Oh my.

Studies have shown that there are three ways to shut me up:

1. Take me on a long car trip. Odds are that I will be asleep not long after we're on a major highway. Although I have talked in my sleep, I don't do it long or often.

2. Really tick me off. Of course, when I start talking again, one pays a very high price for a little silence.

3. Give me an award. When I found out that "Perfectly Good Airplanes" won the Maryland festival and that I won an award for directing it, all I could say for about the next ten minutes was "Oh my." The review of "I Never Sang for My Father" in the Post this morning reduced to me "Oh my G-d" for about 15 minutes. I so lost focus that I had to remind myself that pantihose goes on before shoes when I was getting dressed.

Oh my.

Little news bulletins

I've been away for a while, haven't I? Well, let's catch up a bit.

1. Perfectly Good Airplanes won the Maryland One-Act Festival!! We share this honor with Montgomery Playhouse's The Way to Miami, and both teams will be going to Geneva, New York the weekend of April 21 - 23 for the Eastern States Festival. The Maryland Festival was held the weekend of February 11th, which -- and I'm sure this wasn't a coincidence because the theater gods are just that sophomoric -- was the weekend that blanketed the East Coast in all that snow. We played to a small house, but a good one and, as always, Ted and Maura were truly lovely. And just to brag on ourselves completely, Ted won the excellence in acting award and I won the Cliff Smith award for direction. (The Cliff Smith award is a plaque and I will see my name added to a list of directors, like Michael, and Bridget, and Roxanne, and Audrey, whose work I really admire. As Ted says, awards aren't important until you start winning them. Brilliant man, that Ted.) Whoo, and I might say, hoo!

2. The other activity of mine that the snow affected was Tech Weekend for I Never Sang for My Father. We lost a day and a half of badly needed time, but community centers aren't very good about remaining open if white stuff is - or might - fall from the sky. This allows the insurance agent who services their liability policy to sleep at night, true, but it really put a wrench in our Tech Week schedule. So Matt, Nancy, John, and I strategized before they threw us out and decided that we could come in early on Monday (around 5:00) and even earlier on Tuesday (around 3:00) to give Chip (our lighting designer/technical director) more time with us on stage. Then we went back to Susan's so that we could at least line-run our scenes. The 11th hour and the last minute are the two best friends that theater has, so it all came together, but boy, oh boy, do I hate coming that close. By the way, if you happen to be near Falls Church, come and see us! I'm in Act II.

3. Jean and Jay came down from Massachusetts and I got to see them! And they came to see I Never Sang for My Father!! They'd never seen me on stage in a play before (only in the chorus of G&S shows), so I was probably more concerned with the fact that they were in the audience than the news that the local big-shot reviewer was supposed to be there.

I've gotten two reviews from said reviewer. One was a complete pan and one was favorable. But I was satisfied with what we (the cast and crew) did on Sunday, so even if Mr. Reviewer hated every single second of it and says so in his best poison pen, I'm okay. Worrying about reviews gains one nothing.

4. Yet another reason why I haven't been posting as much lately: My office finally cracked down on Internet Abuse. We got an e-mail from someone higher up the food chain basically saying (and I vastly paraphrase here): We asked you nicely not to abuse the company internet access with streaming video, game sites, and porn. (That last was my addition, but let's be real here.) Effective immediately, we will be tracking internet usage. So straighten, fly right, and get back to work! Frankly, in my opinion this was long overdue, so I'm not complaining.

Okay, those were some of the headlines. More when I have a few minutes when I'm alone and unobserved.....

A bad day at the Safeway

There are days when a future filled with osteoporosis and lymphoma seem like a reasonable trade for being able to grocery shop. This has been one of them.

But not Luckys

Several years ago I worked for a company where about 95% of the company smoked. Eventually - sometimes I'm not as bright as you would think - I noticed that all the smokers were each spending about an hour total a day out in the warm sunshine "having a cigarette." So I started telling my boss that I was going out to "have a cigarette." "But you don't smoke." "Uh-huh. I'll be back in a few." And I went outside and sat in the warm sunshine. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Nowadays I like to compare consuming gluten when one is an asymptomatic Celiac to smoking - I will feel fine today if I eat a donut but the cumulative effects down the road if I eat donuts every day will make me feel very crummy indeed. So now when I deliberately *choose* to eat the Demon Gluten - like at Andy and Andrea's wedding where I defiantly had a yummy piece of wedding cake - I tell people that I'm "having a cigarette."

Times change. Meanings change. But, gosh, that phrase has been good to me.