I'm so excited

I can hardly say, "Narf!"
...in fact, I think I will say, "Narf!"
NARF! NARF!
~ Courtesy of Peter Snyder, aged 5-something, years ago in NJ

So...despite being uber-tired now (uber-mude?), despite having been up until 7:15 this morning, despite having to do some finagling with the computer to upgrade its speed (aka - turn it on and off - the tried and true method of dealing with stupid machinery)...

THE ROUGH CUT OF "KING OF FOOLS" IS DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!

(And there was much rejoicing. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay.)

Of course, now comes all the tedious bits of converting it from .avi to .mpeg, and then figuring out how to use Adobe really to make the DVD, then hoping and praying that the new DVD writer actually, y'know, writes the DVD...but the essential thing is that I've a rough cut of the whole 2 1/2 hours. Hoopla!

So, this morning, round about 6 a.m., when the program was making the final file (credits - took forever because of the scrolling marquee et. al.), I betook myself for a walk around the block and immediately thought: "Wow. It feels like Austria." That crisp, clean morning scent - the greenery - the newness and aliveness of everything. The Alps might have been right behind me.

Needless to say, I was in high spirits that hour - and so, being thusly happy, and needing to find a) a way to fill up the time before the program had done and b) breakfast, I drove out to Pricechopper to pick up bagels. (Yum. Bagels!) They were playing some happy music in the store - I forget what - some '60's love song, and as soon as I was out of sight of the few folk manning the store I traipsed about and twirled and danced my way to the bagels. Finding the bagels (and a sale on the bagels, too! Better and better!), I skipped my way around the corner until I found a completely deserted (not desserted) aisle and I frolicked! YES! Frolicking in the supermarket absolutely completes my morning. I got my bagels, went outside and started belting at the top of my lungs:

Good mornin'! Good mo-o-ornin'!
It's great to stay up late!
Good mornin', good mornin'
To you!

When we left the movie show
The future wasn't bright -
But come the dawn
The show goes on
And I don't wanna say good night!

SO SAY GOOD MORNIN'!

In the car, I "ner-nered" my way through "Good Morning, Life" and then belted "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!" (Happiness, Miss Piggy!) And then, at 7:15, when I couldn't keep my eyes open any more and my program was done and I shut this silly thing off, and after I left a note for my family - I done gone fells asleep. 'Til 1:45ish. At which point, I am roused to greet company for Memorial Day. Which is fun until my total lack of hand-eye coordination on such a bizarre sleep schedule means I spill Lizzie's beer on me. At which point, I betake me here, because I do have that interview tonight for the Savoyards and ought to get myself together for that - at least mentally. (What is it about Savoyards interviews that I'm always working on very little or bizarre sleep before them?)

Anywho...

Narf. Narf.

Mood: Oh, c'mon! How could you miss it?
Music: Kingdom of Heaven to counteract the mental "Fish Slapping Song" from Spamalot on the mental jukebox.
Thought: Yeah, so as I was trying to remember who did what backstage for King of Fools for the credits area, I realized that I had KOF programs in the next room. Geesh.

For better or for

Better now that:

Cue tips have been implemented - although the hydroperoxidewhateverschmermit that Jules swears by will need to be used at some point, hopefully tomorrow;

Kingdom of Heaven CD is on. Very relaxing;

I'm home...and...;

...despite everything - computer malfunctions, program malfunctions, the upstairs computer in shambles upon returning, networking issues, the dumb drawings are on the net. (Hurrah for technology?)

Worse with the prospect of:

Continuing massive head/earaches;

LACK OF TIME;

Lack of sleep.

Dear God - just...dear God....

Mood: Crud, actually. Pain in ears is pain all over
Music: Regarde en haute!
Thought: Will I ever be caught up on sleep?

Two more days of actual school

Two and a half days of review, and three days of exams left. Glory, hallelujah. (But who's counting?)

Actually, it's oddish because I don't feel as though it's the end of the year - I'm talking actual sense memory here: the weather's not even approaching Less Cold, it's been raining for nearly two weeks, and if anything it feels like the long, dreary march of March. Curious, that. But yesterday, just before we all went off to the State House (which was a very pleasant trip, indeed!), I rested my head against the screen of my window and breathed in the rainy cold air and was brought immediately to England, to the hostel just outside of London where we stayed before joining the remainder of the Theatre in England tour. Ah, now, wouldn't it be loverly if by sense memory alone we could be transported to wherever? One wonders if that's a taste of Heaven - all places, all times - the smell of a book brings one back to the reading of that book at eleven, bundled up in blankets while the rain drips off the leafing trees; the certain gust of wind whirls one to the streets of Krakow or the dappled sun whisks one to Ars. *sigh*

So, began a novena last night - sort of an impromptu cobbled-together thing - to the Holy Spirit for knock-me-over-the-head guidance re: The Academy. Jules and I went out driving - despite massive headaches - after Peter's final middle school concert *sniff* and Jules is thinking that Broadway would just be a waste of time and result in mere frustration and possibly creative annihilation, and that I ought to just start work on The Academy now. I'm positive - or as positive as one can get - that I am meant to begin this (a sort of Stratford/FUS combo) at some point...the quesiton is which. And perhaps the most frustrating thing is - as always - myself and m'waffles. I.e., at this moment I'm scoffing at my own nervous self, and am thinking: "Oh, paugh, Emily! Build it, dahlink," while I've spent the previous half of the day and much of last night rather post-Bearskin-y, interiorly huddled, cradling the Shadow in my arms. (Hmmm, room for an Anderson-like fairy tale there.) I decided to indulge the fancy this morning and wrote a list of what I would need in an ideal world for the three theatres, and then sketched out the central court with the theatres, the tea shop and restaurant, and the church (theatre, food, and God - yup, that seems about right %P) - but....

Hwell, we shall wait and see. For now, to no one's surprise whatsoever, Adobe Photoshop is being a scootch. Mom's not letting me off the hook to see Joseph Pearce tonight (she's probably right - I'm just panicking about everything I have to do: esp. with graduation tomorrow night - augh! - how these things do keep piling up!), but thankfully it's a longish weekend (even with interviews for directing with the Savoyards and Tuesday's "professional" day). Goal: to finish draft of KOF this weekend! HRUMPH!

..oh, Lord...what am I doing?...

Mood: Gingerbread man in milk
Music: Alanis Morrisette Jagged Little Pill
Thought: The music probably isn't helping any....

See this trailer now!!!

Apple - Trailers - March Of The Penguins. Oh, misting! misting!

In other news, it seems I'll be going to the Boston State House tomorrow. Rather curious - it was presented to me as though Ed McMahon were standing outside my door instead of the vice principal. Anywho, eager to go, even though I'm still rather baffled as to what I'll be doing. (I suppose this is how the other teachers feel when they're tapped to help chaperone the fall retreats?)

Gloomy day
Everything's bleak and grey
On my day to where the air is
Dark!
Cannya tell me how to get -
How to get to
YELLOWSTONE PARK?!?

*ahem*

Going to scan some pictures (finally settled on a style) and then upload them on the computer (duh - I can't believe I didn't think of that option) for Arx (yaaay Arx!) whilst copying onto video tapes various things promised to various people. But in the quick nonce, I'm going to break my own unwritten rule to edit in complete continuity, and simply dash off "Miserable" (hence, putting "A Castle is Run" off for tomorrow). Last week's 2-hour Alias also calls my name.

And I continue to find my squirmishness with the blogsphere increase. The difficulty is that a) I'm too lazy to actually write newsy non-personal stuff BUT b) I don't feel like publically spilling my deepest, darkest secrets - even if they're rather plebian. They're my own plebian secrets, murky buckets! Hence, this blog has turned into a cryptic silliness - which it needn't be, I think. Which all leads to - ich weiss nicht. At the moment, anyway. (Ah, the crypticness continues! Obscurity for idiots.) Mea culpe, mea culpe, poor little blog. Perhaps one day I'll make actual use of you.

Mood: All sorts of existentially - but not really, because they make me ill to my stomach
Music: Dizzy Up the Girl by Goo-goo Dolls
Frustration is: Gravitas

Feeling rather

Loose-endsy. Curious, that. Have potential out NYC way - 'tis good. Muchly journalling in actual journal, which is far more handy-dandy and fits in the pocket and is easily whip-outable (and far more private - albeit it substitutes an elastic for a lock). Have only something like five more scenes and bows for King of Fools to finish (nearly wrote "Kong of Fools" - hrm - that conjures up all sorts of odd images). At the risk of getting the song stuck in my head again, worked on "Godfather Drosselmeier" as a musette piece last night with Peter - it's sounding good. Def. a keeper for Nutcracker. Trying to get "stamps" together for Charming the Moon; Jules' cover portrait is glorious. End of the year curios and on-again-off-again attackities. Since all the typical weak spots are being hit, I can only claim each and throw myself on God's providence. The low one always gets more clumsy the closer we are to His plan, I think.

But mostly this is an update because I haven't.

Lately.

Mood: I shall remind myself that I was terribly giddy whilst cheering up Jules at the Outback and trying on silly shoes at Payless.
Music: Despite my best efforts, "Godfather Drosselmeier"
Happiness is: Marichino cherries in a mug of Diet Coke

Yet more music

Wasted on a hopeless film. Kingdom of Heaven was a terrible waste of two and a half hours - but the music is divine. Oh, come to me, my orchestral cherubim! I'll put your music to good effect!

Gacked from Barbara Nicolosi:

Emily Dickenson's 1548

Meeting by Accident,
We hovered by design --
As often as a Century
An error so divine
Is ratified by Destiny,
But Destiny is old
And economical of Bliss
As Midas is of Gold --

I realize I don't appreciate poetry enough - don't seek it out - don't enrich my soul with its elusive sublimity. Good poetry is numinous, not merely clever. And I am much in need of...Numenor? No. In need of spiritual revival. My thoughts turn to St. Augustine's own restlessness - although my situation is no where near his in factual particulars; only in spiritual (but that is enough). Lord? Wherefore these attacks? This desolation in the midst of plenty? Sin truly is insanity. I'm returning to morning prayer, which is good - but I need a better prayer life - I need to draw close to Him again - close to Him or closer - certainly one can never be close enough.... But though there are moments of grace, and those plentiful, the inbetweentimes seem all within an unholy muddle. Lord, I need to rest in You. Wrest me from myself and make me rest. Calm my heart, still my soul, strengthen me, and give me true, abiding peace and joy. Amen.

Mood: Half-and-half does not suffice when milk is required
Music: Vanity Fair (Kingdom of Heaven is at work)
Goodness is: Charming the Moon is being picked up by Arx! Working on pictures now.
Leap of faith is: Saying I'm interested in directing The Grand Duke
Oddness is: Spending much of the evening (after a longish nap for a splitting headache) having fun editing the nightmare. Geesh.
Beauty is: The haunting woman's voice singing without words "She Walks in Beauty" - truly, there's very little more beautiful than the human voice raised in song. There's something...drawing about it.

My hair smells of cookies

Or possibly the combined fragrances of Yankee Candles and Vanilla scent. It also happens to be wild-lion-untameable, since it's just declared its independence from the rather constricting bun it's been in most of the evening as I've downloaded twenty minutes or so of Act II of King of Fools while straightening the living area and discovering old high heels I'd forgotten. (And remembering why I don't wear high heels. Toes are not meant to do that!) So, for scraps and patches:

Finished rough cut of Act I of KOF last night. Hoopla!

Also discovered how to link scenes in the chapter select menu on Adobe DVD maker so that it doesn't revert back to the menu at the end but goes on to the next scene, instead. Hoopla!

Took a couple walks with Jules. Hoooopla! Because the weather was finally decent! HoooooooooooooooopLA!

Checked out Oscar Wilde's complete poems and fairy tales from the library (as well as A Picture of Dorian Grey - I know I have a copy somewhere upstairs in the far reaches of the attic, but I've no will to go up there and sift through heavy and most likely wrongly labelled boxes while cursing the dusty air and the low, slanting ceiling and the abysmal temperature). I happened to open it up in the car as soon as I returned home, to a series of poems he wrote while travelling southward through Italy. Oh...wow....

Let me back up. It's bothered me ever since I did Salome (and so put a good deal more research into Wilde's life than I did when I was a floundering Junior in High School) that Wilde is only remembered as an aesthete, and has been made into this bogus champion of homosexuality - when in fact he hated his own vices and converted to Catholicism. I'd always been told that he had converted on his deathbed (or as near enough as makes no nevermind), and I've not found a good biography on him that treats the subject of his faith with any depth (although I'm going to start delving now!), but while reading these poems - hymns to Jesus, to Mary, to the Pope, and to the Eucharist - I was blown away.

How is it that those modern biographers of Wilde - those who make movies and plays about him - have managed to miss everything of worth that he said?

I've been praying (off and on, it must be admitted) for the soul of Wilde. I just feel this...affinity for him. So clever, so good at his craft, so trapped by his own sins, trapped by a society that indulges but can offer no true indulgence, and malaigned even after his death. A man of depth turned into a thing of frippery. So, I've been praying for his soul, and praying, too, that if he is indeed in Purgatory or in Heaven that he will intercede for me in my theatrical and literary (and spiritual!) endeavours. A few days ago, perhaps half a week, for whatever reason (probably because my quest for a good play for next Winter was thwarted...again), I happened to really pray, intensely, for Wilde's soul. So, to stumble on this book, to read his hymns to a God who would die even for one such as he, to see his love and passion for the Catholic Church, to see his eagerness as he approaches Rome, to see his lament as he must depart - it was like an answer from Wilde to say, "I am praying for you. Please continue to pray for me." It was as good as pink roses, for those who understand me.

So, pray for the soul of Oscar Wilde. And for the rest, I'll leave you with these verses of his:

A pilgrim from the northern seas -
What joy for me to seek alone
The wondrous Temple and the throne
Of Him who holds the awful keys!

When, bright with purple and with gold,
Come priest and holy Cardinal,
And borne above the heads of all
The gentle Shepherd of the Fold.

O joy to see before I die
The only God-anointed King,
And hear the silver trumpets ring
A triumph as He passes by!

Or at the brazen-pillared shrine
Hold high the mystic sacrifice,
And shows his God to human eyes
Beneath the veil of bread and wine.

~ Oscar Wilde, Rosa Mystica, "Rome Unvisited," Section III

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
"He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height."
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

~ Oscar Wilde, Rosa Mystica, "E Tenenbris"

Lily of love, pure and inviolate!
Tower of ivory! red rose of fire!
Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:
For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate,
Wearied with waiting for the World's Desire,
Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom,
Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne
For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness,
Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine,
And the white glory of thy loveliness.

~ Oscar Wilde, Rosa Mystica, "The New Helen," final stanza

Mood: A touch of the Church Triumphant!
Music: Faire Celts - see what CD's will be found when living areas are cleaned out!
Thought: Yesss...heels, no.