yeah, this tells you just how fascinating, exciting and action-packed my life is. sitting here all alone writing on a saturday night.
at least i like writing. i’m at amy and jim’s right now, where the dogs are being very quiet, which probably means that they’re chewing something valuable into little bitty pieces. when i got here, they’d chewed the end off the handle of a 1/3 c. measuring cup. 1/3 cup measuring cups are very important for cooking. i don’t know why all one cup measuring cups don’t have 1/3 cup marked on them. a grevious oversight.
so, where was i last time? well, i did go to a REALLY FUN party last night! how about that! i wish i didn’t have to use exclamation points so much, but sometimes i REALLY NEED THEM.
!
this is what i copied down from my playwriting book: “people and characters are not very interesting once the mystery is gone.”
this worries me. please let me know if i’m not interesting to you anymore. actually, today i was thinking again about the VERY MANY THINGS i’d like to write on here, but i don’t because of the self-censoring. christine says it’s good that i do some censoring once in a while.
by the way, she went to a great deal of trouble to bring back all my archived months. thanks for that. now you can read ALL of the writing on here, if you really want to.
i think perhaps i was happier when i started this. some turbulent times, but i sure do think i was pretty darn happy in april, in may, in june…
oh well. i went to a fun party last night. the thing is, i’ve probably written this before, i used to hate parties because i NEVER EVER TALKED TO ANYBODY, and then i got ok with parties, but sometimes i clam up, and sometimes i find everything and everybody incredibly dull.
but last night…last night was really nice. an ideal setting, a good night all around.
it was a cast reunion for “paint your wagon.” kate and don and i drove in kate’s very lovely and fancy new white minivan. it’s a town and country, by the way. see kate, i WAS paying attention. it has everything remote on it, including the back hatch. DON’T TRY TO OPEN THE DOOR BY YOURSELF, said kate, when i tried to do just that. YOU HAVE TO USE THE REMOTE OR IT GETS MESSED UP.
i’m not sure what would happen if you tried to manually lift the back hatch. would it fall off? surely not. i was very careful not to even get near the back hatch after that. i’d hate to be responsible for rendering the van inoperable and without a back hatch.
i asked if i needed to get my map and directions out of my car to take with us, but don said he’d been to the house before, and kate was sure of where we were going. but then we were driving down some road and there was a great deal of confusion, and we weren’t going where kate thought we were going. so we went to pleasant plains, and then we went down a very very very long country road. “are you sure this is the way?” i asked don. “oh yes, this is it,” he said. “you mean it had cornfields and a white gravel road like this?” “yep.” kate and i were both a little doubtful, and we kept driving and driving…
and then there it was. ! a beautiful home out in the cornfield wilderness. the party was outside, which is the best kind of party, in my opinion. gary, the incredibly dedicated prop man and also stage manager and he also probably did a bunch of other things in the show but i don’t know what they are, made dvd’s of the show, and we watched it.
the party was at brian’s house; i never talked about brian when writing about the show so you won’t know anything about him unless you were actually in the show and know who i mean. he has a lovely house and i announced that i wanted to move in, but i didn’t actually have the nerve to mention this to brian himself, nor to his lovely and gracious wife. anyway, brian’s brother in law has a video projector, and so we got to see a HUGE movie-like version of the show on the side of brian’s barn. very cool.
brian is a farmer, did i mention that? corn and all. i didn’t see any livestock, although there were two enormous friendly dogs, one named lilly may. he wanted to name her ellie may, except that was her mother’s name and he couldn’t name the dog ellie may or he’d have to name her ellie may the second which does sound a little silly, doesn’t it? they also had a few very sweet little kitties.
many of the people from the play were in attendance, and it was just fun. it was fun sitting in the driveway watching the movie, it was fun chatting, it was a nice time. a good time was had by all.
i wish i’d taken my camera to the party, because of dave’s car. dave is this guy in the play who is a little bit different. he’s funny, and i remember him telling me some crazy stories involving people running from the law appearing at his house and lots of cop cars and stuff and a particularly amusing tale about his wedding reception where there was also a fugitive somehow involved. he’s divorced now; i wonder what his wife was like and why it didn’t work out. because nothing does? well, sometimes thing do work out, but rarely.
anyway, dave has this car that he built himself. it’s not exactly a car; it’s half car, half motorcycle. the front half is a convertible bug, i think, and the back half is a motorcycle. i really wanted a ride in it, but i felt it would be rude to demand a ride right there during the party. (but i felt fine saying i wanted to move into the lovely house?) maybe he’ll give me a ride some time.
when we drove home, rob, who we somehow picked up during the party and took him home with us, said they have cars like this somewhere. i’m not clear on where they have these kinds of things, but i’ve certainly never seen one.
I told dave he should start making these cars because they get 60 miles to the gallon, but he’s not interested, he just likes trying new things. he described his newest vehicle to me, but he kind of lost me – all i remember is that it’s a really long motorcycle/car. hmm.
after the movie, brian brought in a big elaborate karaoke machine. i mean, a guy in a TRUCK brought the karaoke machine, if that gives you any idea of the elaborateness of it. if i can’t move in, maybe i can somehow at least get invited to parties at brian’s house.
i didn’t karaoke, because i don’t karaoke, but erica sang “these boots are made for walkin,” which was utterly delightful. she included a few moves from our can-can during the musical interludes, which was quite nice. the funny thing about erica is that she’s so very very shy and polite, but then she’ll get up and sing “these boots are made for walkin.”
perhaps someday i would try karaoke if i had any idea of how to find any notes at all. because it seems to me that when a person sings a karaoke song, all they get is all the instrumental stuff, and they just pick the notes out of the air.
that’s something i cannot do at all.
some people say it’s good to sing a song you know by heart, but i can’t think of any songs i know
by heart. i mean, i do know some songs by heart, but i certainly can’t sing them in tune at all.
i stayed at the party much longer than anticipated, and when i got home, i was too tired to even think about writing, or reading, or anything except sleeping.
i had many specific things to accomplish today, and somehow i did manage to do most of them, except i’ve been kind of surly and tired all day (gee, how unusual). I read “a doll’s house,” not exactly light reading, but i do like reading plays. i want to read some contemporary comedies, though. at the party i kept asking people to name some contemporary comedies, things that have been made in the past 10 years or so, but nobody could come up with anything.
gil, who played an englishman in the “paint” and was a russian in “you can’t take it with you” and is such a kid at heart, is going to direct a play at his school. i’m going to go see it. he told me the date, but i can’t remember it, but i do look forward to seeing it.
tonight i listened to the symphony doing pops in the douglas park, even though i wasn’t going to go because i was SO TIRED AND CRABBY, but at the very last minute when driving down the road i finally decided maybe it would be a good thing to listen to some music. and it was. kate said she was going, but i didn’t see her there. but pops and cookies, what could be better?
well, all the stars in the sky last night at that party, for one thing. maybe i’ll buy a house in the country. i want to see all those stars all the time, not just when camping. i could go outside in the backyard and look for some right now, and i bet you can see a few here, but i would immediately be EATEN ALIVE BY MOSQUITOS.
there were many mosquitos camping, but amy and jim have more mosquitos than anybody.
i need to watch some more coverage of the disaster. at least today i guess they finally managed to figure out how to GIVE THE POOR PEOPLE SOME FOOD AND WATER.
the dogs are barking like crazy now, i’d better pacify them before all is chaos.
i hope the remainder of your holiday is very good and fun and relaxing and all of that.
ok then,
grace with many ideas.