Sunday, October 14, 2012

A Very Art-full Day

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Saturday began with a trip to Wordstock.

Before I get into today's events, I want to take a little side trip to tell you how I ended up there. Or, how I ended up there as I did, today. Which was not how it all began.

I originally held the day to attend Wordstock. I knew I'd be working on Sunday, because I almost always work Sunday late afternoon into the evening. So, Saturday it would be. So, nothing scheduled for the day. Then along came an email from the Portland NaNoWriMo ML (Municpal Liason, for those not up on NaNoWriMo lingo). She announced that the Salem group and the Portland group were going to go in together on a booth at Wordstock and needed volunteers.

Hey, I thought. Sure. Why not? I'm going anyway! So I signed up. I was the second or third person to sign up, so I got to pick my time slot - the only slots filled were ones I couldn't (or wouldn't) do anyway.

Time passed. Then came an announcement that the NaNogroup didn't have enough money so they couldn't have a booth. I was disappointed, but I'd already received two other emails asking if I'd volunteer for two other writing groups I have association with. I looked at one and decided I'd rather just go as a participant. Then the second group, which was Write Around Portland, asked me if I could volunteer.

If you've been following my blog for any length of time, I'm sure you've noticed Write Around Portland crop up more than once. I love Write Around Portland and everything they do. So I looked at the schedule of what they needed and picked my top two and replied, "yes!"

I had a sign-through rehearsal for the play I'm interpreting next week, so I selected times which would be within the vicinity of that, time-wise. With enough time to meet up with my interpreting teammate and our sign coach before the play started.

All was going great. I got my first choice of volunteer slots.

Then a couple or so days ago I received a request for interpreting work at Wordstock. I jumped at that call, though I'm trying, as much as possible, to not to work on Saturdays. But to interpret at Wordstock? Yes. You bet I wanted to do that and I got the job. That was scheduled to end an hour before my Write Around Portland volunteer shift started, so it was perfect. The author was a joy to work with and I enjoyed meeting her, hearing parts of her book and about her process; and I have a copy of her book to read.

It was a perfect day.

Interpreting at Wordstock and meeting a very nice author/stand-up comic/publicist from NYC. Then having an hour to wander and look around, buy a couple of books, pick up brochures and information. Volunteering two hours with another personable and nice to share space with volunteer for my favorite non-profit. Followed by a couple of hours for dinner and going over the script, discussion with our sign coach. And then our sign-through for the play at Portland Center Stage. Or our sign-through of Act One because in Act Two our headsets weren't working correctly and we finally gave up after about 30 minutes of struggling to be able to hear. But it's okay - Act One is the most challenging due to pace and density of information.

So I guess that's my story. A very art-full day of literature, interpreting about literature, meeting people, and being at the theater.

A good day.
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