I have had such an amazing couple of days, I'm so full of pent up inspirations that I don't even know what to do with myself, but I'm going to post as quickly as I can while everything's still fresh. And then shower and do a few dishes and clean just enough that I have a cozy spot to flop and make ART. :D

Thursday morning, Tom left for Long Island. His dad's planning on putting their house on the market (and probably moving in with his mother, who's getting old and can't really get around much, but is still fiercely independent), but the family's had the house for like two generations, so there's a lot of STUFF. So Tom went home to clean out the room he lived his entire life in - which was about as bad as my room on Iva Mae was after a few years. He left just after I left for the Penny Saver, and got down there..well I guess there was a bit of trouble, but nothing too terrible, he made really good time. We were both nervous, he's never driven that far before, let alone by himself.

Me, I put in a 14-hour day at the Penny Saver. I don't know what it was this week, we worked steadily all day, but things just kept streaming in late..nothing major, just lots of little things. To the point where, at 9:15pm, we were talking with two guys who were just giving us information for ads they were placing. (One we were expecting, just, not that late; the other bribed us with Tim Hortons coffee/hot chocolate so it was all good. ;) I had Chinese from the take-out place next door, and made the awful mistake of discovering their crab ragoon is FREAKING AMAZING. <3

Friday morning, Penny Saver until 12:30 or so - and the snow was coming down already. We must've gotten four inches by the time we left Silver Creek. I had Mary drop me off at Tim Hortons, since I had to be at the Paper Factory at 5. So I got soup and a sandwich and my hazelnut coffee, and curled up at my usual little table.

And omfg the breakthroughs I had on that novel! Mary had asked how it was going, and I said I was having some structural issues - what with the first three chapters being set at the same party, and then each subsequent chapter having a different location and time. I'd done a rough outline of the thing as I went through the first round of editing, and been thinking about it a lot... So I stared at my outline awhile and thought about things.

And I sketched out a new outline.

And suddenly realised that it might very well WORK.

omg it's such an exciting feeling, I'm still getting it just thinking about it. I had a thousand ideas. I need some more "everyday" scenes in the beginning, and possibly another party toward the end - I'm going to alternate, I think, better than I have right now. Adding adding adding. So far it's a different character for each chapter, and only one of them gets to talk twice, and I want each of them to get at LEAST that. They're not clear enough, *I* have to check my notes to remember what makes Adir and Carey two different characters. (I've toyed with the idea of combining them, but I don't think I want to - they argue a lot and it's a nice dynamic.) I need to *show* the major character traits, not just allude to them. Mephisto needs to have a whole romance with this singer-boy, it's just starting in the opening chapters and it needs to blossom and then die horribly by the end. I need to do something more with the relationship between Meres and Veri, it's *very* intense and very real, I can feel it so strongly but I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. I just know that I want it there and I want so much more of it. Maybe I'll let Luce mess with them, I'm sure he'd love to, he's freaking twisted. I'm actually fairly happy with the way his character is being shown, I was scared to write him but he sort of writes himself. Azal needs to bed a few more girls, and so does Adir (though they go about it very, very differently). Meres' murder needs to be brought up THROUGHOUT the damn thing, instead of just at the beginning and then it being tossed aside. ^^;; Cerise needs to not just show up at the beginning and then suddenly at the end - she needs to be much more dynamic, and grow throughout this thing (though as a side-plot). Claude needs to be more prevalent, he *is* the flavor of the month among them. He also needs to be snottier, more brash and confident.

Actually I just realised, he needs to be *fierce*. He needs to be Christian from Project Runway. Oh that's so him! Only without the soft side, he needs to be sneaky where Christian is endearing.

Which brings me to another point - I so knew Christian was going to win Project Runway, I knew it a few episodes back, but I was having second thoughts when I saw how AMAZING everyone's final collections were. I was blown away. Jillian's stuff is fantastic, it's *so* cool and so wearable and just sharp and well-done. Rami's things are *gorgeous*, I would kill to have a dress he designed (provided of course that it wasn't a size -1/4), they're so amazingly elegant. (Happily, the Grecian Goddess look for dresses is in for the spring fashion season at large - I'm so excited, that needs to peter down to consumer level damn fast, I *love* that look.) Christian is just brilliant, I adore his style, there's such flare to it.

Though I miss Kit, I totally fell in love with her and her style, that's exactly the sort of look I *want* to have. (Well on my punk and cute days. There are also days I want to wear a Rami dress.) She's so freaking cool, I was *so* upset to see her go, she just makes me happy.

So, Project Runway, another huuuge inspiration point. It's also got me looking at fashion magazines, where the photography slaughters me. The ads and the clothing and the *artistry* in everything blows me away and I love.

Saturday, I was scheduled to work 10-6, but no-one else was working that shift, and, Tom being out of town, I had no transportation. So I'd asked the one girl who was working 9-5 to pick me up, which she did, and I jsut went in with her. Walking out to her car, the snow on my back porch was fairly deep, and I knew it was slippery so I wore my boots. I was walking slowly, carrying an extra bag with my shoes and lunch in it, bringing my coffee with me, and then SHOOP! Suddenly I'm covered in snow and awfully close to the ground. I didn't quite land on my ass, I caught myself just enough, but I twisted my ankles around pretty badly - they hurt a bit whenever I crouched down all day. I learned something very useful though - my coffee cup may not be amazing at keeping coffee warm in the winter, BUT, it is awesome at not spilling when you throw it all around as you're falling, I only lost like three drops. \0/

It was a normal Paper Factory Saturday, only we were a bit short-handed, and for some idiotic reason it was busy as ever in the morning, despite the roads being utter crap. There wasn't an awful lot to do when it did slow down, so I took care of the Webkinz (we got in like ten new ones earlier this week, so those are selling like crazy, and the things REALLY don't fit on the shelf anymore), straightened the wedding room, straightened some other things.. Sometime in the afternoon, I checked my phone, and, YAY, Katie called! She'd emailed me a few days ago that she and her girlfriend were coming through town this weekend, to go to the dance recital on campus. Once the bosses left, things were insanely quiet, so I called Katie back, and she and Jane picked me up from the store at 6. :) Oh it was SO good to see her again, it'd been far too long. And Jane is very nice, she's a lot of fun - the two of them seem pretty happy so I'm glad.

It tried to rain a few times between the snow, so we had a day of snow sleet snow sleet oh look more snow. There was about a foot on the ground, with ice underneath. Driving was a liiiittle slow, and it was *bitter* cold with the wind. ick.

We went to the Chinese Buffet for dinner, and ate and chatted, and it was very nice. Katie and I caught up a bit on what we've been doing, and how our families are doing and things. I felt so lame, I was the only one without handmade winter accessories - they had hats and scarves that Katie made and I was just wearing a scarf I bought (because the ones I've made aren't as warm). sigh.

Everytime we walked outside, Jane run a bit and sliiiiiiid over the snow/ice a ways. I refrained, as I'd done that already today, and it hadn't ended quite so gracefully.

They had bought tickets already, and somehow, amazingly, there was an open seat next to them! We were so excited.

The show was pretty amazing. I'd actually gone to a few of the dance performances while I was on campus, Haruna was in one I think, and we went to one or two others as well, it's always really, really cool. Jane is actually a dance minor (and science major - which I think is a pretty awesome combination), so she understood what all was going on, while I tend to miss a few things, just because I don't know the vocabulary.. but I always get a very strong visceral, emotional sense from it, like I don't always know what the piece is About, but, I know exactly what emotions they're conveying, it's really interesting. And having an art background means there is some level of common ground, I understood some of the staging and arrangements, the costume, the lighting, some of the other elements.

And oh god did I find novel-fodder! XD I was actually stuck Friday, trying to work out a sketch of this one moment, it's this very strong image but I can't for the life of me sort out just how Luce is standing. I know it's something very elegant, and I decided I should look at dancers, and their poses, because I need that type of grace to his stance.

So what do I get but dancers. <3


I want to write up a little bit for myself more than anything, I want to hang on to some of the images, and I didn't have a pen on me at the time so I don't want to lose them! (If you don't care, look for a break to jump to.)

It was a very well-rounded show, as they always seem to manage. The first piece was centered around people meeting at a bar, all the shifting alliances and feints and confrontations and flirtings; the second was VERY political and very college student - it was set to an Ani DiFranco song, 90% Metaphor, which is basically a semi-rant about 9/11..I hadn't heard it before, and it was really interesting in itself, but the expressions the dancers drew from it were really powerful.. There was a motion, repeated twice early on, that really caught my eye - a guy was standing straight near the front of the stage, and a girl came running from the opposite side, jumping onto his back; it was done with such a force, that the energy of it really caught me.

Then at the end, a square spotlight fell around each of the two boys standing straight, beside each other, and first one girl ran across the stage and into a boy, then a second did the same to the other.
The Twin Towers.

It was *so* effective and so unexpected (for me), I was just really blown away by.. I suppose just the creativity of movements like that, how you could translate something that way.

There was a very abstract piece, which was performed by a visiting dance company and faculty - the three of us talked it over all intermission, and we all agreed it was to do with the concept of Time (duh, there were clocks all over the place), but we each took it a little differently, which I thought was really, really cool. You could feel that the audience as a whole really didn't feel they "got" the thing, it was interesting - I found myself doing an awful lot of analyzing of the experience as a whole. It was interesting, too, seeing older adults dancing. They didn't have the impossibly slim figures of the students - to be honest, you felt a little awkward seeing them dance, but at the same time.. their motions were *so* much more refined, and graceful, and controlled. They were much better dancers, but there was such a different feel to the dance - it was more Art, I think, rather than the pure exuberant emotion of the students.

There was a 60s sort of abstract piece, with people standing in the aisles clapping in a really intricate two-part rhythm, and the dancers enacting what looked to me like the Cosmos forming. There was a piece that started out pure entertainment - two guys, dressed identically, sat in two identical chairs... well, sat and not-sat, they seemed to go through every possible permutation of contact between body and chair, often wrestling with each other to get into the same chair - it was really funny. Then there was a sudden shift, and it became a very intense thing, with forceful repeated motions, and audio of repeated words and phrases: "home", "home work", "homework", "there's no place like home", "home is where the heart is", "a house is not a home", etc., repeated endlessly, with a constant repetition of the word "home", a breathless sort of rhythm that still twists my breathing just thinking about it, it was exhausting. (This is another one we had a really good discussion about later.)

"Masquerade" was the one I felt I'd get the most from, and.. well I was about half right. It was largely ballet - which Jane strongly dislikes, and I.. I don't know, it's odd, we talked it over later. While I have a strong dislike for things that are so regimented and formulaic, there's still something impossibly elegant about ballet movements. The girls honestly looked like dolls quite often, but there was a strange inhuman beauty to even that. Jane pointed out that it really is the most unnatural style of dance, it's all about being ethereal, having this impossible grace. We all agreed that the costumes were brilliant (I'll have to do a sketch, I couldn't take my eyes off them, though they were fairly simple), and that the slow movements, with a solo couple dancing, were wonderful.

The show ended with a salsa - and it was clear that it was the students' favorite, there was SO much energy through the whole thing I could hardly believe it, their motions were so fast but so graceful all the same, they were all grinning like anything. The whole thing was a celebration of being young and beautiful and sexy and graceful and.. it felt to me, at least, like they were absolutely reveling in who they are. (This piece and the Time piece are, I think, going to be the major thoughts I work into my novel, as well as the ballet.) All the pieces were hypnotic, but this one, you couldn't help but really truly want to join in. As we were leaving, Katie and Jane started dancing a semi-salsa out the door, and I laughed and said if I tried that, they'd all have the bruises. Jane told me that, for all the grace on stage, most dancers are actually insane klutzes - they were at a convention, and *every* *single* *one* of their company tripped, at some point, on the same staircase. That made me feel SO much better. *G*

Katie knew one of the male dancers, I didn't know any but in each dance, I had a favorite or two, who I watched most closely. For the most part, it really wasn't clear who the star dancer might be - I remember in the plays in high school, the best dancers would always be up front, but I think the choreography was arranged so that everyone was everywhere with this. At least, if it was otherwise, I honestly couldn't tell. But I was looking really closely at the movements, seeing how one girl was more graceful but felt distant, while another girl was the tiniest bit off here and there, but had SO much energy and passion in her that I couldn't take my eyes off her. With the guys, it was a little easier to tell the differences (partly because there were fewer of them).. in the opening piece, I saw such a difference in the male dancers, the taller one had a lot more strength to his movements, while the slimmer one had a lot more grace.. I caught so many little moments, that stayed with me, and I really need to do something with - during the salsa, two of the guys were doing show-off little bits, and they wound up right near each other, staring each other down in a way that was as playful as it was a power-play. There were plenty of staged guy-girl moments - which we all agreed later is *so* overdone, they did it well and kept it varied but, it got a little tiresome. (Though I watched them all curiously, just to see what emotions passed among the genders, as I know from Haruna that most of the guys in the theater/dance majors are more interested in each other than in the girls. There was nothing blatant anywhere, they were performing, but it was still interesting to consider.)


...so, yeah, a LOT of little things to consider from there. I found myself trying to imagine the personalities of some of the girls, the tall graceful ones versus the shorter ones, one of whom I definitely got the impression is, well, spunky. Even sitting there, I was turning them into characters for my Phistos to play with. ^^;;

The show ended about 10, we headed out to Jane's car. Katie called her brother, as he'd borrowed her car and had her keys, and she needed to get. Jane starts the car, and brushes it off, and we go to leave. We back out of the parking spot...
...and then stop moving.

We were stuck.

Jane had a shovel in her truck, so she dug out the tires. She tried going forward. Tried going backward. Tried turning. Tried rocking back and forth. For the most part we were laughing, but we quickly ran out of ideas - it just *wasn't* going anywhere! So finally Katie asks if we should push. Lacking anything else, she and I did. And it seemed to help a bit, but.. In kicking out the giant chunks of snow/ice that had caked onto the car behind the wheels, I discovered that one tire had burrowed down through the snow and was spinning on the layer of ice underneath. Not so good.

It was BITTER freaking cold, the wind was so sharp and it was SO, so cold. I had my magic scarf that opens up and can be used as a hood+scarf, and that was about it; the other two were more bundled at least. Finally Jane and Katie swapped - Jane has pushed her car out of things before, and knew she could do it. So she and I went to the back of the car and puuuushed with all our strength.. and it felt like a little bit helped, and maybe a little bit.. and then! IT MOVED! IT WAS MOVING!!!

We kept pushing for good measure an extra thirty feet or so, and then just jumped and danced around and ran after the car. Then we realized the shovel was still back at the parking spot. So I ran back to get it, and we got in the car, and tried to get our lungs to breath again, and laughed and laughed.

Luckily, Katie's car was not stuck, though it needed some major brushing/scraping off. I found my fingerless gloves and helped as best I could, though there were only two ice scrapers between us.

It was SO COLD. We got back to my apartment, and the back walk hadn't been shoveled since probably lunchtime. So I tried the front walk, which was better...but I couldn't get the outside door to open. Back door it was!

The snow was UP PAST MY KNEES.

They weren't sure where they were staying for the night so I told them they were welcome to crash here, as long as they didn't mind giving me a few minutes to clear a space - I hadn't had ANY time to clean this week! So they brought their things in, and apparently Jane and Katie had some long-standing agreement that Jane needed to push Katie into a snowdrift at some point, and they figured this would be a perfect time, since they couldn't really get any colder. So they played in the snow, while I got some water heating and dug out all my varied hot chocolates, and gave Tom a quick call - I'd told him I was going out with them, but it was 11 already, I didn't want him to get worried. I did a speedy clean-up of the living room, and then the bathroom, while we talked and had hot chocolate, and then we all sat around awhile longer and chatted, it was REALLY, really nice. :)

Unfortunately, Katie had to be to work at like 9 this morning, and daylight savings hit.. so suddenly it was 1am. Katie had an air mattress in the car, so they flung that on the living room floor, and we all went to sleep. 6:30 or so, we all got up. Unfortunately I'm fresh out of cereal, and even bread!...but they had bread in the car, and I told them they were welcome to my toaster. *giggles* So it was peanut butter toast for their breakfast. They got everything together and we said goodbye about 7, 7:30.

I went back to bed. Tom called about 8, to say he was heading out. I slept awhile.

Got up, watched Project Runway while doing the email thing, posted here, and this daylight savings is REALLY messing with me today omfg. It can't be this late already. There again I don't usually have late nights like that either.. it was lovely though. :) Oh I have so many inspirations to harness! I picked up some fresh art supplies at work a few days ago, my pastels were in a pretty sad state (what I can find/what's left of them), so I picked up a fresh pack, as well as some conte crayons and tortillons and a couple of the woodless pencils (which I adore for sketching). Crap I should've gotten an eraser! Mine are terribly full of charcoal.. oh well. Bluh no more computer screen it's making my head feel gross. Time for art!!!