Role Models

Watching The Addams Family at the weekend and discussing with flatmates how they are one of the best possible role models. - They teach you to always be accepting, never to judge something because it's different; to try new things, not to accept the status quo just because - to branch out and experience everything life has to offer; to be welcoming to whomever your relatives bring home for the holidays, however intolerable they are, because they are important to that person; that you shouldn't betray those closest to you, but even if you do, they will still be there for you whenever you need them because they love you; encourage your kids to be creative, take an interest in the things that they enjoy and teach them to take those things and make them their own in some way; that each and every person in our life has their own unique talents, and if we recognize and embrace those we can support each other far beyond our own individual capabilities; Gomez and Morticia are one of the most passionate and loving couples you'll ever come across, daily finding ways to demonstrate their affection for each other and reminding us that you should take the time to waltz with each other around the living room just because you haven't done it in a while.. We should all be so lucky to have a family that nurtures all of the best qualities in each of us.

Dress Code

I will never understand the corporate environment. I work in an office, surrounded solely by other people in that office. I sit at a desk all day. I required to wear a suit and listening to my music would be frowned upon. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to dress smart and professional if I have meetings, or if I'm representing the business externally in any significant way, and I'm not advocating everyone blasting out tunes, thigh high stiletto boots (unless you work in essex of course), or looking at porn at work. But I never really understand the closed corporate environment that dictates everyone must be uncomfortable and bored. The fact that happy, relaxed workers are FAR more productive has been so well researched and documented as to be common knowledge you could find from people on the street. So long as you maintain an attitude of "reasonable" (subjective I know, but understandable I think), what's wrong with jeans, a tee, and some headphones? Again, too many years in the theatre industry have spoiled me on this regard...

Macbeth hath murdered sleep, and so Macbeth shall sleep no more.

Yes, I know that's not the word for word quote.

Some of my friends and I have a running joke that we were SS officers in a past life, who somehow avoided being reincarnated into dung beetles, and so the universe punishes us constantly in myriad other ways.

I've decided another of my past lives was Macbeth.  It would explain the whole not sleeping thing.

I'm notorious for not sleeping well.  Basically my body clock doesn't work properly.  Most people's reset when necessary, or struggle to keep going past the usual circadian cycle.  Most people's reset every night, the standard circadian rhythm (i.e. your internal body clock) is usually a little over 25h.  We operate a 24h diurnal cycle so most people's just reset a little every night.  It's usually quite easy for people to reset their body clocks.  It's how jet lag works.  It's also very simple for most people to shorten their circadian rhythm given they tend to do it every night. This is why travelling east and adjusting for jetlag is a lot easier than travelling west - you just go to bed earlier rather than having to stay up late.

My body clock has very little ability to adjust it's 0-hour starting position.  It's pretty much set around 4am UK time.  Sure, some nights I'm tired and it's 3am and some nights I'm up late and it's 6am, but it's more or less set around 4am.  With enough determination and access to appropriate diurnal stimuli (i.e. what time the sun rises, streetlights being on etc), I can move it about an hour or two in either direction.   This means I can cope with the clocks changing for summer time, though it takes me about 3-4 weeks to really get used to it from a sleep pattern perspective.  My body clock doesn't adjust that well as I move around the world either.  This means on the US East Coast, 2300 ET hits and I'm pretty much done and ready for bed (which everyone just takes as yet more proof that I was in fact, born in the wrong country).  When I go to the West Coast, I force it to a little, but my body very obviously still starts to wind down around 2130/2200 local time.  When I travel to Malaysia, it's not just a simple case of mid-afternoon slump for me; I find it nigh on impossible to keep awake in afternoons, no matter how bright the sun may be.  Luckily being equatorial/tropical in climate things like siestas are quite acceptable there, and afternoons are often more sedentary due to the heat, especially in the dry season.  I will happily find myself up all night and into the morning in Malaysia with no problems whatsoever.  In the US I'm a morning person because I naturally wake up rested then.  In Malaysia I'm morning person because that's evening and time to go out as far as my body is concerned.

The other major sleep issue I have, is that probably by decades of experience (I've had the above issue with sleep times since I can remember as a child) I'm used to running on empty.  Practicalities of living in the UK means I rarely get full opportunity to let my body do what it likes with sleep.  Whilst the theatre industry helped because start times are generally not 9am in the morning, there's inevitably something that needs doing, a chore I need to run, which I have to run before work during the day because at 1am when i finish a show those places aren't open.  I'm permanently tired.  And my body is used in a state of permanent sleep deprivation, to greater or lesser degrees as it varies throughout any given period of time.  I'll go out with friends and we'll be out all night and the next day they are wrecked.  And I'm tired, but I'll go shopping, I'll meet my parents for lunch, I'll go to work, I'll do all that, be up for 48h, and I will STILL not get to sleep until around 4am the next morning.  My body has stopped recognising sleep debt, tiredness, and sleep deprivation as indicators that something is wrong.  I can go to bed, and feel tired, but my body just won't sleep despite the fact it clearly needs to.  It's just desensitized to the normal factors and warning signs.

Occasionally, I get insomnia on top of all this.  My body stays up for around 3 days straight.  On the third day, I start to be notably sleep deprived.  Maintaining focus in a 1 on 1 conversation in a quiet room is difficult.  My muscles get a very specific type of ache that tells me they've been going for too long and my body's cannibalizing them for energy.  My body either can't eat and will only accept about 500kcal throughout the day, or it's desperate for energy because it's in overdrive so much with no rest, and I'll eat about 5000kcal to get me through the day.  What's concerning about this, is not the fact that it happens, it's the fact it happens regularly enough that I can highlight specific symptoms.

All this, means sleep is one hell of an issue for me.  I've ranted previously about how getting to sleep just doesn't work for me.  My brain simply won't ever shut off.  The thoughts in my head during the day just coalesce into more tangible dreams at night and continue going.  Staying asleep isn't too much of an issue for me thankfully.  Sure, I often wake up in the middle of the night, but I turn over and fall back asleep.  It's just my body doesn't go to sleep properly.  And I have severe trouble getting up.  I mean with enough determination and willpower (i.e. I have to go to work and get paid), I can just about do it, just like anyone can get up early when they really have to, but it's very obvious that my body doesn't start to ramp up the gears like most people do after waking up.  I have problems eating breakfast without causing horrific stomach cramps.  Which them means I'm low on blood sugar all morning making me even worse.  My mental processes obviously don't function properly.  I've lost count of the number of times I've almost been run over by a bus because it simply wasn't there as far as my brain was concerned.  It's not that I wasn't looking, or that it was in my blind spot, my optical processes just didn't process the existence of traffic on the road, or forgot that they move and didnt' factor in momentum accordingly.  Techies aren't designed for getting up in the morning, but we can do it, load-ins or events can require very early starts and you just get on and do it.  EVERYONE is tired.  It's why a good crew chief/production manager makes sure there is coffee around 10am. 

What techies as a whole are not good at, and bearing in mind all the above, what I'm really not good at, is 9-5hours.  Regularly getting up early and having to function and function well.  A few days, sure.  Even for 2 weeks straight in a mad run up to opening night of a production.  But day in, day out, no.

I'm currently averaging 3h52m sleep per night over the last 7 days and trying to do an office job.  It's not that I don't want to sleep.  It's not that I don't try.  I go to the gym for 2h each night till I'm EXHAUSTED so I make sure I get about 3.5-4h each night instead of 2-3h.  Tell me in what world that is sustainable.  And drugs aren't an option.  Sedatives have one of two effects on me: they make me tired, but not actually sleep, exacerbating the problem; or they have to be of such a strength that I'm either knocked out or feeling groggy for days.  Eventually after long enough I sort of pass out in a rather unexpected narcoleptic manner and sleep for between 36-48h.  The best I can do is hope and pray that with my current job, that falls on a Friday evening.

Being productive

I have a new job, and not enough work, so I guess it's time to start blogging again.  I can't say much about what my work is and any issues that are directly related due to fun secrecy and professional conduct agreements, but I can blog about the indirect things.

Basically the short version for those who don't know is I recently started a high flying job in a corporate environment, which is obviously fairly different to the theatre world

Things like how, I find it really really difficult to sit at a desk at work for 8h a day.  Don't get me wrong, I might do that at home playing games, watching tv or just sitting on twitter, being far less productive than any work day, but it's the sedentary part of working at this job that I'm struggling with.  Sitting at a desk, in front of a PC and on a telephone for 8h.  For the last 7/8 years, the kind of work I've been doing I might have been able to sit down, it might have required heavy use of IT systems, but there was never really just sitting there.  There was always something to check in elsewhere in a venue, someone to help with a costume, a cast member with a question, clearance to obtain, a 5 minute call to give, a standby for a cue.  When oping a show I might get the chance to sit down for it, but it's not just staring at a screen, it's a constant adjustment process.

The other problem is it's been a long time since the kind of work I've done has been 'work on x until complete'.  By which I mean, most theatre work comes in lots of little discrete chunks.  Help someone with a costume, prepare props, give calls, standby for cue.  Even the larger chunks break down into relatively small pieces.  It might take a good few hours to hang a piece of set off a fly bar, but that's broken down into things like rearrange set store/workshop for clear access, clear stage, bring set piece in, install fly hardware, clear stage, bring fly bar in, attach fly lines, take bar half out, load bar, walk set piece up the stage till it's upright, check bar loading, fly bar fully out, fly bar in, check alignment etc.  Even problems break down into little chunks.  The job I'm currently doing, chunks break down into: 'test system', which i could further break down into -> 'plan systems testing '-> do background reading -> read specific report.  Except that specific report is often hundreds of pages long.  And not easily locatable, and then requires a data access permission I don't have and need to request and wait until someone else approves it.

I'm the least experienced person in my team at my new job.  Which isn't a problem per se, but coming from a background which involves EVERYONE being very in control of their workload.  I always considered tech crew, whether theatre, film, events, whatever, somewhat similar to a military squad.  Experience and technical expertise will be taken into consideration, but you rely on everyone else on the team knowing more or less what needs doing, and how to do it, on picking up the next piece of work and getting on with it without needing to ask first, and being capable of doing that work to a high level without needing checking.  If you ask someone to rig a light, you more or less expect it to be done right, clamps tightened enough, safety chains, accessories installed as per the plan, and plugged up to the right channel/circuit. By and large, you don't have time to review and check everyone's work, you expect them to be able to do it, and get on with it, and move on to the next thing, they don't need to ask everytime they finish rigging a light, they just move onto the next one on the plan, and once that bar's done, you move on to the next bar, etc.  Events, film, tv, theatre, they all rely on having a skilled team of people who know what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and they all just get on with it relatively autonomously

I'm currently in a position where it's not easy to move around between the various tasks that make up the whole 'job'.  If I'm waiting on someone to give me access to a file, there's not a lot else I can be getting on with.  I don't know enough to know how or where to pick up other bits of work that other people might not have started on, and most work we havent started on in because we CANT.  As a team we're waiting on other people in other divisions etc.  It's like knowing a set piece needs to be rigged and flown, but the piece not having arrived at the venue yet.  Aside from the occasional chase, there's not a lot you can do.  And coming from a place where even if I've been just general crew, you have to be very in control and keep a good awareness of how everything fits into the big picture, which due to my lack of experience in my new role, is something I simply don't have the capability or understanding of yet.  I know it's by and large jsut new job teething problems, I know this kind of stuff will get better, or I'll get used to it, but for now it's making the transition for me, on a mental level, very difficult.  It's more or less the complete opposite of what I'm used to so na

Also, the last time I was working a corporate job, I had a boyfriend to email pointlessly during the day, keeping me occupied, helping boost my motivation and mood throughout the day, and generally making it look like I was doing work when I wasn't.

No such luck this time around...

Though as a boon, the graduate intake are back from college and in the office this week so there's lots of cute boys to check out.  Less cute girls unfortuantely.  But that might be because it's hard to rock a pant suit unless you're Hillary Clinton.  Still, cute boys in suits (alas sitting at the other end of the office to me, but the coffee machine is that way so...).

One (singular sensation...)

So.. Let's talk about the Xbox One.

There's all kinds of rants going on about the features announced about the Xbox One, so I figured the crowd isn't exactly going to get any louder in relative terms if I add my voice into the mix.

I'm actually a supporter of a lot of the things most people are bitching about.  And yes, I'll start by admitting I was never going to be a potential PS4 buyer.  I like Halo too much :P

The Xbox One is supposed to be part of the 'next-generation' of consoles.  It's a successor that builds on an established franchise, yes, but the entire point of the new consoles, especially with regards to the PS4 and Xbox One, is that they are supposed to be the flagships in what will be the next generation of consoles.  When you step up a generation, the point is that there's generally a leap, it's supposed to take a new approach and inevitably people gripe about it because we don't like change.  Remember the change from keypad mobiles to touchscreen keypads?  The sudden change (or even lack of) haptic feedback took a LOT of getting used to for a lot of us.

Microsoft has tried (and arguably failed) the 'next generation' trick recently, with Windows 8.  I admire them for what they set out to do: recognizing that we are moving into a world of tablets and touchscreens, the way we interact with a UI is evolving, at a seemingly increasingly rapid rate as technology grows in leaps and bounds and the commercial processes for putting that once-futuristic technology into every aspect of our life equally grows in great strides.  So they got rid of the Start button, a mainstay of Windows for decades.  Everyone knows, that everything, sooner or later, can be found from the Start menu.  And that was the problem.  When they removed the Start button, no-one had any idea how to access things that weren't already there on the screen in Windows 8.  How do I change the settings, how do I change the layout, the background, what if I want to  run a program I don't use very often, how do I bring up the system specs etc. Windows 8 has a lot of issues, but to me, that was the biggest issue with the Start function.  Not that they got rid of it, but that Windows as a UI had been built around the Start button for so long, it wasn't obvious to anyone how to use a version that did away with it, and people are generally pretty impatient in terms of how long they're willing to persevere with non-intuitive technology.  Removing the Start button was supposed to signify a total rethink about how users interacted with the Windows system and the technology it drives.  It failed, but I admire the idea behind it.

That's kind of where I stand on the Xbox One.  I think what the Xbox One is trying to do is exactly what should be expected of a next generation console.  Think of the 'futuristic' media and entertainment technology  we're all familiar with from every 80's sci-fi movie.  And even more recent stuff like Minority Report or <...>.  It shows a world that is completely connected, in every way.  The media we have on our computers connects with our TV, connects with our phone, connects with us out and about.  It updates, adapting and adjusting for local weather, traffic, whatever.  We envisaged this as the way technology would work in the future 3 decades ago and more.  And this is very much the end goal technology has looked to over the last few years, driving the smartphone revolution, phablets, the iCloud, Windows Media Center, Skype phones as effective land-lines, you name it.

Well, with that said, how in the hell did you think all this future tech was gonna happen?!
Of course the Xbox One is permanently connected to the internet; of course it requires an input system that relies not just on predetermined button presses, but can learn to read your movements and understand your voice; of course it's designed with the idea it will integrate with your other technology in a way that is so ubiquitous it seems almost invasive to us (though arguably, Apple has been ahead of the curve on this one for years, though equally, it has less hurdles to overcome).  As I said, this is exactly what I think should be expected of a console that is supposed to be indicative of the "next generation" of console technology.  Consoles aren't gaming stations anymore.  They're not glorified DVD players.  They're not something to keep the kids occupied that isn't as expensive as a PC or a Mac.  And we don't expect to be constrained by formats anymore.  Multiplayer gamers want to play with their friends whether they have an Xbox, a Playstation, a Mac, Windows or Linux.  We want the same list of friends and contacts as we have in our email clients, phones, skype lists etc.  With the same ability to separate and divide according to privacy.  It's what we expect more and more out of our technology, but the underlying things that allow that to happen, that drive that, that will give us our hoverboards and our lightsabers and auto-drive cars, we're going to kick up a huge fuss about.

That's not to say I'm oblivious to the shortcomings of the Xbox One.  All that future tech, the ubiquity I mentioned earlier, we ARE a little uncomfortable with all of that.  We don't want people video calling us on toilet walls, or asking us how that pair of crotchless panties is working out for us, or getting fired by a message sent to our home during dinner one evening.  The PRISM scandal is all too topical and indicative of a 1984 society in which our every feeling, thought, and action is monitored, not by the CCTV used to deter crime or obvious designated systems, but by everything's in our daily lives; our chats to grandma over the phone, our weekly shopping & travel habits via rewards cards and credit histories, the social groups we move in - we're simply not comfortable having all this monitored so overtly just yet.

The Xbox One can, and should offer a lot to those who want to (and can) be connected 24/7 - the prospect for evolving gaming worlds could herald a new era of MMORPG developers who I'm sure would be all too happy to find a way to reignite their continually declining revenue streams.  But I fully agree that requiring a connection every 24 hours is going to push people away from it.  There's a strong contingent of people out there who avoid Ubisoft and EA games precisely because they require a constant connection.  And for some people this is simply too onerous a requirement.  My parents have broadband, but they live in the country, it's shitty broadband, it cuts out, it drags like a dog in bad weather, it's never gonna cope with a 24/7 online streaming demands.  They easily could have implemented a system that would have required an online connection only once every 30 days - which seems to be the current market-acceptable time interval for compulsory syncing services - leaving decisions of 24/7 connectivity to game and app developers.  Even streaming services - which by their nature demand a constant connection - are increasingly finding ways to allow "offline streaming" by downloading a TV show or movie at a time.  People still want, and expect, the option to play their games on a rainy day, when they're cut off from the world.  Everyone's internet goes down and we all know it usually takes a good 2 weeks till the company gets it up and running properly again, so 30 days seems adequate.

The Kinect sensor is a mandatory piece of kit for the Xbox One, and again, it arguably needn't be.  You can have the option of it adding a whole range of extra content, and new ways of interacting with the console and all it's media, but why is it necessary?  And there's no backwards compatibility, which is always going to be an issue, and is just dumb on a lot of levels, but then that's going to be a growing problem in the next few years as the internal architecture of computing components, and how technology works at its underlying fundamental levels (as in more underlying and fundamental than the programming language) goes through a complete overhaul.  But I still agree that backwards compatibility is a huge issue at the end of the day.  And then of course there's the US/EU & UK pricing.  Now I fully concede I'm somewhat desensitized to the habit of just changing a $ sign to a £/€ and making a tidy profit on the extra mark-up due to too much US travel, but in an increasingly global world, making an extra $100 or so off people just because they live in Germany simply doesn't fly.  People are monumentally stupid.  But when you actually say "we think you're stupid" to them, angry (consumer) mobs tend to be surprisingly effective at voicing their anger one way or another.

The Xbox One has a lot of problems.  I really like what it's trying to do.  I don't think it will work, and I am counting down the days until Microsoft makes a backtrack on the internet connectivity issue.  It's a shame, but I don't think consumers are willing to accept the 'restrictions' of an Xbox One system just yet.  Not in a "they'll grumble but eventually get used to it" way, I really don't think the market is at that point where it will accept these things as inherent requirements yet.  But then the problem is, isn't an Xbox One without all the things that people are currently throwing up a huge fuss about just an Xbox 360 with some faster processors in it?  Where's the next generation in that?


EDIT:  Penny Arcade's comic today sums this up beautifully: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/06/17

By tomorrow morning I'll have this thing beat.

Points for reference.


My mind is currently in a very specific haze where it loses all ability to process any higher level thoughts.  Not because those thoughts are too trying or oppressive or anything, it just loses the ability to do it.  Like trying to do complex tasks when you're drunk for example (though actually, i'm pretty competent at that particular skill).

This haze only comes about in certain circumstances - basically when my brain effectively completely shuts down without warning and reboots itself.  It takes a good few days to get itself back to fully functional each time.  When I'm less crazy, this is usually characterized by my body without warning or indication crashing out for 18 - 36 hours at a time, usually causing me to miss work without notifying them which as you can imagine is all kinds of fun to explain afterwards.

Unfortunately, I'm beyond batshit crazy these days.  Crashing out still forms a part of the circumstances, but this particular instance was also characterized by a 3 hour memory blank in my head.  It's a memory blank that feels very much different to the block of absence of awareness you get from sleep.  I can't remember anything from 3pm - 6pm today.  I appear to have tweeted during that time, so I was obviously awake.  To be honest I can't remember anything until 11.30pm.  But there's a good block of a few hours that definitely does feel like the absence of awareness that happens during sleep I mentioned above.  And my activities I can track using computer logs dry up around 5.30pm, so I'm guessing not long after I crashed out.  I remember being at my friends house at 2.30pm, hence why I've managed to pin down the memory blank down to 3pm - 6pm.

I've managed to work out a few things about my mindset during these hours.  I was clearly going very very crazy inside my head.  The sort of crazy that makes me curl up as tight as possible it hurts so much.  The sort of crazy that leaves me crying, as I have done at several points in the last 4 days.  My ability to deal with reality completely broke down, and when this happens I know what the safest place my mind considers is.  A small, warm, dark place.  The smaller, and more minimalist the space, the better.  So I will curl myself up into a tight ball, pressed up against a wall so hard it hurts my back.  Or under a desk space.  Or bathrooms.  Bathrooms are generally the smallest and least furnished rooms in a house.  Often with no natural light sources especially if you live in a city.  And they have a lock on them.  I can shut the world out and not let anything in I don't want to deal with.   I find the dark comforting too.  Most people don't, but what I don't see, I don't have to accept as part of my reality.  The darkness helps to delineate a firm boundary wherein I define my reality.  The darker the better.  Pitch black so you can't see your hand in front of your face.  And I have exceptionally good night vision so this requires blocking out practically all light that could possibly enter the space.  The place I create for myself is small and defensible.  It has virtually nothing beyond myself in it, and so nothing else that I need to deal with on any level.  Within this space there are no distractions from just me, myself and I, so I can fully devote myself to fighting the monsters that rage inside my head.  Chris could attest to this, he's seen me scramble across the room in fear driving myself into the smallest possible space in a bid to feel safe when my crazy has been in full overdrive.  It terrified the crap out of him.

At least that's how it's supposed to work in theory.  Except the problem is, when I'm that crazy, my ability to comprehend and process reality has become so dysfunctional, that I have to reduce my concept of reality to this artificial, practically non-existent state, so equally, my ability to deal with the thoughts in my head, even then, is still so poor that eventually my head just BSOD's, and I crash out wherever I happen to be,

Which is how I came to find myself, at 11.30pm tonight, on the floor in the corner of my bedroom up against the door, the lights switched off, and the door firmly locked (luckily for occasions like this, my bedroom has a lock on it, so I didn't end up commandeering the bathroom for the entire evening mysteriously), my head in a haze that immediately told me it wasn't working properly, and a distinct feeling that some of the missing time that had passed was not just because I was unconscious.  Given this was a Monday night, I was supposed to be running Exalted, which means that the front door (which my bedroom is right next to) was opened and shut at least 5 or so times, my phone rang, people probably knocked on my door; when I crash, I really crash, and not even the fires of hell will wake me (seriously I've slept through neighbours' houses in the same block being on fire, engines outside with sirens blaring, firemen all over my house checking for damage etc).  I did not notice a thing.

Worst of all in all this, the random memory blanks I'd been having for about 2 months up until 4 weeks ago had pretty much stopped.  It was one of the few improvements in my crazy recently.  Then again, maybe not so improved.

This also took me 1h36 minutes to write.  Writing is HARD when your thought processes simply don't aren't operating.

In Conversation With.... Myself

I'm watching '3 Day Weekend' which is one of those trashy TLA gay releasing movies, and this is the conversation I have with myself about the film's plot:

 This is clearly a movie about people and their sexual hang-ups.  I'm gonna get annoyed aren't I

 My issue isn't so much GET OVER IT PEOPLE (though that too), its more BE FUCKING HONEST ALREADY.  You don't like something, or you're not comfortable with a situation, say so for god's sakes, it's fix SO MANY relationship issues

 See and now, because you waited till your boyfriend was gone to sleep with the other guy, it looks like you're sneaking around and now he's obviously gonna walk in on you both early and throw a hissy and you just shoulda all had a threesome and got it over with.

I should never, ever be allowed to be in any kind of position that requires me to give relationship and/or sex advice to people.  It'd end OH SO BADLY.  Like lawsuit-badly.

EDIT:  Turns out when the guy got back they did actually have a threesome, he then kicked his partner out of bed and stayed fucking the third wheel as revenge sex.  And then they broke up.  Go figure.