Slidin'

Some days, you plow the south 40, churn the milk, whip the horses, rip one off with the old lady on the floor, and still have enough energy to humiliate the boys at 9-ball down at the local waterin' hole.

Other days, watching the breeze seems ambitious enough.

I'm having one of those latter days today. Mostly I've been watching the leaves dance along the path. It's enough for me.

Tomorrow, my nose will be back at the American Dream grindstone.

Employment

I think I've mentioned (although maybe not) that I'm concerned about losing my job. I really hate the job, so in a way it might be a blessing in disguise, but in the real, pragmatic world, I'm a bit old for this industry. In the computernerd world, I'm ancient, and would/will find a difficult time getting another job should I lose this one.

So.

I laid awake much of Monday night (although I lay awake most nights), worrying that I might lose the job yesterday. I thought they would probably not let me go just before Christmas, but might indeed let me go once the holidays were over....so I worried (a bit) that yesterday might be doomsday....

....and when I got to work, my electronic key fob (that opens the door) did not work. The door beeped, as if it were registering the fob, but it didn't unlock. Yeesh. I thought they had disabled my fob in anticipation of letting me go. Someone else showed up just then and let me in, but my stomach roiled.

Well, I didn't get fired, and the fob worked later. So that's, probably, good news.

I had arrived at work about an hour early (couldn't sleep anyway, doncha know). What I suspect is that they had changed my profile so that I couldn't enter the building during off hours.....I used to work a ton of hours, and many of them late at night or early in the morning. If they changed my access, that's yet more evidence that I'm becoming less and less of a cog, and more and more of a clog. I hate it. It's tearing my poor stomach up.

Back At It

I love Christmas. I do. And mine was excellent, haul-wise (got both the telescope and the GPS that I had wanted (while not actually expecting to get either)). My Christmas was even better eating-like-a-hippo-wise. I should probably cut back a bit.

That's what the new year is for, no?

Christmas falling on a Monday, though, makes for an oddly short holiday weekend....you rush about, doing all the last-minute stuff; you perform a bunch (well I do, anyway (I played the part of Crazy Guy a couple of times, then rang with the bell choir, sang with the vocal choir, et al); you do the obligatory Christmas Eve and Christmas Day socializing (which is wonderful (if just a mite draining))....then you haul your tired boxer-free butt to work the next day, where the same old piles of excrement lie steaming on your desk.

Ah, well....even a short respite is a respite, and even a taste of relaxation and family is worth it.

MC, HH, JN, so forth

I don't tend to write this blog for readers (with a few notable exceptions). I just write it for my own journaling, so, I guess, I have a record of what I've done, or what I've been thinking.

And I also write it as an exercise in writing. 's good to compose words daily (or nearly daily), even if they're just part of this self-involved process of blogging. So, I have no expectations that anything I write will be actually, you know, read.

But, for those that might accidentally toddle over here anyway, let me take a moment to wish the happiest of days to you. Christmas, like baseball, is a tradition that we try to ruin with money and selfishness and irrelevant trappings....but the core of it is so beautiful that, once we slice away the overwrought and useless trimmings, it's still magic. Wonderful.

So. Merry Christmas. I hope you have all the joy you desire, all the love you need, and all the serenity you deserve.

Crazy Guy

For the past four weeks, I've done a performance (brief but loud) at church. For each of the services (one on Saturday, three on Sunday) I've played the part of a crazy guy who stumbles into the church and interrupst the sermon.

Hmmm....how'd I get cast in that role?

Anyway, it's been kind of fun. I skip shaving for a couple of days, and I let my hair Einstein out, and I button my shirt awkwardly....and I rant and mumble and just act, well, crazy.

This weekend will be the last of those. It'll be good not to have to attend all those services, but the gig itself was a gas.

Last weekend, I had a guy that I had never met come up to me. He said he had worked downtown for years, and had seen lots of guys like that....and that I "was as crazy as any of 'em!"

Thanks. I think.....

Poof

I've been busily preparing for the musical I'm directing in the spring. You know, in most of my life, I'm not exactly anally fastidiously organized. In fact, more than one person has (oddly) accused me of being, well, disorganized. Scattered. Flaky, even. But when I direct, I really like being well prepared; and that very early.

I find the whole synergistic nature of theatre to be compelling, and I love the joy of improvisation that occurs during rehearsal, when actors "feel" a place to be, both emotionally and physically. I would never want to discount or inhibit that process. Rehearsal is a journey, after all, whose destination changes as the path is traversed. In the best productions, we never quite know what we'll have until we have it.

That said, I also believe in said spontaneity blossoming within a well-prepared structure....and that structure is best (and solely) provided by the director, and his vision of the playwright's intent. So I believe that I need to be monumentally prepared -- to know the show in its finest detail, to have planned out the jokes and comic business, the set changes and musical interpretations, the weekly/daily/hourly goals for the whole process long before we even begin.

Then, once we do begin, we'll still be changing and adding business like crazy, but (if it works right) the changes will enhance and improve the plan. FAR too often I've been involved in shows in which the rehearsal process IS the planning process. Often the show comes out fine when it's done that way, but I still believe it would have been better had it been done right.....or "right" as viewed from Tedworld, anyway.

And, for me, God is also in the details. I believe in choreographing each set change. I believe in elucidating each exact sound cue, each exact musical moment, every focus of every single lighting instrument. Skipping those details is often/usually acceptable within amateur theatre, but why? Why not try to be as perfect as you can be?

I don't think it's "Waiting For Guffman" to want to be perfect, do you?

Slidin' On Out

Well, it was another hard day -- and no, I ain't talkin' dirty (although, want me to?) -- with nose to the grindstone and toes to the line. Soon it'll be clothes to the floor, hose to the hydrant.

Whatever the hell that means.

Tonight, my massive and intense plans include sitting on the couch, getting up to get a beer, and re-sitting.

It's good to have plans.

I just can't seem, lately, to muster much in the way of juice. 'course, I was up at 5:30 this morning helping my overly ambitious daughter prepare eggs for her first period English class. I was up a mite earlier than God, I think.

Ah, the leather couch is callin' me right now.........ahhhhhhh.

Um...phew.....

Well, I heroically pushed myself through the madding and maddening throngs at the mall, and bought bags and oodles and pockets full of gifts....with barely a mop in the bunch.

Mind you, they're probably lousy gifts, but Christmas is not about giving your loved ones what they most desire; it's about getting the damn job done so you can go have a brew.

Which I heroically did. The beer was pretty damn heroic, too.

'tis the season.....

The weekend was exceptionally hectic and full. C'mon, holidays....get here, so I can stop worrying about you.

Actually, my shopping is (mostly (more or less (partially (slightly, anyway))) done. Really, all I have to pick up are a ton a few little things......

I'm leaning towards personalized mops.

Weird

I'm not entirely sure, but I think the world may be coming to an end. Aliens may have arrived. There's something odd in the sky, anyway.

It's bright, and throwing shadows everywhere. And the sky has this very odd color -- almost an, I don't know, azure.

This is Cleveland. We do gray. With gray. And a side of, you know, gray.

Some of the inhabitants -- those that haven't yet been beamed aboard the mothership or incinerated by death beams -- seem to be coping. I even saw a few of them with these odd things covering their eyes. They were almost like glasses, except the lenses were a dark color. Not sure I've ever seen such a thing here.

Oddly, even though it's pretty frightening, I have this urge to happy dance again. Go figure.

In and out; in and out.......

Kinda roller-coastering lately....going in and out of a good mood (intermingled with going in and out of today's gray depressive woeismeality mood). I think there are just too many unrooted things in my life (starting (but most definitely not ending) with the job uncertainty).

Wasn't too long ago that I was integral and loved here at work; and my opinion was sought and respected (if not always acted upon). Now, I'm a supernumerary whose boss thinks of me never.

Well. At least I had the happy boxer dance on Tuesday (minus the boxers).

Tonight I'm heading directly home from work, on time and ready to roll....and I'm finishing the Christmas decorating even if it kills me. Which, in fact, it might. Then I'm going to write some music (really just finish the arrangement of some music I've been working on forever). I don't care if I'm up all night -- that's what I'm going to do.

Then I'm going to see if it actually is possible to sleep at night. I do have vague recollections of laying down my head and landing in the arms of Morpheus, but only vague.

Time

It's Christmas season, and I have a kabillion things I oughter be doin' for that....and I'm pretty well swamped at work, and oughter be doin' that.

And my kitchen needs painting and my car needs that pesky flat changed and my workbench needs decluttering and the song I've been working on for weeks need a final coda and my novel needs better dialogue in chapters 13 and 14....

...but the sky is blue and it's amazingly warm for December. So today I'm happy dancing.

The rest of this crap can marinate until tomorrow.

Yay. Hooray.

It's such a joy to be back at the job, where geeks are geeks and sheep are afraid.

Sump'n like that, anyway.

I don't want to make too fine a point of it -- it's not like my career is a fermenting hell -- but I really don't like what I do. I don't like it at all. And I'm trapped.

Trapped by the money I make; and my age.

Oh, I know, I know, I could always go sell bolts at a hardware store, or drive a two-wheel hand truck around a grocery, or telemarket widgets for the Republican party.....but given family and commitments and all that suburban lifestyle bondage, that's not all that realistic.

So a geek I am; and a geek I shall die.

Sump'n like that, anyway.

Off (more than a little)

Well, I'm working one more day (that day bein' today), then I'm takin' a couple of days off.

Gonna spend the weekend in the woods. In a cabin, with (something resembling) heat -- I'm not that much a Grizzly Adams. But I love the woods, I love the calm, I love the sweetness of air that's not (too too) filled with exhaust and cell phone conversation.

It'll be almost perfect.

If I only had someone to oil a banana for me, I'd be in, well, pig heaven. Wherever that is.

I Didn't Sing It

It's that stupid song.

Outside lies a mantle of white, a winter wonderland, clear and crisp and even.

Feh. It took me over two hours to get to work this morning.

Hey, just cause Bing's dreaming of a white Christmas doesn't mean we all have to lockstep along, does it? Give me a beach, a bottle of oil, a fine back to rub it on, and I'll be happy. I could use some mindless reading with a bottle of beer nestled into the sand right next to me.....the biggest stress in deciding when to turn and tan the other side.

Thongs and banana hammocks optional.

All God's Chillun Say "Hmmm".....

Well, it's Monday.

It's been Monday for much of the entire day. In fact, on a limb I climb to state semi-unequivocably that it's been Monday since, say, midnight.

Who the hell's idea was this?