reading about theatre, much of it by "men called Peter."
I'm referring to Peter Hall and Peter Brook, authors of The Necessary Theatre and The Empty Space respectively. Both these men are living legends in modern theatre history...and they both work with/around the university I'm currently attending. I'm not sure whether fangirl squealing or terrified paralysis is in order...?

Let's get down to business...to defeat the HUNS!

...Okay, not really. Sorry.

But it is the first day of school tomorrow!

I can’t believe I’ve already been here for over a week. But here it is, Sunday night, and I have class in the morning. (Well. Not exactly the morning.) The new schedule will be going thusly:

and the beat goes on...

I'd say it's time for an update, wouldn't you?

This week has been/is going to be a busy one; I'm not sure how often I'll get around to blogging about it, to be honest, so let me just give you the important bits now:

Trains, Planes and Taxis. Also 34 hours of travel.

I’m writing this from my home-for-five-months in England, so that all of you know that I a) am not dead or kidnapped by pirates, and b) haven’t forgotten about my blog. Again.

Anyway, to begin at departure (Thursday): Dad woke me up at 5am to tell me that it was time to go to the train station…and that there were 14 inches of snow on the ground outside. And it was still snowing. Of course, I thought, The one day we get more than six inches, and it’s the day I want to leave the country.