Weekend

"Everything starts today."

-- Guster, "Keep It Together"

--

Last week, our fearless director got a piece of metal lodged in his foot, pried it out, and then took a canoe trip. Apparently the wound had not closed yet, and the red streaks that appeared yesterday meant there was some kind of septic infection, which took him out of rehearsal early last night...and prevented him from coming in today. We rehearsed with our touring manager in the AM and the artistic director in the PM, which can always be a good or bad thing (pshaw, you know directors...). It turned out to be a good thing: Hems and haws were hemmed and hacked, bilked blocking unclogged, the smoothest surfaces wiped clean and buffed. Re-opening fresh wounds is better than picking at old ones.

Plus,--always a plus, friends--we finished early.

And yet, no matter how damn good we get, the fluffy shapes on the drops, the gawky costumes and hokey music (sounds like an 80's teenager playing with synthesizers and Midi, the grand ol' ClipArt of sound) jolt us back from thoughts of art and remind us: It's children's theatre. Get the laughs, old man, and do your prats and bric-a-bracs, pop in and out like it's your job, ha ha, and in the end, put smiles on invisible faces...

...And be sure to collect your paycheck on Friday. Ha-cha!

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There's a crazy fireworks show on the river this Sunday, I hear, though there is danger in the water.

Watched Memento and a Philip Seymour Hoffman flick called Owning Mahowny last night. Good stuff, need I say more. Got some Liz Taylor, Jeff Daniels, and Emma Thompson (et al) on the docket for this afternoon and tonight, tomorrow and the holiday, with microwavables and boilables to keep me going: improvements on impoverishment.

Here's to two days of freedom, a three-day weekend, and one week of work.

--

I wonder if the best people in life are the ones who stay near to you all the time, or the ones who you'll forget for now and remember in ten years when you all end up living in the same block of blocks. Maybe they're just the ones you don't have to call every once in a while to know how they're doing. Or maybe they're the ones who will make you feel like no time has passed the next time you clink beers. I wonder, and I don't know.

Is there such a thing as a deist friend, a clockmaker who ticks your relationship into pendulum hum-drum, walks away in the trust of time, then comes back to tweak, to tick and talk?

(What? I need a weekend.)