If it's Labor Day, why aren't we working? Greenbelt is not an old company town (it's an old government town), yet for some reason Labor Day is the biggest holiday around. Maybe it's leftover New Deal socialism. Anyway, there's a three-day festival going on this weekend, down at the town center, and we're close enough (and they're loud enough) to hear Every Last Thing. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't so temperate all of a sudden. It's too cool to not open the windows.

At least the bands are good. There's also a film festival featuring members of GATE (Greenbelt Access Television) at the movie theater, which I really should go to. But I am told I'm too tired. And the source that says this is probably right.

(She was also looking over my shoulder as I wrote that, so you can use your judgement about the truth.)

Ha! I am such the happy camper! Mac OS X is installed and iCab works with Blogger now! Woo hoo! No more using the evil giant ugly browsers! (Though I admit I did like Mozilla, it was just a little buggy under OS 9.)

That is all. Peace be with you and we shall return to our regular storytelling soon.

This is a Mac OS X and iCab test.

Squelchbits.

Moving on up to Mac OS X 10.2 soon. I just finished backing up the hard drive and now I have to re-partition it (alert readers will recall that I split the drive in order to use Darwin, which, now that I have OS X proper, is no longer needed). Wish me luck.

I have a lot to write about. But I'm not in the mood. How ungrateful is that? Okay, here goes.

My brother C---s is a really good songwriter. I finally heard his (former) band's latest CD, for which he wrote two songs. They're fantastic. I had no idea.

Speaking of songs, the Gonnas went a little crazy the other day and bought a new bass guitar, a gorgeous five-string Cort, and a bass amp to boot. Rex did the major payment and bought himself an acoustic guitar, no less. I love used music stores. That is, stores that sell used musical instruments, not music stores that have been used, which makes me think of a music store that's left alone the morning after a one-night stand with the 7-Eleven from the wrong side of town. Ahem.

K and I are struggling from day to day to keep our sanity. D's jealousy just seems to get worse and worse. Screams and temper tantrums and hitting, oh my! These kids today, I tell ya.

Well, there it is. See you next time. And I'm sorry I missed you yesterday. I hope you'll forgive me.

A lesson for Ashcroft. For those who were wondering: I did indeed make it onto a jury. It was a criminal case. A gentleman (a 20 year old kid, really) was accused of: possession of cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession of marijuana, and (this is the one I wanted to put him away for) failure to stop at a stop sign.

It really all came down to two things: the accused is innocent until proven guilty, and guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. So, in this particular case, though on the face of it the evidence meant the guy was probably guilty of the cocaine charges, the simple fact was that there was no corroboration of this evidence--basically it was just "he said, she said"--and the state had the burden of proof, which they didn't meet. So, Not Guilty. We did find him guilty of the Mary Jane and the stop sign.

I have a clear conscience. We ruled on the evidence and on the evidence alone, not on our sympathies or conspiracy theories or hatred of cops or whatever. We did what we were supposed to do with a minimum of fuss.

It was actually a good experience. I'd do it again, despite the splitting headache it gave me. Besides, the courthouse cafeteria had great french fries.

Multiple choice. The reason I'm not blogging today is best expressed by which of the following aphorisms?

A) All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

B) Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

C) Fatherhood and jury duty, when mixed, produce exhaustion and a splitting headache.

DO NOT MOVE ON TO THE NEXT SECTION UNTIL YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO DO SO.

The first two sentences are sincere.

I have fallen in love with my daughter.

She has such big, beautiful blue eyes, and she gazes at me with such longing that my heart just jumps.

She has a wonderful singing voice, too. She's very proud of it, I think, since she uses it all day long. We hear her sing after her nap, before her meals, during her bath...

D, our son, also appreciates E's singing voice. More often than not, they duet, usually in the afternoon when we all need a lullaby. They don't know any lullabys yet, of course, but you can't have everything.

Tomorrow I have jury duty (true!) and I can just picture what I'll say to the judge:

Squelch: Your Honor, I'm the primary caregiver to a three year old boy and a three week old girl. They rely on my wife and me for all their needs. I have not had a full night's sleep all month.

Judge: I see. So you're asking to be excused?

Squelch: Er, no, Your Honor. I'm asking to be sequestered.

Copyright Hormel Foods. My inbox is finally starting to get cluttered with spam. It's been so sparse lately. I can only figure it has something to do with the fact that a Blog of Note has linked to me recently. So I'll now be adding the spam-killer thing to my email address on these pages. Get rid of the "REMOVETHIS!!!" and then mail me.

Still, it's so nice to be wanted by people who wonder if I like music (and have recommendations if I do) and need help with their father's money in Nigeria. Almost makes it worthwhile.

Zzzzzz...

I'm tired, but I'm not depressed. This is disturbing. I thought I had it all worked out: early to rise, late to bed, makes Squelch a dull boy. But tonight is an exception. I wonder why. I dare not hope that I'm actually cured or anything. No, no, no... I'm a Depressed Person. Even if I happen to be happy at the moment. I am happy. Really. See my big, bright smile?

Actually, today was really good. My mom and stepfather visited, and D, faced with YET ANOTHER day where people gave him presents, was as cute as a button. E was asleep as a button. There must be another simile to be had there, but I can't think of it because.... wait for it.... I'm too tired! There, now I've done a nice recapitulation, which is de rigeur if you want to appear as though you've told a story but haven't really. Mark that down in your notes, kids.

"You know, I'd love to attend, but I have this anal probe that I'm really looking forward to." Well, today was D's birthday party (though his birthday was the 20th), and here's a fun fact for the super-chic: being fashionably late isn't just for adult parties anymore. Our first guests appeared an hour late. The party ran an hour late, too, so the time we had expected to use for recovery was cut in half. E did sleep, thank goodness, but man! were we all beat by the end of it.

The first arrivals were, in fact, a family who occasionally babysat for D, so when he saw them, he grabbed hold of my leg and screamed bloody murder, which is a great way to get a party started, of course. I guess he thought we were leaving him with them, but I rather like K's theory, that he thought they came from the hospital and were staying, just like E.

It was the first birthday party to which we exclusively invited kids, although in practice the parents stayed as well. (Previous parties were family, friends, everyone and anyone, you know, the usual new-parent crap.) Thank goodness the parents came; they're all good friends of ours, and since we only invited a few, we actually got to talk to people for a change. Our house is so small that even a mid-range number of people renders a party complete chaos. (Yes, complete chaos is good in college. But for a bunch of toddlers, chaos is a given even without a party.)

D's BIG PRESENT was a tricycle, and naturally he had no interest in it at first, despite the big drum-roll lead in. He may have been confused because when I dragged the trike out of the closet, the new vacuum cleaner came with it, and he worships the vacuum cleaner on high. So maybe the trike was just a letdown.

I had a wee panic attack when the party ended. I couldn't eat dinner when K left the table to feed E. I felt lost and confused, like I needed her to anchor me and help me decide whether to eat the leftover fish or the leftover rice. Eventually, in my addled state, I sat on the couch, and when my head lolled forward and I lost consciousness, K patiently suggested that I put down my Sprite and go upstairs and nap. I did. She tells me I only napped for twenty minutes before she called me to help D with his bath, but I think she's lying. I think it's Sunday already.

Memoirs, like the corners of my bookcase. Well, my little experiment in memoir paid off nicely, I think. In fact, it's already garnered a Google hit (someone was searching for Jerry Finnegan's Sister). More importantly, I really enjoyed serializing a memory. Maybe I'll do it again sometime. I must have a wealth of stories by now... right? And if not, I could just make 'em up or steal someone else's.

Editing the future, cutting the past. So, being a fan of both H.G. Wells and Guy Pearce, and always looking for a good bad movie, I rented The Time Machine at the local video store. You know what? It wasn't quite as bad as its reputation. Don't get me wrong; it probably deserved to sink like a stone when it was released. But the design was actually quite good, and Jeremy Irons wasn't as embarassing as he could have been. And hey, what's a convoluted story with no second act among friends?

You know, though, one thing to say for it, it was short. So many action films are bloated to over two hours these days, but this one was a trim 92 minutes. Which makes it all the odder that they made such an awful editing decision.

You see, if you rent the DVD, you should check out the "Deleted Scene." It's a nice little character moment, but more importantly, it introduces a theme that pays off at the denouement. The ending would have been much more powerful had they left the scene in. I don't get it. They didn't need to cut any minutes out of it. Maybe it was a pacing decision, but still... I wouldn't have done it.

Betcha my version woulda been a hit, too.

Edit: I just read the IMDB user comments on the film... the one that popped up claimed to be a "big fan" of the original; turns out he meant the "original" movie from 1960, not the book! He thought it was just a remake. Idiot...

Here endeth the lesson. Well, what did I know? Like most performing arts majors, I knew a lot about performing and not much else. Well, how could that be used? Well, maybe Red performs at a cabaret club at nights... mmm, don't think so. Wait! What about the wolf? Maybe he was a performer... yeah, after all, he dresses up in costume, doesn't he? Yes, and, and... what if Grandpa (Grandma's hubby would take the place of the deus ex woodsman) was a talent agent?

BAM! It all spilled out. The Wolf was trying desperately to get a job. He was a bad comedian, but he had heart. He met Red on the path, ran ahead, then, with much comedy, ate Grandma. (Lights dim, Bach's Toccata, loud.) Then, after some witty repartee, ate Red. (Ditto.) Then, Grandpa comes home, finds a very fat wolf, and the wolf eats him. (Ditto, but the lights come back up...) Or does he? Grandpa's still there, cowering in a corner.

Grandpa: You didn't eat me?
Wolf: No... but I made you think I would, right?

Ah ha! The wolf is a good actor after all! But where are Red and Grandma? "They're in the closet," says the wolf (and Brent had just the right sheepish tone for this line). They're safe and sound, the wolves' fat is revealed to be just pillows, and, WOWED by the performance, Grandpa gives the wolf a job.

We liked it, or at least I did. And even when it had the dubious distinction of the smallest audience we ever played (one person), Brent (the wolf), Kathleen (Red), Mike (Grandpa), and Miranda (Grandma) did a bang-up job with it.

No, it's not Hamlet. But I still like it, and I think it would make a great children's book. Hmm...

Continued from the last memoir. The three shows were to be Stone Soup, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Princess and the Pea. There was--briefly--a coup attempt, born of fear that I wouldn't deliver, which attempted to install a regime of Jack and the Beanstalk, in which some of us had acted recently at another theater. However, once I found out about this, I pointed out that we didn't have the effects and stage space to pull that particular adaptation off. But I also pointed out that I didn't have a clue how to dramatize The Princess and the Pea, so my ego would not be crushed if we simply did two kids' shows instead of three. Upon re-working the schedule, this actually came out better.

Stone Soup was going to be a musical, and as such, I started on it much earlier. It was probably a little too talky, but man! did I enjoy stretching this little French folk tale out into a half-hour play. I spent a lot of time polishing the dialogue, writing the songs, coaching the actors (myself included), most of whom played multiple parts. But it was solid, especially thanks to the prop goddesses (I can't remember who was in charge--I think Miranda) who found all the plastic food.

Then came Little Red Riding Hood. We were due to start working on it once our other shows were up (we were doing rotating repertory--four shows a week, a different show each night--and Red was the last one to enter the schedule). As I recall, the day before rehearsal was due to start, I hadn't started the script. I knew the story, of course, and the moral (stay on the path!) and I knew I didn't want to have a deus ex machina woodsman kill the wolf at the end.

So what the hell do I do instead? I thought to myself, as the Northern Lights shone onto our cabin and my candle swiftly ran out of wax.

And then it came to me, the advice every creative writing teacher gives, advice which I've always thought was claptrap, but in this case was exactly what I needed:

"Write what you know."

... to be continued--nay, concluded!--in the next entry...

But first, a word from our sponsor. Happy Birthday, D! He's three years and one hour old as I write this entry. His party is Saturday. Come on by!

Continued from below. This, of course, weighed heavily on me, so much so that at one point I walked out. I thought it was the usual "personal and creative differences," but in truth it was probably just fear of what lay ahead of me (at that moment, nothing). They graciously took me back, and I eventually got a job as an apprentice electrician at Syracuse Stage. Doing nothing would have been preferable to that experience, but that's another story.

We did four adult shows (California Suite by Neil Simon, Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet, Jerry Finnegan's Sister by Jack Neary, and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams). I designed scenery for three of them, acted in two of them, and directed one. Our entire scenery budget was $300, but we manged to do something stylish, and while my portrayal of Tom in Menagerie would not rank with the great performances of the twentieth century, I think we all put on a great show, especially for seven bucks a ticket, which at the time was slightly less than most movie theaters charged per ticket, even in Maine.

We begged, borrowed, and stole to get by. On one memorable occasion, Brent talked the resort owner into serving us a free dinner. We made a (very) little money and had a lot of fun.

We also decided to do three children's shows, and assigned them to Theater-on-the-Pond's Playwright-in-Residence... me.

... to be continued in the next entry...

Young and stupid... isn't it great?

The other night, by a tortured series of references, I got to thinking about Theater-on-the-Pond, a tiny theater company I worked for right after college. The tortured series of references was as such: I said, "Hello, little girl" whilst holding E, which made me think of the number "Hello, Little Girl" from Into the Woods, which is sung between Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, which made me think of the adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood that I wrote for, you guessed it, Theater-on-the-Pond.

Saying that I "worked for" ToP (as we called it) is misleading. More accurate might be to say that I helped found it, except that it had technically started the year before (and didn't exist the year after). It was up at a resort in Maine, Embden Lake Resorts, so for the whole summer we had a built-in clientele, even though we had almost no support from the resort itself. Case in point: I wrote the play (as well as the other children's show we did, Stone Soup) by candlelight, in a unfurnished, un-electrified, un-watered cabin that we all shared for half the summer. (The second half, we shamed the owner into letting us have an unused cabin that had a stove and a shower.) Those were the days... all of us acting, directing, building sets, with the threat of scandalous sex always around the corner. (As far as I know, it never happened... at least not to me, anyway.)

There were six of us--Brent, Julie, Mike, Miranda, Kathleen, and me. I was the only one who had just graduated; the rest of 'em all had a place to go the following year.

...to be continued in the next entry...

The vacuum cleaner is dead, long live the vacuum cleaner. Not to mention the new lamp, too.

Go, Johnny, go. Today is my first rehearsal with my brand spankin' new guitar. I'm sure, now that I've spent a lot of money on it, I'll be a much better guitarist. That's how it works, isn't it?

Well, rather than writing something original, which is difficult to do with one typing hand (E being in the other, and crying at that) I thought I'd pass on a reference. Mr. Nosuch, though I vehemently disagree with his taste in movies, it would seem, has nonetheless been on a roll with other topics. I suppose getting engaged and a puppy at the same time would do that to you. And not to be outdone, a proposal on the Empire State Building, no less. Best wishes to him and his love. Check it out, it's worth a read (even without the whips and chains).

Meanwhile, my daughter's makin' eyes at me (blush!). So away I go....

And now our vacuum cleaner is dead. Funeral services will be held tomorrow. In lieu of flowers, the bereaved request you give a donation to the Old Dustbusters' Home.