Great Scott!

Ah, November 5th, 2006. Twenty-one years ago, Marty McFly took his fateful trip back in time. Thirty years ago, the world welcomed one Seanyboy Spiff. What a day!

It's Sunday morning, and I have the day off, thankfully. Last night at work I felt like I was getting sick, but I'm not sure if that was the case or not.

What shall Jeannie and I do with our day? We have no plans except to make a large stir-fry dinner this evening. We were talking about maybe playing outside, but it's not a very sunny day.


Well, after writing the previous sentences, Jeannie and I went to the gym, went to Trader Joe's, and came home and had a nice bacon n' schmeggs breakfast. Now I'm going to lay on the couch and relax.

Last night I listened to Steinmetz Family Rhymin' at about 1 in the morning and it made me sad, partly because it's so good and partly because I miss my friends a lot. Thanksgiving!

The phrase for the day is: baby seal cracker pig.

"Hello Dear. Senator. Babs."

The title of this post is my favorite line from the Alfred Hitchcock film, Strangers on a Train, which the Jeanners and I watched this evening. It was nice to sit around and chill after a long, relatively annoying day at work.

Love's Labors opened tonight. Hope everything goes well.

Right now the Jeanners and I are resting on the couch, and I have a feeling that we'll be in bed soon. I'm pretty damned tired, and her eyes are closed, which means soon it will sleepy time for us both.

Hoops and jumping

I am blogging this blog on the road. I'm currently at the Howard County Cente for the Arts (known to those in the know as HCCA) where I was doing a little work on the lights and set for Love's Labors.

I spent my entire day off working on b-crap for the B&N, and I'm still not done. Some of the b-crap will be helpful in the long run, but much of it will not. I wish I could say, "Well, at least I'm getting paid for it." But I'm not. Dammit.

I desperately need a haircut. And I need to call my parents.

It's been beautiful autumness here.

Potpourri

Strangely divergent things going on for the next few days. I have 2 days off (which hasn't happened in awhile) and here's some of the things on my non-existent to-do list:

1. Laundry (today)
2. Eye Doctor Appointment (today)
3. Go to HCCA to finish and touch-up the set (today)
4. Watch LOST (tonight)
5. Do 2 months worth of hypothetical schedules and daily assignment sheets for work (tomorrow)

That's about it. I guess it's not really as much as it seems like in my head. But doing all the scheduling stuff tomorrow is probably going to take many unpaid hours. Why am I volunteering my time to a huge corporation? Because I care, dammit.

A couple of days ago I switched our music library over to Itunes. I hate all things I-related (ever since the deaths of my Ipod, as well as Apple's practice of making all of their hardware and software incompatible with other brands [to the point that when I install Itunes on the computer, it loads some sort of malicious script that makes it impossible for me to open Musicmatch Jukebox -- and the same thing happened when I tried to install my Creative Zen Touch MP3 player onto the computer; I couldn't install the damn thing until I had uninstalled Itunes]), but Jeannie and I have been enjoying listening to the Internet radio stations included with Itunes. Plus, now we can (easily and legally) download many more This American Lifes for our upcoming road trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving. Yeah, Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was my 4 year anniversary with the B&N. It was also my dad's 4 year anniversary of his retirement.

Here's what the Jeanners looked like (with friend Katie) last night for Halloween:



She asked that I not post this picture, but I believe that freedom of expression is one of the things that makes this country great. I think the lesson here is that if you don't want people to post pictures of you as some sort of blue wizard on their blogs, then you shouldn't take any pictures of yourself when you are dressed up like some sort of blue wizard.

Did anyone else catch Letterman the other night when Borat was on and he made the reference to "wizards sleeves?" Funny stuff.

The Lou

Today I would like to send out a great "Huzzah!" to my home city of St. Louis, MO. First of all, their baseball team, the Cardinals, recently won the World Series. Secondly, the city was just named THE MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN AMERICA. I guess that when you come from THE MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN AMERICA you grow up tough like me. Although, as my wife likes to always point out, I'm technically from the suburbs. Still though, I'm pretty tough.

This morning at work I made a bit of an ass of myself. LESSON LEARNED: As Patrick from work pointed out to me, correctly, you should know what you are talking about before you criticize others. Mr. Dan's Mouth, please say hello to Mr. Dan's Foot.

Taking a Leak

Last night, due to the heavy rains, the ceiling in our bedroom started leaking. And it actually started leaking right over our bed. And, actually, it started leaking right over the part of the bed where my crotch likes to sleep. So I woke up very early, thinking that I had wet myself with cold, cold urine. But actually it was just rainwater leaking down onto my crotch. So that was cool.

Then, when I got to work this morning, the manager was panicky because the 2 people who were supposed to show up to open in the cafe did not show up, so she and I and another person scrambled around and tried to figure out what needs to happen in order to open the cafe. One of my jobs was to make the mocha, and I'm thinking it probably tasted like shit because it was all lumpy. I was later told that I probably hadn't whisked it enough, but jeez, I whisked it a lot. So I got a lesson in cafe this morning. It was enough of a lesson to learn that I want to stay in music.

Hmmm. What else happened today? Not too much. I was by myself in the department for most of the day so I stayed pretty busy and the day went by fast.

Tonight I'm planning/hoping for a quiet night because I have a long day tomorrow of set stuff and then work.

Angels in America

The Jeanners and I went and saw P. Kilpatrick's show, Angels in America pt. 1: Millenium Approaches and I was very very pleasantly surprised. I was not expecting it to be very good, but both Jeannie and I really enjoyed it. Well acted, well directed, and interesting design choices. I had originally thought that the space was going to be too small, but the play actually worked really well in such a close setting. Who knew. Anyway, it was refreshing to see something good.

p.s.

K-Torr is a daddy!

Perspective (or, Sleepy Barcelona)

Today at work I helped a guy in a motorized wheelchair who had no control over his body from the neck down and very little control from the neck up. Basically, his whole body was constantly writhing and spasming, and he drooled a lot and couldn't speak or gesture, and just constantly seemed like he was in the process of performing a very low-impact sneeze. I asked him if he needed any help, and he sat and flailed a little while, and I waited, and then somebody else came up and asked for help so I helped them, a little relieved.
As I was helping the other customer, the wheelchair guy rolled up behind us, so I figured that he must need some help and just wasn't able to talk. When I was done helping the other customer, I noticed that wheelchair guy had a board next to him in his chair. I took the board out; it was about 1.5 feet by 2 feet, and maybe a quarter of an inch thick, and on the upper left hand corner it said "I can hear perfectly." Next to that it said, "I use this board to talk. Repeat back the things I point to." The rest of the board was covered with words and the alphabet and the numbers 0-9. So I held the board in front of his face and he proceeded to flail around a little more, but little by little I noticed that he was using his nose to point to different words or letters (it didn't help that he was wearing a baseball cap; for awhile I thought he was trying to point with the bill of the hat). So after awhile he was able to communicate that he was looking for a specific DVD, and he wanted me to read to him what our computer said about it, and I ended up ordering the DVD for him.
At the end of the conversation he started spelling out "can" "someone" "help" "me" "in" "the"...and I was worried that he was going to say "restroom." But he ended up saying "elevator," so I helped him get in the elevator and took him upstairs and he went on his merry way.

The Point: The point of all of this is to say, "HOLY SHITE!" What an amazing amount of balls and strength and heart this person has to be out and about on his own. If I was trapped inside of a body that didn't work, I'm sure I would lay flailing around on my bed all day and life a very short, unhappy, bitter life. So I was just moved by this guy and his profound handicap and the amount of energy,brains and effort it must take to overcome it every moment of his life. The world is a strange place.

The last couple of nights as I've been driving home after doing set stuff after rehearsals, I've been coming up into the city from the south, on 395, which is probably one of the prettiest views of Baltimore there is. The city really has a nice skyline from the south, and I enjoy the drive. Listened to "The Old Matchbook Trick," and thought it was a song that eveybody should hear. I'm not sure if that's true or not, though.

Also, saw a guy who looked like Kevin Sorbo walking on Charles Street.

Busy

Well, I've gone from "Not much going on..." to "I need more time!" in just a day or two.

Yesterday I spent about 14 hours working on a relatively easy light hang and load-in. Why did it take so long? I don't know, exactly. Without Jeannie's help in the morning I probably would've been screwed. Watched rehearsal last night, and I have a few things to fix before rehearsal on Sunday. So now every moment of my time is booked between now and Sunday night. Lovely.

Hmm. I will cut this short because I want to have time to make myself a big bacon n' schmeggs breakfast before work. Yum!

Math!

Not much has been going on, yet strangely busy...

This morning I woke up and did a bunch of calculations for work--projected sales, proposed hours, etc. I feel like a real grown-up manager! Actually, though, figuring all this shit out before the holidays hit puts me in a much more relaxed state. Now I just need to convince our store manager of all the stuff I came up with this morning.

Tomorrow is my day for hanging lights and loading in the set and all that stuff. My loverly girlfriend is going to help me in the morning. Hopefully it will be a good time and unforseen-problem-free.

I'm in a weirdly good mood, and I have been for the last several days...I think after all my worry while I was out of town I feel relieved to get back and see that everything is as normal as ever.

Wonder how Rich has been doing in St. Louis/New York?

Cow Pie

The Jeanners and I had a good day off today. Thismorning I made myself six eggs worth of breakfast burritos, and then we headed out to work on the set for LOVE's LABORS LOST. We didn't get quite as much done as I had hoped, but Jeannie will be able to help me work on Wednesday morning so I'm not worried.

Then we came home and made some dinner, and we had wine with dinner (life feels good when you have wine with dinner!) and watched a little bit of THELMA AND LOUISE, which I had never seen. It appears I was not missing much.

Something that we made for dinner wanted to leave my body immediately and forcefully, so I think that Jeannie might be trying to poison me...

I bought a cd yesterday by The Breaks Co-Op, and it is not as good as I wanted it to be, but there are some good songs on it.

My stomach is still cramping a little bit so maybe I'd better sign off for now.

So Much New News

Firstly, I have bad news for all of you who love me because I'm skinny and cute: They're building a Chipotle right down the street from our apartment. Holy Shite. I predict I will soon be tipping the scales at at least 450 lbs.

Secondly, I have a bad headache and I'm tired right now.

Thirdly, Jeannie and I were going to go see Pat's show tonight but are going to go on another weekend because I'm not feeling great and we're both pretty damned tired.

Fourthly, I tweaked the look of this here blog so that the random picture would be visible on more browsers. Aaaagh! Geek talk!

Lastly, Jeannie caught a mouse last night with her bare hands and then accidentally bit its head off.

A big crying baby. That's what I am.

So it turns out that I was overreacting about all these fears and worries about work, just like everybody was telling me. Work today was fine. I kind of enjoyed it a very tiny bit. Tomorrow I work in the morning and then go back at night for a music inventory. In between I must go to Baltimore Stage Lighting to pick up some gel. Unfortunately, BSL is on the other side of the damned city.

Watched LOST tonight with Jeannie, who was, as usual, uninterested. The episode was so-so, but next week's looks pretty good. Jeannie gave me some kisses, though, that made me want to go roll around in the hay.

One thing I forgot to mention about our trip:
1. Jeannie and I bought a grand total of 4 pairs of shoes.

Long day tomorrow. Should be ok, though.

Back Home

Well, Jeannie and I have arrived back in Baltimore, after another relatively easy drive thanks to some more This American Life downloads and nice driving weather. And my dad took us to the library before we left St. Louis so we could get another book on cd, but the things we got weren't that great. They helped pass the time, though.

Well, I'm dreading going to work tomorrow. During this trip, I seriously started thinking about other jobs that I could possibly do. I don't know why, exactly. Am I burned out on retail? Do I not like being a manager? I'm not sure. I just know that I've never dreaded going to work like this since I've been at the B&N. Maybe after I go in tomorrow all of these bad feelings will go away. Maybe they'll be worse. Not really sure at this point, and I think that's part of the problem.

I think that another part is that both work and the set/lighting design/build for CSC are reaching points that require my attention.

Sunday Night

I don't want to go back to work on Wednesday in a way that is different than the other times that I haven't wanted to go back to work. I feel almost scared to go back to work, like I'm going to get yelled at when I go back or something. Which I guess is a possibility, but not likely. But I feel scared.

Today was a good day, one that Jeannie and I spent with my family, and it was relatively painless. It was really good to see everyone, and it's nice when people take off work and skip other engagements to come see you when you're in town. And Jeannie likes my family because everybody generally gets along, which is sometimes different than her family. Anyway, it was good to see everyone and I enjoyed it and I got to drink some red wine to boot.

I think, for me, the highlight of this trip has been getting to spend time with Jeannie's maternal grandmother, who lives in St. James, MO (just outside Rolla), and who, up to this point, I have met only one other time, very briefly, and not in the best circumstances. We've gotten to spend some good time with her this weekend, and she is a very nice, quiet, warm, funny woman. And tiny and cute. So that has truly been a pleasure and I'm so glad that it has happened.

I have, for the last several minutes, been cutting farts that smell more like poop than farts. You know the kind.

From Concentrate

From St. Louis....

Here's what's been going on the last couple of days, condensed down to a few sentences.

1. Jeannie and I had one of the easiest drives here that we've ever had, thanks to:
a) an audiobook. Nando Perrada's account of when his Uruguayan rugby team's plane crashed in the Andes, called Miracle in the Andes.
b) several cd's worth of downloaded This American Life episodes.
c) Equally shared driving responsibilities.

2. At a rest stop in Indiana, we encountered a handcuffed and manacled convict, wrists chained to his waist, with armed police escort. Jeannie was wondering how the convict was going to pee with his hands chained to his waist. Who would pull his pants down? Well, I can now answer this ancient question: it turns out that the policeman unchained the convict's hands while he pee'd. The convict remained in handcuffs and anklecuffs, however.

3. I saw a large flock of birds while driving up 170 from Jeannie's parents' house to my parents' house yesterday. It was large enough that I described it to myself as a swarm of birds.

4. I think that every season, there is one day that is the perfect specimen of weather from that season. Yesterday was perhaps our perfect day this autumn.

5. On the drive here, we drove through sunshine, rain, and even snow. In Ohio. Why do I always seem to encounter my first sowfall of the year while I'm in Ohio? Not much fall color along the drive, other than in western Maryland and West Virginia.

6. Today we head off to Jake's wedding.

7. I have been thinking/worrying about work far more than I should be. I'm afraid I left things in more a state of disarray than I wanted to.

8. Jeannie got a haircut yesterday that is supercute.

Morning Thoughts

Sometimes when I listen to the Supremes I feel pretty pumped. Does that mean I'm gay?

The Shoppe

Had a good night last night. Went over to Howard County Center for the Arts (HCCA) and started building the set for Love's Labors. Since we don't really have any room in which to build, I set up a makeshift, portable shop outside and built there. Since HCCA is in kind of a wooded area, it was nice to build outside with the bugs making noise. And the weather was perfect. So it was peaceful and nice. I think, though, that for a larger set (i.e. THE FRONT PAGE) we're going to have to get a real shop space. Or hire out the set entirely.

Hmmm, what else? I'm working this evening, so not much should be happening. I hope to get things in order at work so that everything runs smoothly while I'm in St. Louis.

Then tomorrow it's laundry, work, pack, and LOST...

Brown Baggin' It

Right now, there are 2 Chipotle burritos in a brown bag on our kitchen table, each wrapped tight in foil, it's unique blend of spices getting all stewy. One for me, steak, and one for the Jeanners, veggie. Jesus, Chipotle burritos are good. I can't wait to eat mine.

Been working. Worked this morning. I was off yesterday, and Jeannie and I ran a bunch of errands. I bought lumber for the set, and we picked up some stuff for Jeannie's construction job, and then came home for some dinner before heading back out to do some clothes shopping. I picked up 2 new pairs of pants and the Jeanners looked for something to wear to her brothers wedding this weekend. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

We're looking forward to the trip. It's been awhile since we've gotten to see our families, and Jeannie's new-ish neice will be almost 5 months old.

On Friday I didn't go into work until the evening, and I got to spend all day recording, which I haven't getten to do in awhile. The results aren't that great, but I had fun working on it. Once again, many thanks to Rich for fixing up my guitar and bass. Makes the whole process so much nicer.

News from the Front. (and rear)

I've been putting in some long hours at work, so I haven't had much time/energy for blogging. As a result here's some highlights of the last couple of days...

1. Watched the season premiere of LOST on Wednesday night, after a suprise trip to Home Depot with Jeannie. The trip to Home Depot wasn't very fun, but I came home and fried myself some bacon n' schmeggs, and plopped down in front of the tube. I was a little bit of an ass, because I was making a big deal about watching the show and not being interrupted or distracted. So the whole experience probably would've been better if I hadn't been an ass. Story of my life.

2. BJ is going to come to town and do THE FRONT PAGE in the spring. Which means I'm going to do FRONT PAGE in the spring. Which I think will be fun, but I'm still a little worried about balancing work and show. We'll see what happens.

3. I will start work this weekend on doing lights and set for LOVE's LABORS LOST. Trips to Home Depot and Baltimore Stage Lighting and whatnot.

4. The Jeanners has been running the show at her carpenter job, while the carpenter (Eric) is out of town. It doesn't sound very fun, and I don't think it's a job that I could do, so big ups to the J-dog.

5. Jeannie and I are getting ready for our trip to St. Louis next Thursday for her brother's wedding. We leave a week from yesterday. Woo-Hoo! Not really looking forward to the drive, though.

6. I think that's it.

Some things that happened...

...over the last couple of days:

1. My brother called yesterday and said that he and his wife are expecting another baby. Woo-Hoo! Johnny's gettin' laid! (My brother's name is not Johnny. That was a reference to the semi-popular film from the 1980's, Johnny Dangerously, which I own thanks to one E. Elz.)

2. We went to the symphony with Ms. Ginsberg, which was different, even enjoyable. I liked the music (Shostakovich's 5th symphony) more than I thought I would.

3. I was stunned--STUNNED--at how bad Saturday Night Live was. I mean, it's been bad for awhile, but you know it's gotten to the bottom when you find yourself thinking, "Boy, it was funnier back when Horatio Sanz was on." My Gawd it was so bad.

4. I was annoyed at work.

5. I went to the gym for the first time in a long time, partly to relieve the annoyance that was generated at work, and partly because I have been feeling like a fat tub. In reality, I only weighed about 1 lb. more than the last time I was at the gym.

6. My girlfriend and I sat out on the roof and I watched her eat dinner and she farted.

7. I locked myself out of our building while doing laundry and attempted to break in using a piece of metal from a broken umbrella I found in the alley but I was unsuccessful.

8. The words "gluey poop" were used in our apartment more than you might imagine those words get said during your average weekend.

Dreams

Ah, I'm up early/late with a little bit of insomnia after a strange dream about driving around St. Louis with Bosco and others looking for a Mexican, Chinese, or sushi restaurant. Or a casino buffet. I was hoping for a Mexican place because I wanted a big burrito. Paging Dr. Freud...

Today the Jeanners and I are heading to the symphony with Ms. Ginsberg. I also hope to get some laundry done and maybe some grocery shopping tonoght.

Last night after I got home from work we were laying on the couch together listening to music and talking about our families. It was a good time. We also bought our plane tickets for Christmas. It's going to be a fast, expensive trip. Ouch!

Customers

For the past few days I have been talking with a man named Emil Gasparini who came in to the store to look for a cd that had some of the songs he used to sing (or hear) when he was in the air force during WWII, songs with titles like "There Are No Bombadiers in Hell." Well, it turns out that we can, in fact, order the songs he was looking for. It used to be a 4 LP set that they've put onto 2 cd's. Anyway, I'm writing about him because A) he has a great name. B) he is very pleasant and entertaining and nice, and tells me that I should listen to some of the songs, although some of them do contain "a few choice words." I assured him that I probably had already heard most of the words he was referring to. And C) he reminds me of my dad, although my dad was never in the air force and is too young to have been in WWII. Anyway, Emil Gasparini seems to be, in my limited view of him, a very classy, nice, and funny guy.

Also, today a regular customer and friend (to the extent that a clerk and customer can strike up a friendship at a B&N) named R. Ginsberg offered Jeannie and myself two of her extra tickets to the symphony this Sunday. She's a tiny, elderly, extremely intelligent classical music connoisseur who is very unlike anyone I have ever met. Since we have no plans, we accepted, and we're looking forward to it.

Finally, today I was helping a more-annoying-than-most drag queen.

Checking In

It's been a few days...

Right now I'm thinking good thoughts for Elizabeth and her Dad, hoping that everything turns out ok...

Many thanks to Rich for fixing up my electric guitar and bass, they're both sounding great and having them in good working condition has already made recording more enjoyable.

Work has been ok, we hired 2 new people on Friday and one of them quit after his 1st day, the other one seems like she'll be very good. So I'm blaming the one that quit on his own questionable emotional stability, rather than my meager skills as a person of authority. But I suppose that either thing could be the actual culprit.

Tonight Katie was over when I got home from work. I enjoyed sitting at the kitchen table with her and Jeannie and waxing philosophical on Ralph Machio, cat anuses, and ebola. With G&T's, of course.

Today I thought I would try and write a list of my favorite things for tonight's blog entry. I think, however, I shall just include one of my favorite things: a hot bath when it's chilly in the apartment and it makes me want to not get out of the bathtub.

My thoughts seem pretty scattered this evening, both in the head and in the blog.

last day

today jeannie and i will be leaving ohio. it's been such a fun trip, although today i feel kind of depressed. mostly because i don't feel like going back to work tomorrow. i have a feeling the next couple of weeks are going to be kind of stressful, and i just don't want to deal with it.

yesterday we went and saw jen's play, which was very very good, and i'm really glad i got to see it. Here's a pic:

Then last night we played a heartbreaking game of Phase 10, where I started off so well and then fell into a dark hole and it ended up that I accidentally handed the game to Jen, my arch-enemy when it comes to game playing. Aagh!

hand-cranked

We arrived in Ohio at around 3am last night, after a long-ish but uneventful drive. Rich had waited up for us, and we chatted for a short while before the Jeanners and I hit the hay. Today we've spent a lazy day around the house, watched a little bit of the British "The Office," and have just made some home-made ice cream to eat for dessert later after dinner.

Tonight I'm imagining an evening of games and maybe a few G&T's.

Yesterday at work I hired 2 people, and another woman that used to work at the B&N but left to have a baby is going to come back and work 1 night a week. So hopefully the people shortage in the department will soon be a thing of the past.

More later, maybe some pics. I love being in Ohio! (because my friends are here. I actually don't like the state of Ohio very much).

Warhola

For the last couple of nights, Jeannie and I have been catching parts of this PBS documentary on Andy Warhol. It's pretty interesting. Why do I find something like that inspiring? I don't know, but I do. It made me want to find out how much it would cost to rent a big warehouse space and then invite artists to come use it. Hmmmm.

Where in the HELL has Drew's blog gone?

I interviewed some folks at work today. Hopefully that means we'll have plenty of talented, well-trained workers in a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow after work, J and I leave for Ohio. It's about damned time. I am so looking forward to this.

Grammar Police!

I used the expression 'once again' twice in one sentence in my previous post. What a dumbass!

Today I got a lot of good stuff done at work. I feel much better after this day of work than I did after yesterday's day of work. Plus, I am off tomorrow. So I get to do laundry. And take our recycling to the dump. And watch my new ZOO TV LIVE FROM SYDNEY dvd.

****ADDED LATER****

And of course, in my previous post where I wrote "shout outs," I meant "shouts out."
Of course. What a dumbass!

All eyes on BJ

Well, my bad-Monday feelings are a little bit out of my system, although I'm not really looking forward to going to work today. But perhaps I will get to take care of a lot of things that have been problematic there lately. Schedule stuff, mostly.

It appears that if BJ agrees to come to Baltimore and perform in THE FRONT PAGE this February, then I will also be performing in THE FRONT PAGE this February. And Pat will also be performing in THE FRONT PAGE this February. So yes, there is a chance that that wacky threesome of comedic genius will once again be gracing the Baltimore theatre scene once again. All eyes are now on BJ to determine his next move...what's the word, Ponyboy? Are you in or out?

Shout outs to Amanda White and Karista, who have written me e-mails that I have, so far, failed to respond to. I'll get around to it, though.