Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Weekly Roundup

It has now been OVER one week since I posted. That hasn't happened in awhile...am I becoming less of an egomaniac? Don't bet on it...

Some quick sentences:

El Debarge is the person, Debarge is the group.

Last night I fell out of bed and stayed asleep (on the floor but with my foot caught in our jail-bar-esque footboard) for what Jeannie says was "10 minutes" while she asked me if I was ok. I was tired.

BJ is no longer in town. Both Jeannie and I expressed sorrow at his leaving. I will be honest, however, and say that I really enjoyed having nothing to do last night. But things are always much better with BJ around. Some expressions that have entered the lexicon during his visit: "_______________, you are so cute." , "Snapadoodle", "Mouse House." , "Suck Ma-duck," "Spuke (beef, chicken, or vegetable varieties)".

The last week or so has been a little too busy. Brad Maune visited (he's exactly the same as I remember him, in a good way), the show closed (after getting the worst review ever!), the Schluetermetz' visited (hot damn it's always good to see those folks, can't wait for fake Thanksgiving) and then, of course, work.

Been thinking a lot about Sean's songs and what to do with them when he comes in for his visit/recording session. Been having fun playing around a little bit with them.

Work tonight. More later.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Every Dharma is a Dream

So sayeth my new spiritual advisor, Pema Chodron. Jeannie had a book of hers laying around that BJ just read, and he was quoting a little bit from it, and it had some nice easy Buddhist stuff in there that I used to enjoy but haven't read much lately, so I decided to read it. Some of it's a bit too hippie-hippie woo-woo for me, but I think it will help me transition into the tea-drinkin', rice eatin', exercisin' phase that I need to go into during the next couple of months.

This week we look forward to the arrival of B. Maune, who will be visiting for a few days and who I have not seen since college, I believe. Should be fun. Then at the weeked our good friends the Schluetermetz' will be coming in for a quick trip to see the show. The Front Page is one of Schlueter's favorite shows, though she's never seen it staged, and it's pretty well known that I enjoy ruining things that Schlueter likes.

Work. What to say about work? It was good to work with Elizabeth today. I think one of the reasons that I have been hating work som much lately is that I've always been working by myself. And everybody in the department's been working by themself, so I'm guessing everybody's pretty sick of work right now. Hopefully it will get better soon...

That's it for now. Tasty dinner tonight of chicken and rice and vegetables.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

The Good Life, pt. 2



Me and BJ and Pat. Good times.






p.s. that thing underneath my glasses is my goddamn face. Scary, ain't it?

The Good Life

I think that there is little in life that is better than bacon and eggs. I also think tea is good--whenever I drink tea I always feel more relaxed, more focused, more thoughtful than when I'm not drinking tea--but the reason that bacon and eggs is better than tea has to do with the act of preparation. Tea, you pretty much just put on the pot, turn on the fire, and walk away. But with bacon and eggs, you've got to tend them while they cook. And while you're tending them, your mind can drift and it gives you a chance to remember Sunday mornings, when dad always would cook breakfast--eggs and bacon or sometimes sausage, coffee, toast, juice. Always, for some reason, calling me in to butter the toast, as though people couldn't butter their own damn toast. I always hated buttering everyone's toast. And I remember weekends when Jeannie would come up to visit Kirksville, me living in Schmor's old house with its 'breakfast nook,' cooking up big breakfasts and singing songs and then going back to bed to lay around and fool around. And, of course, the Down Home Country Breakfasts that have occured throughout history, the first one I remember happening at the Schluetermetz' house back in Kirksville, Rich coming home early from his factory job and cooking while everyone was still asleep, being woken up by the song, "Down home country breakfast, fresh from the farm..." And then, bacon and eggs has the guilty-pleasure aspect of being probably really bad for you, which just makes everything seem better.

Anyway, sorry to be so nostalgic on a Saturday morning, but god I like bacon and eggs. How can a world that has bacon in it be a bad place?

Friday, February 16, 2007

Never think of others

This morning I thought about calling out sick to work, because I have a lot of sick time that I haven't used this year, and because I was scheduled as a mid-shift, so it would've been a good day to do it. But then I thought, "No, it's Elizabeth's first day back after her vacation, and she'd be sad if I called out," and I went in to work. Only to find that Elizabeth had called out sick.

This is, officially, the last time that I will ever attempt to do anything nice for someone other than myself. From here on out, I shall only look out for #1.


Last night Jeannie and I watched some MAD ABOUT YOU. Which is a show that I've found most other people on the planet dislike, but damn if me and the old lady don't love us some Paul and Jaime.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Snow Day!

Today, for no real good reason, the B&N is closed. Woo-Hoo! There's maybe 3 inches of snow on the ground, and a little ice, but the roads are not too bad. I know because I had to drive into work before I found out that work was closed. Still, though, SNOW DAY!

Fugg Yeah!

I wish my girlfriend didn't have to work so we could have a snow day together.

Last night Jeannie and BJ and Pat and I drove into Towson to have .5 priced burgers only to find that the Rec Room was in the process of closing due to bad weather. Bah! So we ended up having bad food-court food. But Jeannie and I went back to the eye-doctor place to pick up her contact lens and the guy working there was much nicer than the dickface of a doctor that works there during the day. So now I feel less hatred towards Pearle in general, and my hatred is directed specifically at the dickface of a man that calls himself an eye-doctor.

Last night, for the first time in awhile. we watched some Law and Order.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Le Cake

Tonight BJ and Pat went to see a movie, and the Jeanners and I spent a quiet night at home making her birthday cake (from scratch!) and listening to tunes. We also made me some chicken salad for my lunches this week.

Many thanks to Korn, who has earned her spot in the blog by agreeing to switch shifts with me so I can have a celebratory birthday dinner with my ladyfriend.

Last night I had some sort of food poisoning, waking up in the middle of the night to explode from both ends. I place blame on either the strange dessert that I ate, or the 1/4 gallon of ice cream that I ate after the strange dessert, both shortly before bed. I think that sometimes my eating habits betray the fact that I will always be a 5-year-old at heart.

I've got a long day at work tomorrow. I got real tired this evening and ended up taking a brief, unexpected nap. Now I'm hoping I'll get tired again soon so I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. Mo' later...

Saturday, February 10, 2007

24.5 hours

In a little over a day, my wife turns the big 3-0. Ha! She hates birthdays. Hopefully we'll celebrate right and have a good time. I have to try and fix some scheduling boo-boos I made at work so that we can have a birthday dinner.

Anyway, we've been doing the show the last couple of nights, and it's been going well, but, as the Beej and I discussed on the car ride home, there are some inherent flaws in the show that we just can't put our finger on. Maybe when Jeannie gets home tonight we'll get her input as to what works and what doesn't.

I went back to work today after my days of vacation, and I was absolutely dreading it, but it wasn't too bad. I worked with someone who shall remain nameless who I haven't worked with in a long time, and that was cool.

Anyway, that's about it. It's been a long day and I'm tired.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

The Front Page

Well, the show opens in 2 days, and we're having a preview night tomorrow night. Will it be ready? That's the question on everyone's mind. We've been making large strides the past couple of nights, but there's still some distance to be covered. The set is looking decent, though, which is nice because I wasn't exactly sure how well the set would work. But it seems to be just fine. I had predicted earlier that I thought it might be the technical issues that would cause problems, but it seems that I was wrong. The tech seems to be running pretty well and actor problems are what are holding us back. Anyway, here's a sneak peek of what the show looks like:



I have been enjoying my days of vacation, working on the set, but I've always got the nagging feeling that when I go back to work, it's gonna really suck. But usually when I go back to work, it's never as bad as I worry that it's going to be.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Candidate #2

Ok, here's the second option. I call this one, "The Smug Bastard."

Monday, February 05, 2007

Drunk on Dick? Drunk on Dip.

I have taken a few vacation days in order to work on the set and so I'll be available for each night of rehearsal this week. It's pretty sweet. I had a lot of vacation that I needed to use up by the end of February, anyway.

Yesterday we had rehearsal and then went to Aimee's kick-ass Superbowl party. Everybody got drunk on dip. And it was a very gay day.

So last week BJ and I got headshots taken by photographer extraordinaire Teresa C. Apparently, CSC decided that folks needed new headshots so we don't all look like A-holes in the program. So they sprung for a photographer to come in and take headshots of people. Here's one that I'm considering using:



I'll post more over the next few days and then we can have an online voting session and the winning picture will be featured on the cover of my fanclub magazine!

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Back that shit up.

I realized today that I totally forgot to write about our sleepover/fondue party last weekend. Well, here's how it went down:

Last Saturday night, Aimee came over for a sleepover, and she brought her new fondue pot (or as she called it, a 'fondue machine') and I went to the grocery store and bought some fruit and pretzels and shit, and the Beej and the J-dog and the A-train melted up some chocolate real good in the fondue machine, and then we dipped the fruit and shit into the melted chocolate and then we ate that junk up.

Then after we ate fondue, the Beej and the Jeanners looked on the internet and watched a video of a calcified fetus (!) being removed from a man's (!!) stomach. Aimee and I watched the Beej and the Jeanners watch the video. Their reactions were funny. I videotaped them watching it, and I thought about posting it on YouTube so I could link to it in this here blog, but I don't think I'm ready to get into all that yet. Anyway, I did take some photos for posterity:



The Jeanners slices fruit. BJ and Aimee prepare the melty chocolate. Yum!


The delicious fondue is consumed and enjoyed by all!


BJ and the Jeanners do google searches for things like "calcified fetus" and "the world's largest..."


Then, at the end of the night I took this picture out of our bedroom window because I liked the way the light looked coming out of our neighbors' window. The picture doesn't really do it justice, though.