Checkin in

I'm going to smell like brisket this weekend.

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How 'bout them Astros, huh. Holy freakin' unbelievable. 1/2 Game back. Unbelievable.

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A photo from R & J:

Well, It's Been a While...

Here's what you missed:

Imagine owning a shovel for your entire life and only using maybe one to 4 times a year. Everytime you use the shovel it is the most important tool you have and it is vital to the success of your career that your shovel is used those few times a year. You have always had your shovel and probably take it for granted.

Imagine that the most important digging you will do all year needs to be completed yesterday and you know that you and your shovel can dig the hole in one night and all will be well. The hole must be dug by that next evening. You have others to help dig, but your shovel is the strongest and largest and the others may not dig correctly or fast enough. Then imagine that without warning your shovel breaks. You cannot get another shovel because the shovel store is closed for two weeks, but you can't wait that long. Imagine the despair. So, you do what you can without the shovel, and must take the next day off in order to try and repair your own shovel. You leave instructions with others to dig, but are resigned to the fact that it probably won't be dug correctly. Then, to your surprise, you arrive at the dig site the next day and the hole is dug. Everyone who you underestimated pulled together and the hole was completed in less time than you could have dug the hole yourself.

Well, this "hole" might have brought me to tears had I had time to cry. There were still small tunnels to dig and lights to hang, but the vast hole that was the greatest burden, was complete.

Romeo and Juliet performed to decent crowd this last weekend. The kids were great. Not everything was perfect, but pretty dang good considering all that was standing in the way. I was immensely greatful to the students and their hard work, and I hope they know that. This has been a wonderful experience.

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Emergency rooms are strange. When you arrive there you feel like everyone else has been there so much longer than you have. And they probably have. But, when I walked into the ER last Tuesday night I was limping pretty bad and yet I felt like everyone else felt right at home, while I felt like a stranger. Going to the ER is one of those things that seems completely odd and foreign when you actually have to do it, and yet, everyone has to do it at some point. You feel special and unique and yet, no one else cares because their buddy or sister or teacher or kid had to go just last week.

That's not entirely true. Lots of people keep asking how I'm doing and showed genuine concern. Thanks to all of you. Romeo and Juliet is over and so I might actually get to rest the foot for a while and let it heal.
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Tonight was a good night on TV.

"Last week at the table read I got a laugh when I asked for the butter. At the rehearsal I didn't get a laugh when I asked for the butter...Why didn't I get a laugh at the rehearsal."

"Because you asked for a laugh."

"Why did I get a laugh at the table read."

"Because you asked for the butter."

That's pretty awsome.

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Astros are at .500. I have a theory: The worse the Astros are in the regular season and later they wait to make a comeback to make the playoffs, the better they will be in the postseason. Based on this reasoning the Astros will not only win the World Series this year, but will win the Superbowl, Stanley Cup, NBA Finals, Gold Medal in Curling, and the Miss Universe Pageant. Look out Neptune Zorbdleblort Champs from the city-state Prarnon in the providence of Junikeri 6. Astros are coming for you next!

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This actually applies to both Democrats and Republicans. I love politicians so much more when they have nothing to lose. I certainly believe that there is a time and a place to become worked up. I imagine Clinton's critics will say he was "out of control," or "on a tirade." I personally thought that he was pretty calm, given his obvious anger at the question. Should he have been so angry? I imagine that I might be too. Did he handle it as well as he should have? Probably not. But, I love that he called Fox out for their clear right wing agenda. Watch it:

I Sprained My Show

We are openning Romeo and Juliet on Thursday. The set is NOT ready. I stayed after rehearsal to finish the set with a few students when I did something stupid. I was walking down some steps in the auditorium and I thought I was at the last step, but I had a couple more to go. The result was a pretty bad sprain. I made the kids do the walking and climbing and moving around while I sat behind the light consol and programed light cues. I thought I'd be fine if I could walk it off for awhile. Not so much. The result is that I now am on cruches and am not supposed to walk on it for a week. The doc at the ER said that while it's not broken to treat it as if it were.

I repeat. We open on Thursday! That is, less than two days! I've got a whole side of a set not covered and not painted! AAAHHHH!!!

The thing is, yes, I do have students who can help and work. The bad thing is: THEY ARE SLOW! I am fast! Was fast. This would have been fine on Friday. Bad, bad, bad, bad timing.

More on the experience of being in an ER later. It was weird. It's the kind of thing that happens all of the time, just never to me, so it was wierd. Anyway. Come see R and J. It will be good, whether the walls are complete or not.

THursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30 pm at Sterling.

(?!!

This is something I wrote right after the World Trade Center Buildings fell. Keep this in mind: I was really scared for the country.

Sat up in my bed.
Safe within these walls.
I still think I’ve got it bad.
I must have heard it wrong
The first time she said it.
I still wonder what’s for breakfast.

Every time I hear that we’ve been attacked
I stop to say that I’m filled grief.
But that’s not close to the truth.
I always feel nothing inside me.
I stand to defend the defenseless, first.
Always against the oncoming crowd.
The stream flows strong but I’m turned around.
I reach and I struggle for answers elsewhere.

If the mine lies in the east,
Then the hundred who cover those grounds
Will be sure to trip the earth.
But, here, it is in the west, where no one looked.
It’s disarmed now and cannot hurt anyone.

P.S. I'm still pretty scared.

P.P.S. I'm not afraid of terrorists.

"Look, don't get sloppy on me. I might just slug you one."

Today is one of those days. You know, Mondays. You know, one of those days where getting up early is especially difficult. Let me tell you how much more I would like my job if it started at 10 am and went until 6pm:

A lot. Why? I usually end up staying until 6 anyway, or later. No matter how early I go to bed I don't really wake up until around 10. Breakfast helps. I'm trying to always have some sort of breakfast item in my classroom so that I don't have to worry about at home. I'm usually in too big of a hurry.

Anyway. It's one of those days.

Romeo and Juliet goes up in a week and the set is NOT ready. It will be.

Holla, Y'all

You Are a Liberal for Life

You've got a bleeding heart - and you're proud of it. For you, liberal means being compassionate, pro-government, and anti-business. You believe in equality for every person, and you consider yourself universally empathetic. Helping others is not just political for you ... it's very personal too.

What's Your Political Persuasion?

Laramie at San Jac

I'm going to be in the Laramie Project at San Jacinto College. I'll be working with Jeff Sensat, the artistic director of the Slightly Off-Center Players in Deer Park. He's guest directing for the school. I've been wanting to work with him since I saw his group do All in the Timing a couple of years ago. He's a really talented guy.

Anyway, it will be in October and I'll expect everyone of you to come see it. If you want to know what the play is about, here is a link

Peace That Passes Understanding

I heard a guy say this tonight: It is my right to not know.

I agree with this. I also think that we have the right not to try to figure out things that we cannot understand. He also said that we tend to diefy or demonize things that we don't understand in order to make sense of them. I had to agree whole heartedly with this statement, but it isn't something that negates or challenges my faith. My faith in God is a choice not based on mathematics or science and I like it that way. I don't think that I would like to have God or Christianity or the Bible proven to me. I think nothing wouldd destroy my passion for it more. I believe in the Gospel because I choose to believe because it brings me comfort and happiness and makes sense out of a non-sensical world. Hope is a word that Christians bandy about a lot, but then they speak of truth as if it's fact. I don't have hope in facts. If I stab myself, I know that I will bleed. I don't hope it doesn't or does happen because know it will.

I hope in things that I haven't seen. It is a choice that I make. I could easily choose otherwise and sometimes I want to, but I don't. This is what I choose to believe. But, I reserve the right to not know.

I've spent the last two nights auditioning for "The Laramie Project", a play about the killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, supposedly killed because of his sexual orientation. The auditions were conducted in a very unique fashion. Instead of simply having people read from script or memorize monologues the director had groups of three sit down and interview each other with the rest of the auditioners looking on. This was to represent the interviews that the actors did with Laramie, Wyoming residents, which make up the bulk of the play. Most of the discussion was about the righteous or un-righteousness of homosexuality and how each person felt about it. I verbalized, tonight, something I've felt for sometime in a way I hadn't before.

I don't understand homosexuality. I don't understand why men want to be with other men and not women. It doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't work.

I don't understand calculous. I don't understand what it is or why it is used or how. I doesn't make sense to me.

But, if a mathamatician told me that something was proven through calculous I wouldn't say, "No, that doesn't make sense and therefore it's wrong." I would take his word for it because it is something he understands but I do not. I don't have the right to make judgement calls on math that I don't understand.

You don't have to understand in order to accept.

"Peanuuuut, Peanut butter! *and jelly*"

This makes me want to go to the Great Wall of China so maybe this will happen to me, too. ~

Can't Sleep. Try My House.

I woke up with a headache this morning after spending the entire dang night at some friends'. (Amanda is out of town.) I was awoke by one friend after crashing at 3 ish in the morning, with a request: "Hey, sing "When Wilt Thou Save the People," A song I sang in Godspell a couple years back, which he was also in. In my groggy state I could barely make out what was being asked of me, but I was finally able to figure it out. First I was a little annoyed that he woke me up. Another friend of mine said behind him, "Kyle won't do it. He's too mature to do that. Let him sleep."

"What are doing? Having a contest to see if you could get me to sing it?"

"No." She laughed. "Go back to sleep." But, how the heck was I supposed to sleep now? I had to remember that stupid song.

After a few moments it finally came to me. It didn't come out of me sounding so great, but I got the basic tune right. My friend laughed.

When I realised that I wasn't going back to sleep and I really just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed anyway and that the sun was up and my weirdo friends were still talking and hanging out with the same momentum they had been when I fell asleep, I had to get up and check out the situation. Sure enough it was 6:30ish and they were still on a roll. "They were all singing the song so I joined them and basked in the true oddity of watching the glow of morning on a Saturday, after having sang Kareoke and then playing Geusstures just hours earlier.

This experience is actually just a strange throughback to a time that doesn't seem that far away. College. This kind of thing was fairly normal back then. In fact, I'm reminded of a particularly interesting night of all night hanging at my college house.

The house I lived at during my junior and senior years at ACU was not quite a party house. We didn't have parties. That was a frat thing and we were theatre majors. We weren't the least bit interested in keg stands or make out parties or having DJs or anything like that. We drank imported and microbrewed beers and mixed cocktails and drank inexpensive (not cheap) wine. This was until everyone was happy enough not to care and then the Keystones and Natty Lights were broke out. At this point, my house could become a very fun place to be. My roomates and I lived in the default hang out house, a badge which I wore with honor and pride. I enjoyed having everyone over on weekends and knowing that my crashing pad was my own. Depending on your perspective, the house could be a very obnoxious place to be. Since my roomates and I liked having the "hang-out-house" we also took with it the inevidable inconveniences. Cleaning up in the morning, disposing of empty bottles and providing extra sleeping accomadations should a patron be unable to drive themselves home. This came with the territory. The most inconvenient of these inconveniences, however was if you had to wake up early on a Saturday morning.

One fine weekend, I decided that I was going to do something that I'd never done before. At least in college. I was going to wake up early even though I didn't have to. The reason I was going wake up was because our school was hosting a local Special Olympics event on campus and they had asked students to come volunteer. I was ready to accept the chanllenge and decided to make it an early(er) night in order to make the 8 am call.

My friends had other plans for me. I don't remember what had been going on that night. Usually it was a rehearsal or performance, but I don't think it was that, at this time. I believe it was a rare free night. Regardless, my house was once again full on this night and I knew that my loving wonderful friends would be in their rarest form, so I decided to hang out for a little bit and then sneak undetected to my bedroom to go to sleep. My early morning plans were unbekownst to them. So there I am, lying in bed. I'm probably not sleepy, but I'm determined to sleep. If you know me well enough, you know that this is a big deal for me. I could hear the others having fun and talking in the other room, and I've always been the kind of person that if I know someone else is up having fun, I can't sleep. Perhaps I listened to some music to help me relax and drown out the noise. I dare not tell them to be quiet because, as much as my friends love me they would do whatever necessary to not let me sleep if they knew I was trying to sleep. This was the kind of wonderful people whom I still consider some of my closest friends.

Just as I began to enter into a sort of half sleep I was woken by a strange noise that seemed very out of place at 12 or 1 in the morning. I realized that the vacuum cleaner was running. Not only was it running but it was running right outside my room. Not only was it right outside my room but it was being knocked against my door. Soon, my door, which did not have a lock on it, was being opened and the vacuum was entering. Soon the lights were being turned on. My friends, in their kindness, were vacuuming my floor for me. In my sleepy haze, I failed to see the thing they were doing as helpful and, as you would expect, asked what the hell they were doing and kicked them out, all to their protests that they only wanted to do a good deed. I used some choice words to let them know where they could put their good deed and shut the door and turned off the light.

But, the game had begun and my relentless friends had found their target. Only moments later they found another reason to come barging in and then another and another, but just couldn't understand why each entrance was met with a hostile eviction. Finally, I made a sneaky move of my own. My roomate's room was only next door, so when they weren't looking I slipped in and shut the door. There was a lock on his door, and I employed it. By now it was closer to 2:30 or 3 in the morning, but any sleep I was feeling had been taken care of by the earlier cat nap. It was no longer a fight to sleep, as that was not happening, but it was a battle of wills. Would I cave and go hang out with them, or would they give up and leave me alone?

Not able to open the door to my roomate's room without breaking it (which probably would have happend had my roomate not been one of them) they continued to bang on it and yell at me to get out. This was peppered with all kinds of requests and taunts meant to keep me from sleeping. Finally they went outside and tried to open the window and climb in. In my superior forethought I'd already locked the window. They eventually did stop for awhile. If I remember correctly, I was able to catch some Zs for awhile before the banging and yelling began again. This time I could tell they were wearing down. In an attempt to really throw them off I unlocked the window and climbed out. I got into the garage and into my car and, with doors locked, fell asleep in the back. As the sun was coming up I noticed the perpetrators standing over me looking into the car. I thought, "Great, they're never going to give up." But, to my surprise, they turned and didn't even make the attempt. They accepted defeat and returned into the house. Around 8 am, the time I was supposed to be at the Special Olympics, I went back into the house to see my last nights annoyances, crashed all around. I proceded to the kitchen where I quietly openned up the cabinets and carefully pulled out a pot and a pan. I walked to the middle of the living room, where all four night owls where fast asleep. Right there in the living room I did my best pot and pan rendition of "Rise and Shine! (And give God the Glory, Glory!)" After being reprimanded by a few hung over and angry friends of mine I walked into my room, shut the door and slept right through the Special Olympics.

The Star Wars Inside Reference That No One Get's Blog

Ryan (yes, the Ryan) has been writing some stories of his own about the college experience. One such story including yours truly in a moment of stupidity. Have fun.