I Continue to Lack Physical Coordination and Grace

I wish I had a picture of the Christmas present that Davia and Ben got me- it's a beautiful trench coat that makes me feel like Lieutenant Frank Cioffi all over again.  Now I can go out in the rain even while wearing my suits!  Very excellent.  Speaking of Curtains, my wonderful friend and fellow actor Emily Goo just got a new car and named it Lieutenant Frank Cioffi.  May my character namesake always transport her safely and comfortably to her destination.

Week One continues to go well- we had negotiations this morning for a fake contract dispute clause.  I discovered that the rules of improvisation work very well while negotiating.  The general rule that I used can be distilled into the concept "yes, and...."  It was used to great success this morning when the other side demanded that the dispute be arbitrated according to what were in essence Civil Code procedural issues and I said "sure, and ... (and proceeded to list a bunch of things that completely contracted around the Civil Code, making the original concession entirely meaningless)."  To my great surprise it worked brilliantly, so I'm going to keep doing that in the future instead of trying to argue.

Rehearsals for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are off to a good start.  I mean, I have to memorize the entire show in something like ten days, but other than that it's off to a good start.  That said, I thought I had abandoned the world of "things-that-make-me-look-incompetent" after the whole "stomp hop slap step" debacle of Curtains last semester.  That was incorrect.  Because Ben was a mime.  Of course he was.  And so we have to learn how to mime-walk.  Of course we do.  While flipping coins.  Great.

After I started mime-walking everyone else who was there had to study me for a good five minutes because each of them knew that I was doing something terribly wrong but couldn't put their finger on it.  Then Sara helpfully pointed out that the way I walked normally was wrong and that was simply translating over into my mime-walk.  So last night four people helped me learn how to walk.  It only took twenty-four years.  I imagine this will continue to be my Achilles Heel for the rest of the rehearsal process.

Tomorrow I have a five minute oral argument about... something to do with the enforcement of an arbitration agreement.  I'll figure it out later today.  Should be fun.  Tomorrow night we have our first cast party of the new year (we weren't going to let THAT tradition slide) and on Saturday I'm heading down to Williamsburg to hang out with Adam Cohen and others who I hung out with in late December because we have a three day weekend and I just had too much fun with them over New Years not to get in some more time before the real semester starts.

P.S.  I just now tried to refill the ink in my printer myself using a kit I bought online.  You fill a syringe with ink and drill a hole in the cartridge and then inject it.  Just a word of caution if you choose to do the same- if you do not read the precise instructions for how much ink you should inject, the cartridge may explode.  Black ink, as I have JUST discovered, is difficult to clean.