Then Some

I am eating a Balance Bar and combos for dinner. At midnight.

Awesome.

The weekend was really, really long. Two ten-of-twelves, and while this continues to be a great experience (truly), two ten-of-twelve still drains one dry. Here's the thing--tech is what it is, it is what it has to be, but it is inevitably so much sitting around and waiting for everyone, that even though you are sitting around most of the day--it is exhausting. Because you switch in and out of "pay attention mode" so much that by the 11pm end of day you don't know which side of the switch your brain should be on.

That said, the show looks great. I think audiences will have a blast.

Did I do anything else this weekend? Not really. C met me on my break for dinner on Saturday and we had a great meal at that Indian place in the Bethesda la-la-land shopping area. I brought up inappropriate dinner topics as I am wont to do and we ate aloo gobi and nan. Monday we had a production meeting for the next Catalyst show and we drank beer and ate various fried things at Marty's afterwards.

Wait a minute, did I write about thanksgiving? I didn't. We had thanksgiving. Out in the 'burbs of Northern Virginia. Things were decidedly low key for most of the day. We snacked on cheese and crackers, we drank the holiday beer from anchor steam (love it), then had dinner with C's brother and sister-in-law and two nephews and one niece. They are good kids, the oldest is fourteen and all into the Ramones and the Clash and has this great dry sense of humor that makes him seem wise for his age. The middle brother is quiet, probably stricken with middle-child syndrome, but has a gentle sweetness about him. He carries the weight of a human who is about to emerge and hasn't quite found his way yet. The littlest is the girl, all blond and smiles and lanky limbs and darting eyes. She knows what she wants and she's learning how to get it. Whether everyone agrees that she is doing the right things to get it, is up for some debate.

When we were on our way over there C said, "J (the niece) will like seeing you. Because you're a girl. You can play girl things". I kind of looked at him funny. I'm not so good at the girlie things. I never really was.

I did my best. The one girlie-play moment we had was when J showed me her Disney Princess kitchen set. It's this big plastic oven/stovetop/sink thing that makes appropriate noises when you do appropriate things (cooking noise, sink noise) and comes with plastic food, and plastic dishes, that sort of thing. I tried to get excited by the whole thing, but I have to admit, I was pretty confused. For one, it doesn't actually DO anything. At least with our easy-bake ovens we got a consumable to show for our playtime efforts. Secondly, why the fuck would a princess have to cook?! I think that's what bothered me the most. If we are going to glorify this idea of a privileged, elitist, blue-blooded role model for girls (and this featured all of them: Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Jasmine) do we also have to enforce the idea that she embraces traditional gender roles? I mean, she's a princess for god's sake, can't she afford to hire someone to cook FOR HER??!!!

If I were a princess, I would totally hire a cook. Or I'd eat out all the time. I'm not a princess. And I eat out all the time.

Or else I eat Balance Bars and combos. And we've come full circle.

Dinner was great, everyone was super cool about making sure there was plenty for the vegetarian, and after dinner we went to the neighbors house for a "dessert gathering". The "dessert gathering" descended into a wide and generous variety of drinks, so C and I ate some pie, had a glass of Romanian liquor (C's brother's wife is Romanian) and headed back to the city while it still seemed like a good idea.

Cheers.