Monday, 13 March 2006
@ 8.25 pm
I started writing this entry a week ago
Last Monday was the first day that smelled like Autumn. It's kind of hard to describe it properly, but it was almost like the smell you get off hot asphalt after light rain in the middle of summer, though there hadn't been any rain and the ground was dry. But the wind was pretty wild, as were the clouds, and the leaves were just starting to turn, and the light was kind of crazy with that yellow-glow, washed out kind of quality that Christchurch gets from time to time. And it was kind of still warm, but there was a definite chilly edge to the air. So maybe it wasn't an actual smell, but the overall feeling of the very beginning of Autumn that materialised in my nostrils for a brief instant just in front of the Psychology building.
Maybe.
I was once cornered at a show afterparty by a rather sloshed lead in the show who declared that she had seen me around shows, but wasn't entirely sure what it was I actually did, but that I should keep doing it cos obviously whatever it was I did was of great benefit to shows in general... or something like that. Hugs ensued. Amusingly, the show in question was The Fiend and I had tried my damndest to not do anything on it, finally succumbing to being Front of House manager. And still apparently this had been of great benefit. Strange.
In a similar fashion, I'm not entirely sure that I necessarily do anything a lot of the time while at work*, and yet when I'm not around it all gets a little stressful. We recently had a lecture in Wellington (by Mariann Fischer Boel, EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development - speech notes here, should anyone be particularly interested) and it was decided pretty early on in the piece that the budget wouldn't stretch to fly me up. Which was fine by me, although I haven't been to a lecture in the Grand Hall at Parliament which would've been kinda cool. The first thing my boss said the following morning when I asked him how it went was "We needed you there!" because apaprently greeting amnbassadors and finding out when the wine will be served is actually quite hard to juggle. The thing is, I know how these things work, and if I had gone up I would have literally gone "Hey guys" to the people serving the wine, shook hands with the person in charge of the people serving the wine, and then gone out for a coffee with the nearest member of the TBALC diaspora currently encamped in our capital city.
I don't really know why this has stuck in my mind for the last week, except that I'm beginning to realise that in many instances the less work you do, the more people think you must be doing something very valuable, further reaffirming my view that people can be strange.
And speaking of chances to do more work, I've been handed a job brief for being the Production Manager of an upcoming play which runs in August this year. But didn't I say I wouldn't do another one unless I was (a) paid and (b) wasn't working in another job? (I hear you say) Why yes... It (assumably, though I need to do more digging) would be paid, and the timing would fit pretty perfectly into my whole "I'm going to quit work by July" plan, so I'm actually halfway interested. Remains to be seen if I get round to contacting the people in charge to see if they still need a Prod Man, or if the money is good enough to get me to quit here to give it a go, although even thoughthe job itself is about a third the size of producing one of the big amateur shows in terms of things what I need to get done, I suspect there'd be a whole lot more pressure to get what I was dong spot on right. Scary. And they would want the person to be the Stage Manager as well. Double scary.
Watch this space, I guess. Not often, admittedly. I mean that'd be a waste of time given how often I update, but you know, just sometimes. Yeah?
One of the coolest things to come out of the last show is the getting to actually know some of show people and hanging out after the show has finished. Crazy talk this may be, but the last few weeks have seen a relative explosion of music writing and the discovery of Christian's awesome bass skills which are being put towards adding some extra, um, bass to the songs I've been writing. Damn it's fun, and very good to meet other musical types after pretty much all previous jam buddies have fled to the North. Bastards, all of 'em. I've also been getting to know Todd and Claire (Christian's flatmates, but also theatre types and generally cool people. They have blogs, which they even update (!) (not Christian though) which makes them a damn sight more interesting than most of us). (In theory.)
So many parentheses, where was I... Oh yes, feeling much better than when last I blogged, and definitely up for the party that has been mooted in previous comments at my place on March 25! Huzzah!
That is all.
Coming "soon" (it's all relative): NAKED, Dogville, a bus trip and a stag day/night, and Nic's plan to get cultured and poor (or, the "Coke Embargo Policy II").
* This is a blatant untruth. I know most days I do absolutely nothing between the hours of 9.00-9.30 in the morning (breakfast), and 4.00-5.00 pm in the afternoon (the point at which my brain activity drops to zero and I stare zombie like at my screen).
