I like to think of myself as an amiable person.  Well, we probably all do - although I know some people who take great pride in being mean, so maybe that isn't true.  But I really am easy-going when it comes to certain things: "Where do you want to eat?"  "Where do you want to get drinks?"  "What do you want to do?"  I usually really don't care.  Really, I don't.  Unless it's someplace that I already know is horrid or loud or has bad service, I go wherever the group wants to go.  I will eat just about any type of food and unless I'm really in the mood for something specific, like Italian or Mexican, I just say, "Whatever you guys want to do is fine!"  And when I say that, I mean it.  I would rather the other people be happy with the choice, because I know I'll probably be okay with it either way.
  
I'm also that way when it comes to "What do you want to see?" if I'm somewhere I've already been in life.  For example, just this past Easter weekend down in the Hocking Hills, I'd already been to most places down there, so wherever the group wanted to go was fine with me.  I might give input such as, "This would probably be an easier hike" or "It's uphill on the way back, but it's worth it", but wherever or whatever the group decided was fine by me.

With my ex, it was a different story.  He ALWAYS wanted me to pick the place.  He even tried to accuse me of indecisiveness when I would say, "Wherever you want to go is fine with me."  I, as usual, was being sincere when I said that - especially knowing that he could sometimes be picky, so I was happy wherever we went, especially if it was where we were going to eat a meal.  But he would always end up making me choose.  I never said something like "Sounds like YOU'RE the one being indecisive", I just picked a place because he almost never did.  It wasn't until many years into the relationship and after a couple of incidents where either the food wasn't good, or the service was bad, and I got an earful about it, that it finally dawned on me, in the middle of a meal, why he did that.  And I said it out loud while we were eating: "It just dawned on me the reason that you always have me pick where we're going to eat!"  He looked up from his meal.  "You want me to choose, because that way, if anything goes wrong, you can blame me for choosing where we went in the first place."  Silence - and the expression went out of his face.  "That's it, isn't it?"  He started to say something, then stopped and his face went red.  "I'm right, aren't I?  All this time I've always truly not cared where we've eaten.  I've always wanted you to be happy and let you pick the place, but you made me do it and looking back, that's why."  I was very calm and didn't raise my voice.  "Your silence speaks volumes.  Let's just say that next time YOU pick where we're eating."  Of course, that was only about a year before our relationship ended, but it still made me painfully aware that if someone truly doesn't know where we should go, I try to think of several alternatives and hope they like one, because I want them to enjoy themselves - NOT because I want to blame them if it doesn't work out.  I can honestly say that I have never said, "WHO picked this place again?"

But every now and then, there is somewhere or something that I just HAVE to see or do.  Especially when I moved out to the Eastern United States.  I spent all my growing years in California, Oregon and Washington.  Love them (in fact, I'm getting this feeling of wanting to move to Portland again), but I never got further east than to Reno once and to Phoenix once before I had turned age 30.  I am a big map freak.  My mom used to call me "The Navigator" when we went on vacation and always had me plan the way.  I also am very big on AAA travel books and online tourism.  I LOVE planning trips.  I love having a list of things I would love to see and do, but have learned to try and not have an agenda.  Even if I'm by myself, I know I may not get to see everything I want to see, or some things may tire me out and I don't want to exhaust myself.  If I'm with someone else, I try to make some plans because most people tell me they love having someone else navigate for them, but at the same time, I try to leave it open and say, "Here's all the things we could do.  What do you most want to do?"  Anytime I go somewhere I've never been before, even if I know beforehand that it might not be that pretty a place, I'm still excited about seeing somewhere where I've never been.  It's why when I go somewhere more than once, I look at alternative routes to get from here to there to see something different.  When the ex was living in Chicago, I took many different routes between Cleveland and Chicago when driving, just to see different small towns along the way.  Even this last time down to the Hocking Hills this past Easter, I took a different route on the way there because, believe it or not, I wanted to see the "Y-Bridge" in Zanesville (one of only two in the world - the other being in China).  And I wanted to see Zanesville itself, just because I'd never been there.  Some parts of town were very interesting, some were a little on the scary side, but still, I was excited to see a place where I've never been.  I think my parents instilled some of that in me, but a lot of it is my own curiosity.  I like to see the scenic places, as well as the kitschy places.  I love a canyon or a mountain as much as I love a "World's Biggest Ball Of Yarn" or "One of the only two Y-Bridges in the world!"  That's just the kind of person I am.  But some people in my life have thought it "silly" or "stupid".  I don't know why, because it's just having fun exploring and being who I am.

And as I'm getting older, I don't want to let opportunities pass me by anymore.  Yes, I may be disappointed that something doesn't live up to what I hoped.  I went to "Cereal City" - Kellogg's headquarters in Battle Creek, MI.  Got my picture with Tony The Tiger and went on their little tour.  It was fun and informative, but I was under the impression we would get to see the actual factory and was a little disappointed that we didn't, yet I was still very happy that I went and can say, "I've been there."  So if I am traveling somewhere for some particular reason, I will try to make the most of it.  There are just certain things I want to see before I die, so why deny myself?  If I'm going to be close enough to a particular attraction, town, park, scenic view, or point of interest, shouldn't I take advantage of that?  If I'm going to be doing something maybe related to business or for some other reason in a particular area and I know that there are other things nearby that I've always wanted to see, then I am going to try and make time to see them.  What is so wrong with that?  Why get that close and then NOT go see them?  You don't have to come along if you don't want to, but I'd like to invite you along if you're there - and hope that you find wonderment and joy as I might, as scenic or as campy as it might be.  I've had it happen several times, where I've gotten someone to reluctantly go with me, only to have them grateful afterward.

"Come and go with me, it's more fun to share!" (from one of my most favorite songs ever, "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday" from "The Muppet Movie")

But if you don't want to come along, I'm quite okay with that, too.  Just please don't begrudge me my desire to explore.  I want to see as much as I can before I'm gone from this life.

Kathy Mattea - "Standing Knee Deep In A River Dying Of Thirst"

Friends I could count on
I could count on one hand
With a left over finger or two.
I took them for granted,
Let them all slip away,
Now where they are I wish I knew.

They roll by just like water
And I guess we never learn,
Go through life parched and empty
Standing knee deep in a river,
And dying of thirst.

Sometimes I remember
The good people I've known,
Some I've forgotten I suppose.
One or two still linger,
Oh, I wonder now
Why I ever let them go.

They roll by just like water
And I guess we never learn,
Go through life parched and empty
Standing knee deep in a river,
And dying of thirst.

So the side walk is crowded
The city goes by,
I just rushed through another day
And a world full of strangers
Turn their eyes to me,
But I just look the other way.

They roll by just like water
And I guess we never learn,
Go through life parched and empty
Standing knee deep in a river,
And dying of thirst.

Go through life parched and empty,
Standing knee deep in a river
Dying of thirst...

I can hardly move.

The story below, which I just saw when I first got on the computer this morning, has me a bit freaked out, but that's mainly because of my having read several years ago that Albert Einstein allegedly said, "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no
more than four years to live."

However, I decided to check snopes.com about the quote and the link to their story on it is http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp

AP – In this photo taken Monday, March 22, 2010, Workers, from
left, Johan Du Preez, Susan Dupreez and Rouxle …

MERCED, Calif. – The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of
disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a
heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen
and hives laden with pesticides.

Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are
scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat,
ordering new research on pesticides used in fields and orchards. Federal
courts are even weighing in this month, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency overlooked a requirement when allowing a pesticide on the
market.

And on Thursday, chemists at a scientific conference
in San Francisco
will tackle the issue of chemicals and dwindling bees in response to the
new study.

Scientists are concerned because of the vital role
bees play in our food supply. About one-third of the human diet is from
plants that require pollination from honeybees, which means everything
from apples to zucchini.

Bees have been declining over decades from various
causes. But in 2006 a new concern, "colony collapse disorder," was
blamed for large, inexplicable die-offs. The disorder, which causes
adult bees to abandon their hives and fly off to die, is likely a
combination of many causes, including parasites, viruses, bacteria, poor
nutrition and pesticides, experts say.

"It's just gotten so much worse in the past four
years," said Jeff Pettis, research leader of the Department of Agriculture's Bee
Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Md. "We're just not keeping bees
alive that long."

This year bees seem to be in bigger trouble than
normal after a bad winter, according to an informal survey of commercial
bee brokers cited in an internal USDA document. One-third of those
surveyed had trouble finding enough hives to pollinate California's
blossoming nut trees, which grow the bulk of the world's almonds. A more
formal survey will be done in April.

"There were a lot of beekeepers scrambling to fill
their orders and that implies that mortality was high," said Penn State
University bee researcher Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who worked on the
USDA snapshot survey.

Beekeeper Zac Browning shipped his hives from Idaho to California to pollinate
the blossoming almond groves. He got a shock when he checked on them,
finding hundreds of the hives empty, abandoned by the worker bees.

The losses were extreme, three times higher than the
previous year.

"It wasn't one load or two loads, but every load we
were pulling out that was dead. It got extremely depressing to see a
third of my livestock gone," Browning said, standing next to stacks of
dead bee colonies in a clearing near Merced, at the center of
California's fertile San
Joaquin Valley.

Among all the stresses to bee health, it's the
pesticides that are attracting scrutiny now. A study published Friday in
the scientific journal
PLOS (Public Library of
Science) One found about three out of five pollen and wax samples
from 23 states had at least one systemic pesticide — a chemical
designed to spread throughout all parts of a plant.

EPA officials said they are aware of problems
involving pesticides and bees and the agency is "very seriously
concerned."

The pesticides are not a risk to honey sold to
consumers, federal officials say. And the pollen that people eat is
probably safe because it is usually from remote areas where pesticides
are not used, Pettis said. But the PLOS study found 121 different types
of pesticides within 887 wax, pollen, bee and hive samples.

"The pollen is not in good shape," said Chris Mullin
of Penn State University, lead author.

None of the chemicals themselves were at high enough
levels to kill bees, he said, but it was the combination and variety of
them that is worrisome.

University
of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum called the results "kind of
alarming."

Despite EPA assurances, environmental groups don't
think the EPA is doing enough on pesticides.

Bayer Crop Science started petitioning the agency to approve a new
pesticide for sale in 2006. After reviewing the company's studies of its
effects on bees, the EPA gave Bayer conditional approval to sell the
product two years later, but said it had to carry a label warning that
it was "potentially toxic to honey bee larvae through residues in pollen
and nectar."

The Natural Resources Defense Council sued, saying the agency failed to
give the public timely notice for the new pesticide application. In
December, a federal judge in New York agreed, banning the pesticide's
sale and earlier this month, two more judges upheld the ruling.

"This court decision is obviously very painful for us right now, and for
growers who don't have access to that product," said Jack Boyne, an
entomologist and spokesman for Bayer Crop Science. "This product quite
frankly is not harmful to honeybees."

Boyne said the pesticide was sold for only about a year and most sales
were in California,
Arizona and Florida. The product is
intended to disrupt the mating patterns of insects that threaten
citrus, lettuce and grapes, he said.

Berenbaum's research shows pesticides are not the only problem. She said
multiple viruses also are attacking the bees, making it tough to
propose a single solution.

"Things are still heading downhill," she said.

For Browning, one of the country's largest commercial beekeepers, the
latest woes have led to a $1 million loss this year.

"It's just hard to get past this," he said, watching as workers cleaned
honey from empty wooden hives Monday. "I'm going to rebuild, but I have
plenty of friends who aren't going to make it."

___

AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein reported from Washington, D.C.

After seeing one too many prescription drug ads during a television show, I really think we need to go back to having them banned from the media again, because they've gotten out of hand.  Here is my take on one of these typical television or radio ads -
  
"Have annoying hang
nails that aggravate, snag and sometimes hurt? 
Now Megalo-Pharmacopeia introduces Nail-Be-Gone!  Just one pill a day and hang nails will be a thing
of the past.  Learn how to live hang nail
free and get back into life!  Ride bikes,
kiss your grandchildren and never have to worry about those snagging hang
nails!

...may cause vomiting,
diarrhea, diarrhea of the mouth, projectile vomiting, projectile diarrhea, projectile
farting, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, thoughts about killing snails, thoughts
about stomping on daises or butterflies,
gout, leprosy, loss of eyelashes, eyebrows, nose hair and pubic hair. 

In some patients rashes have occurred, skin
has turned purple or blue, or patients have spoken only in bad puns.  Some
patients have found they can no longer walk and can only skip or twirl.  Older patients have been known to suddenly
have a growing fondness for metal rap music.  Patients under the age of 25 may
not want to take Nail-Be-Gone or they may find themselves wanting to wear shawls,
sit in rocking chairs and listen only to Perry Como records.  In other patients internal bleeding has
occurred, psychosis has set in, moles have grown in large clusters on various
body parts, eyeballs have fallen out or melted, and noses have fallen off.  May also cause ulcers, acid-reflux, leg cramps,
collapse of the cranium, lungs or stomach, even loss of limbs.

BUT - your hangnails will be
gone!  So get back into life with Nail-Be-Gone!!!"

Well, this weekend, we opened up "Mildred."  Let's just say this has been the most tense production I've been on in a while.  Not the kind of tension you need when you are doing one show on top of another let me tell you!

This show has a lot going on - King Kong, Gone With The Wind, Shirley Temple dance scenes, differing opinions, all piling on top of one another and I won't lie and say it's peachy keen, but the show's come out a lot better than I expected.

Throw in Daylight Savings Time (which I personally think needs to be completely abolished) and I am one tired little actor.  Well, not little.  I am a fat-ass.  So what else is new.

There's a weird new acceptance in me.  It's both good and bad.  I'm really starting to think that all the strangeness in my life for the past how many years has been the Seven Stages of Grief over the loss of my youth.

I don't really care that much anymore that I'm old, fat and alone.  I've fought it tooth and nail, I've hated it, I've truly been through all the "stages of grief" as I've read about them for so many years - over the loss of my youth.  And I think I'm finally at Acceptance.  This is not a bad thing, nor a good thing.  It's just me looking in the mirror and thinking "Who gives a fuck?" I guess that's better than crying or whining over it.  Oh, and I know I'll get the "Oh, that's just the moment when you meet someone!  When you're not looking is when it happens!"

Bull fucking horse hockey shit. 

I hope I was clear on that. 

It's not going to happen.  And I'm both okay and not okay with that.  As much as I hate the idea that I'm probably going through a mid-life crisis, it's the fact that I'm doing it alone that I hate.  Most other people have family and friends to reel them in.  I do have family and I do have friends, but not the type that would notice what's going on with me.

It's that I really don't give much of a rat's ass about anything anymore.  My life is not terrible, it really isn't.  I'm not complaining.  Thank GOD I have a job in this economy.  I don't like the job, but I don't hate the job.  It's just a job.  And as much as there are times that I love having my solitude, there are other times that I really, really hate it. 

Have you ever felt completely alone in a room full of people you know?  I've been there WAY too many times to even bother counting anymore.  I just feel like I have....

Aw jeez, I just need to shut the fuck up.  Really, who cares?

Anyway, what'd I do today?

I went to see the premiere of the musical based on the movie "Time After Time."  One of my favorite movies.  1979.  Malcolm McDowell as HG Wells, David Warner as his best friend who just happens to also be Jack the Ripper.  HG unveils the fact that he has a REAL time machine, just like his novel, Jack is about to be caught by Scotland Yard, escapes in the future in the Time Machine and HG follows.  The movie talked about how you would move not only in time, but in place depending on the time, which is why they ended up in what was present-day (as in 1979) San Francisco.  HG meets Mary Steenbergen's character, they fall in love, chase after Jack, think one or the other is dead and it all ends well.

The musical version.

Hmmm.  Potential.  Definite potential.  The music was never bad in any way.  But it also didn't have a single song that stuck in your head well after you left the theatre.  The other big drawback??  It was supposed to be an Equity production in conjunction with Point Park University in Pittsburgh.  The big problem here was that none of the Equity people were the actors. 

Not to say that Equity = talent.  I have seen many NOT talented Equity performers, but I was under the impression that there were Equity people involved with this production, I guess that it wasn't any of the actors that were Equity.  Don't get me wrong, these kids are talented, but that was the big problem.  They cast all kids from the University in the show.  HG and the young lady are seniors at the Uni.  Jack The Ripper is only a sophomore.  It felt a little bit like watching a high school production at times.  The orchestra rocked, the female lead was good, they all could sing well, but... they were just nowhere NEAR as mature as they needed to be to make the roles believable. 

Here is a YouTube video I found of clips from the production.  The Jack The Ripper character is the guy in the all black outfit with the leather jacket.  I saw this clip before heading down there and at first was disappointed that they'd changed it so he ended up in New York City 2010.  Of course, the whole world has to freakin' revolve around NYC because there are no other cities in the world, and you know, San Francisco is just such an ugly place... NOT!  But there was one moment where it really worked - in trying to show HG that the modern world is NOT such a "Utopia", as he believes, she takes him to the construction of the WTC site and they briefly show a piece of a sign commemorating the lives lost on Sept 11, 2001.  It was a highly effective moment which made me not begrudge the change anymore.

I loved the effects.  Except for having holes burned in my retinas - thank you Point Park University for that.  I was in the front row.  And during Act 2, I think there were four times that a bank of lights attached to the front of stage and directly at my eye level, were brought up to full, white hot sunlight capacity.  I think it was so they could make people on stage "disappear."  Instead, they made my vision disappear.  Thank you for the early onset blindness, I really appreciate it.  I did enjoy a lot about the production.  Taylor - the young lady who played the female lead, was very good.  But she had this tendency to sing some vowels like the young female singers nowadays do - her "oh"s were good, but give her an "ee" or "ooo" to sing and she went hyper-helium nasal - listen to the way she sings the word "do" in the clip to give you an idea.  So did most of the young ladies in the cast.  The young man as HG, although enjoyable, was WAY too young to play the part and his accent came and went.  Nice singing voice, but I was reminded of the "Best Worst Cockney Accent" from that video about the "high school Tony awards."  And I still don't know if his mustache was real and overly penciled in, or just altogether fake.  Then there was Jack The Ripper.  Extremely, sickeningly handsome.  I mean, so ridiculously handsome that I had to both hate him and love him instantly.  Why does God/Goddess give some boys not only the looks AND the body, but the magnificent singing voice and dancing ability to go with it??  Is He/She just having a big laugh with this shit?  It's really wholly, universally unfair.  BUT, BUT!!!  He is only a sophomore at the school and just way too frickin' young.  I don't care how good he looked, or how much of a cleft chin he had, or the fact that nobody really knows who Jack The Ripper was, he just wasn't menacing enough.  NOWHERE near as menacing as David Warner was in the movie.  What I found most interesting about him, however, was that he seemed QUITE perturbed that I was NOT giving them a standing ovation.

Again, the production was not bad, it has real potential, I loved the idea that all the women he'd killed were a sort of haunting Greek chorus throughout - I just wanted to see more mature actors handling the roles.  They could sing it (for the most part), the acting, eh, half and half, and the staging was fun, but it was NOT ovation-worthy.  However, this audience, which seemed to be University kids, senior citizens and gay sci-fi geeks, gave it a standing ovation.  I refused to stand, even though I was front row on one of the two aisles.  This seemed to REALLY get the attention of the Jack The Ripper kid.  I got several sideways looks and a dead-on look that I was still sitting. 

I hate to say it, but I relished that.

Maybe it was part of the bitter old fat man I've become, but I truly relished that.

I have no idea how I'm awake right now.  My alarm is set for 5:15 and for the past two weeks, I have been hitting the snooze bar over and over every morning and finally dragging myself out of bed sometime around 6:05am.  This morning, I do not remember even hearing my alarm going off at any point, but somehow I woke up at 5:40am.  I am only getting about 4 hours sleep a night and I'm sure it's shaving hours off my life.

I've been wanting to write more than one entry a week, but have just had no time.  My alarm is set for 5:15am, but I hit the snooze bar.  And this week, I've been hitting it so much that I don't finally drag myself out of bed until 6::05am, which means I've been half an hour late to work almost every day this week.  Luckily, my boss doesn't care, since I'm on salary, I just stay the extra half hour afterward.  But that means having just enough time to get dinner at home and head straight to the theatre.

I have this habit when I am watching  a play, seeing a movie, or hearing music that really strikes a chord with me.  As moved as I might be by what I am watching or hearing, there is something inside of me that wishes I could somehow be a part of something so amazing.  There is this wish deep down inside of me that somehow I can put something creative out there that will strike that same emotion within other people.  That will move someone to tears or elation or wonderment.

Woke up yesterday morning around 7:30am, said, "Ah, screw that!" and went back to sleep for about 3 more hours.  Had a WEIRD dream during those three hours -