Pen and Ink

Random Thoughts

I realized that I haven't posted one of my "Random Thought Thursdays" in months and months. So here goes:

Getting There: Since my ex has been gone, I've had to pay attention to the pool (that was his project). After checking chemicals last night, I looked at the temp. The water's up to 80 degrees -- my absolute minimum for swimming. Now I can go back to my nightly dips before bed.

Shaggy Dog: Eric, my hair stylist, decided to become a flight attendant. He owns the hair salon, so he's still cutting hair. He left for training for six weeks, but said he would email when he was back. The other night, while balancing my checkbook, I realized it had been eight weeks since my last cut. But I could tell just by looking in the mirror -- I look like a shaggy dog! I hate it.  On my way home tonight, I called the shop to inquire when he was going to be back.  His majesty himself answered the phone. I was polite but wanted to wring his neck! Anyway, I have an appointment for a cut and highlights tonight. Not a moment too soon.

Guests: Martin is coming for Memorial Day! Bernardo may arrive a week later! Then Kathy and Mike come for their second annual Fourth of July in Fort Lauderdale getaway! I'm really psyched.

Outrageous: I thought about going to NYC next weekend for a respite from everything that's been going on. It's time for my annual theater orgy anyway. But airfare and two nights of hotel would run me about $1,400. Add in taxis, meals and theater tickets, and two days in New York becomes a week on a Baltic cruise like I'm taking this summer. I guess NYC will have to wait.

Random Thought Thursdays is back.

I haven't posted one of these in awhile, so here goes.

Picky, picky, picky: Ever have one of those days when nothing you do is right? That was yesterday. My boss had lots of complaints...some things that I should have done differently, some things that my staff should have done differently. He was right, as he usually is, but still.  Plus it came after an especially annoying commute.  I was so tired and worn out when I left the office, I wanted something relaxing in the way of music for the drive home. I selected the cast album for Light in the Piazza, which is one of the most beautiful musicals I've ever seen. It helped.

Close by: I love it now that Cary has moved from Miami Beach to Wilton Manors. He's just five minutes away. We were both looking forward to his move so that we could be a little more spontaneous in the things we do together. Like yesterday. We were texting by phone and he offered to cook dinner for us. It was so nice after my stressful day.

RIP Heath: I mentioned Heath Ledger in Tuesday's post, but I've been thinking about him today. In his blog post yesterday, Martin mentioned an early film: 10 Things I Hate About You. That was my first notice of Mr. Ledger; I really enjoyed his performance. I keep thinking how sad his death was. Obviously it was an overdose. Depression -- assuming that was the root of his demise -- is such a powerful illness. I have known a number of people who suffer from this to varying degrees. It is such an devastating disease and frustrating for friends and family, for no matter how hard we try, there's little we can do to help the person suffering.

LA-LA Land: I'm headed out to Los Angeles early Saturday morning for a conference. I'm not a big fan of LA, but so be it.  I'm going to have some time to myself on Saturday afternoon and evening, and am looking for things to do. LA is not a big theater town and there's absolutely nothing going on in that arena this weekend. I may just wander, perhaps park myself in a cafe in West Hollywood Saturday evening and people watch.  I'll take the laptop and live blog about the people who come in. That could be really cool.  I'll take pics too and post them as I blog.  If anyone has suggestions about other cool things to do, let me know.

The new, new math.

To err is human. To conveniently forget your age, over and over and over again, is "human nature."

Happy 25th (hahahahahahaha) birthday S.

It's all about me.

Welcome to another edition of Random Thought Thursdays, brought to you by Pen & Ink.  This one is a little different in that I'm just talking about me and the blog.

Relaxed: While you are reading this on Thursday (or later), I'm actually writing in on Tuesday. I'm having a really blissful evening. No meetings, no appointments, no place to be. I had a pretty relaxed day and now I'm home, sipping a cocktail, sitting in my study. The house is empty and quiet. The whole way home I was writing in my head.

This is a change from the past few weeks. My schedule at work has been insane. In fact, two weeks ago I printed a week view from Outlook, saved it as a pdf, and emailed it to my friend & consultant Susan. The subject line of the email was "insanity."  She replied, very quickly, with a simple response: "This has to stop. Now."

So last Friday before I left for the weekend, I went into the calendar and carved out large swaths of unscheduled time. No meetings. Strict instructions to my ever faithful assistant to tell the rest of the staff that if they need me, they should schedule time. My one-on-ones with staff who, for the moment, report to me, have been eliminated and combined into a group meeting. Enough is enough.

The result is that I'm sitting here, totally relaxed, getting absorbed into my writing.

Counting: As I write this, the counter on my blog is just past 9,100 hits. At first blush, that would be encouraging. But whenever I go to Sitemeter to check the statistics, I find that so many of the hits are from people on Google, looking up one picture or another. Usually it's that picture I posted months and months ago of a faux Victoria Secret model with an added appendage. What's strange about it is that most of the Google links seem to be in other languages. And then when I look at some of the places from where people are visiting the site. Naxxar, Malta?  Good lord!

Refresh: Typepad has introduced a feature to add pages to blogs, kind of like web pages. I've decided this site needs a little refresh, so I'm going to start working on some content.

I also feel like I need a new header and color scheme. The only hold-back, I am sad to admit, is my new MacBook. I'm not a graphic designer and the computer did not come with a graphics program. My past designs for this blog were done on the old laptop using Publisher. But there's no Mac version of Publisher. What's a guy to do?  Fire up the old PC I guess.

Speaking of blogs: A warm welcome to the blogosphere to my dear friend Martin. He swore he'd never do it, but he's started his own blog. Be sure to check out Homodox, a blog. There's a link on the left side of your screen. The author being Martin, it's an intellectual site, not your average nearly-naked boy blog. And that's a good thing. Good luck with the blog, mi amigo!

Gray gardens.

Random Thought Thursdays returns with two little things on my mind right now:

Come and Go: It's interesting how some bloggers come and go. It's tough keeping up blogs. Some of my favorite sites are on hiatus -- Actorschmactor for one. And Bandit Talks, which I really like a lot, seems to be under construction, although Bandit, Rick's ever faithful dog, posted something today. Happily, though, Ethan from Shades of Gray, is back. He took about five months off. Glad he's returned.

Gardens Run Amok: I haven't dwelled on this too much, but for a couple of months now, my back has been giving me a lot of problems. I've been seeing a chiropractor, but the progress has been very slow. He even admitted that. But for the past week or two I seem to be making progress. I'm not sure what triggered it. But I'm not complaining.  This weekend I am hoping to get into the gardens for the first time in months. They're really not looking so hot. Last weekend I was able to pull a few weeds, but they need a lot more work.  If I can get them spruced up, I'll post a few pictures.

RTT returns.

It's been awhile since I posted a "Random Thought Thursdays," so here goes.

Larry Craig: So now he may not resign? Gimme a break. Hasn't his 15 minutes passed?

Digital Cameras: John and I were in Office Depot the other day to pick up a bookcase he purchased. I was tooling around the store and stopped to look at the digital cameras. The one I have is almost five years old and works just fine. But it's twice the size of the cameras now. I love taking pictures and would post more on the blog, but I don't like carrying around the camera I have. The new ones would fit in my pocket -- I could take it anywhere. Hmmmm...

Upcoming Trip: Two weeks from today we'll be in Boston. (By "we" I mean John, Cary, and yours truly). It's the annual Boston Boys Go To Ogunquit Weekend. I can't wait!

Five thoughts.

For this week's Random Thought Thursdays, I have a five thoughts all rolled up into one.

1. Tonight: Twelve Angry Men with Richard Thomas and George Wendt here in Miami.
2. Tomorrow: Company on Broadway with Raul Esparza.
3. Saturday: 110 in the Shade at Studio 54 with Audra MacDonald.
4. Saturday: Deuce with Angela Landsbury (on stage at 81 years old!) and Marian Seldes.
5. Sunday: Drowsy Chaperone (a repeat because it's just so entertaining).

Being single-minded ain't such a bad thing.

You're in town.

This week's edition of Random Thought Thursdays focuses on theater. Imagine that.

You're in town: Last weekend I caught a high school performance of Urinetown. I never saw this when it was on Broadway. The title is a bit offputting, but they even acknowledge that in the opening song. Aside from a lousy sound system, the production was good. I was happy to see it.

The big town: I think I've mentioned before that I'm going to NYC in a couple of weeks. A total theater weekend. I have a ticket to see Deuce, the new Terrence McNally piece with Marian Seldes and Angela Landsbury. I'm also going to see Drowsy again. Most of the original leads are gone, but Beth Leveal is still with the show (as of this writing). John Glover has taken over as "Man in the Chair." But a great reason to see the show is the one and only Joann Whorley, who has replaced Georgia Engel as "Mrs. Tottendale." I was a major Laugh-In fan (I'm so dating myself), so it would be a hoot to see her on stage. Who knew she was even still working?? Also on the agenda is Company.

Wonderful town: A few weeks ago I went to a community theater production of Wonderful Town. The production was fine, but the show? Not so wonderful. I knew a few of the numbers, but it just plods along. Can't believe they revived it on Broadway a couple of years ago. Although it would have been great to see Donna Murphy, who starred.

Clothes, home and a theater queen.

It's time again for Random Thought Thursdays:

On clothes: More to the point, clothes on me. I lost two pounds last week, my first full week doing Weight Watchers. I'm really getting into it. I feel like I've lost another pound already this week. Today when I put on my suit I noticed that the pants seemed to be a little looser. It's one of the reasons I'm doing this. I could open my own Banana Republic store with what I have in my closet. Much of it hasn't been fitting too well.

On home: I'll write more about this later, but my ex has left his job and will be moving out of his apartment at the end of May -- and back into the house we still own together. Like I said, more later.

On being a theater queen: I've scheduled my second annual NYC theater weekend. My friend Gene is going and asked me to share his hotel room, which is very low priced to begin with. Then I got a round trip, non-stop ticket on Continental for $138. That's outragious.  Plus I did my taxes the other night. Add it all up and you get a weekend in NYC. I already have tickets to see Deuce, the new Terrence McNally play with Angela Landsbury and Marion Seldes. I think I will add Grey Gardens and Company to the list.

Creeps, criminals and Google.

It's time once again for Random Thought Thursdays.

Creeps:  Well, it seems that the New Life Church in Colorado Springs is losing money, big time, since the outster of its former asshole pastor, The Rev. Ted Haggard. You remember him; I've written about him before. The guy who got caught with a male hooker. The poor church. Attendance is down and so are donations. They've had to lay off 44 of its 350 workers. Of course I'm sorry that people lost their jobs, but what the hell does that church do that it needs 350 employees???  Give the money away to people who need it, you creeps!

Criminals:  The Bushies are in trouble again, this time due to the political nature of the firing of all those prosecutors. That moron Rove is back in the headlines and it looks like AG Gonzalez may get the boot. Aaaahhh...just desserts for that band of sanctimonious crooks. I'm so glad the Dems have come into power. It's time to pay the Republicans back for the Clinton-era witch hunts.

Google: I'm still thinking about hearing from actress Clarissa Grace after I posted that piece last Thursday about not getting an email from her. It's amazing, the power of the Internet, and to a much lesser extent, this blog. She said a castmate read my blog. How?, I wondered. Of course...the magic of Google. Her co-worker must have Googled her and up on the second page of search results came Pen and Ink.  You just never know who's gonna read this stuff. If I end up in jail for writing mean things about the White House, please send fudgie chocolate cake.