Books

There are several things I want and need to read right now:
1. The Chronicles of Narnia that I bought for my small daughter and the rest of us. Sure, it may be because the movie is coming out, or not, but who cares?
2. A Wrinkle in Time, because I remember it as much as Narnia.
3. Marilyn Manon's biography, because he's brilliant.
4. The last half of Wicked since I've yet to finish it, and love Elphie.
5. Egger's Non-required American Reader, just because.
6. My own novel, which needs to be edited.

Black Friday

Last year my friends got me shopping on Black Friday to the point where this year we anticipated this day! Then we waited forever for the ADs and even Target said they wouldn't put out the ADs until Friday. Of course the lady didn't know what she was talking about! We were at Best Buy by 5:00AM and shopped until about 10:30PM that night on and off. We were at Target three times! :) We also bought a ton of things for several different people. I enjoy Black Tuesday shopping but walked in with less ideas of what to buy people, so I got a bunch of stuff we wanted/needed at home.

Dad & Mum

This is an excerpt of an email my mother sent me today:

" So how 'bout we got all this snow???? Boy.... This is how it was the Thanksgiving I met Dad....went with our friend Beth to pick him up at the airport and to meet him...had talked on the phone at her house once or twice. We woke up and there was alllllll this snow! Actually way more than this....it was something like 2 foot, as I recall. We were so late getting there, as a result. He was drinking while he waited for us. I looked all spiffy in my black turtleneck, boots and herringbone pants suit. I don't think he was in uniform, but a camel sports coat, brown cords and a turtleneck. He was so cute....hahahaha, how about all that? "

RENT 2005

Last night a good friend took me to see RENT for my birthday and even before it began we had eaten most of a large popcorn with ample butter. Walking into the theatre before 6:00PM there was already someone waiting in line for the 7:30PM showing with a big sign and a blanket over his head. I wanted to pick him up and bring him in with us since there were so many seats available in the earlier showing. Shortly thereafter the seats filled up, and I could tell by the energy that almost everyone here was a RENThead. We were there because we loved RENT, we understood Jon’s message, and we were family. The opening scenes were surreal as his dream was reproduced on the silver screen, and I was joyously pleased to see almost the entire original cast reprising their roles, and I even quickly forgot that they were all a decade older. I’ve seen bad productions before (for example, a horrid production in Las Vegas 2 years ago) and I was happy to have the Original Broadway Cast back again. Rosario Dawson slinked into the role of Mimi seamlessly, and the theatre heated up with Mimi’s Cat Scratch Club scene during “Out Tonight”. The filmic freedom of setting enhanced the opening numbers of “How We Gonna Pay” with an incendiary wit that could not have been fully realized on stage. Jesse L. Martin’s “Collins Tom Collins” flawlessly acted with compassion towards Angel and effectively portrayed the pain in his eyes as Angel progressively withered and died of AIDS.

Only scenes like “Take Me Or Leave Me” set in a country club complete with mock humor by Mimi’s mother (who’s definitely not Hispanic in this version) and Pascal and Rapp’s “What You Own’s” juxtaposition of Santa Fe and New York City was only slightly less disconcerting than Pascal’s hair flapping like Bon Jovi’s while he drove the junker across Route 40 into New Mexico. Columbus enigmatically left out the emotionally stirring “Finale B” as the most pertinent cut for this viewer. Although I stumbled over some lyric changes to shift the action temporally into the New Year and the casting of Sarah Silverman as Alexi Darling that had some audience members scoffing, Adam Pascal’s voice gave me shivers of emotions that moved from life ambivalence to conflict to pain to love and then to passion and hope. Moreover, the theatre sobbed in unison when Mimi died and cheered at the final scenes of Angel who gratifyingly wove together the plots and people of Larson’s vision and reimagined and readdressed a world of AIDS.

DOOCE

I wanna give a shout out to dooce again. My wife doesn't like to read much and I turned her on to Heather's website after reading about it in Biz's book. And now she emails me all the time to remind me to read it. Haha.

Computers suck. I could not get online for ever. I mean I was online but I couldn't get my email to download and in my business, that sucks. Anyway, Norton Security was blocking ALL of my email. So I talked to the email people and one sucked, then two others were better. Then it still didn't work, and then it did. I just did. I moved my personal writeless up to the #1 priority then it just worked. Who the heck knows.

Nyquil knocks me out. Baby, it knocks me out! Goodnight and good writing. I am over 90% done with my novel!!!

An interjection here...

An interjection here. My book is 80% done, and I had told several people it would be done BEFORE now. Boohoo. BUT anyway, my daughter sat up. Just wanted to tell you. I was writing and eating a smaller piece of cheesecake than I really wanted after bowling a 154 Avg series and over 900+ game with my team. The baby was playing on her stomach on the floor and the wife was doing dishes. She said "Look at your daughter!" So I did. She said, "isn't it cute. She's trying to pull herself into that chair." And I said "Um, well that's fine but she's sitting to do it!" Then my wife lunged for the phone to call Mom and I then called Mum on my mobile. Back to the book.

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It's so hard to bury young people. We went to his viewing on Monday, and that was pretty rough. I saw several people I've not seen in sometime, and I wish I had a better opportunity to see them. It's so hard not to think about all of the times you won't be with him and to think about the good times from the past. They were together a good 7 years, and there are so many great memories. But I cannot even fathom that this has happened. I love his widow and she's a great friend, and even though we would all give anything to have him back, this has brought us all closer in an interesting way.

Friends

We flew across the country to attend the wedding of one of our best friend’s this weekend. Later in the evening after the rehearsal dinner, the groom died. This is devastating. There’s not much to say. We’ve been here since Thursday and now we fly back on Tuesday after the viewings. We were called to the ER early on the morning of the wedding. There’s not much else to say. Friend, we will always remember and never forget you. To your bride, we love you always.

NANOWRIMO

Sorry I've not been here. I am off writing my next novel during National Novel Writing Month.

I will be more talkative in December. I love you and all and bowled well this weekend.