Tonight.
My 5 year old wants to sleep in his 8 year old sisters room.
The answer is no.
Much discussion was had.
The answer is still no.
Finally…

Him: “But Daaaaaaad, so WHAT if it’s a school night? What does it MATTER if it’s a school night?!”

Me: “Max. If you sleep in here on a school night, you guys will giggle and Maggie won’t sleep. If she doesn’t sleep, she’ll be tired at school tomorrow. If she’s tired at school, she won’t pay attention. If she doesn’t pay attention, she won’t learn. If she doesn’t learn, she’ll be dumb, and when she grows up she won’t be able to get a good job and meet nice people. So, if you sleep in here tonight, Maggie will end up dumb and friendless.”

He just sighed and went back to his room.

-A ton of stuff going on with Williamston Theatre, all good, all keeping us very busy. More money would be great, if anyone has some to send in! (C’mon, Lotto Ticket!!)

-Maggie’s birthday sleepover has gone/is going very well. 4 young ladies are asleep right now after a long afternoon/evening of heavy running and giggling!

-Okay, I’m actively searching for the Kim Possible “pager sound” to use as a ringtone on my Sprint PCS phone. Let me know if you come across it!
[Edited to add: Thanks to Mary 919 and Computersherpa I’ve got my ringtone! You can listen to it here, and be thrilled! (Yes, it’s the little things.) Who knew there was an LJ Community devoted to Kim Possible?!]

-I finally got to watch the “Justice League” DVD that I got for Christmas. Man, I wish I could see this whole series! This was before they became “Justice League Unlimited”, but it’s great.

-And, in important news, apparently I’m a lot like James T. Kirk. I can live with that.
Your results:
You are James T. Kirk (Captain)

James T. Kirk (Captain) 75% Will Riker 65% Jean-Luc Picard 50% Spock 44% Geordi LaForge 40% Worf 40% Beverly Crusher 35% Chekov 35% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 30% Uhura 30% Data 22% Mr. Scott 20% Deanna Troi 15% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 10% Mr. Sulu 5%

You are often exaggerated and over-the-top in your speech and expressions. You are a romantic at heart and a natural leader.

Click here to take the “Which Star Trek character are you?” quiz…

For my birthday, my wonderful wife, my brother and my sister got these for all 4 of the Williamston Theatre founding members! They also got us awesome denim shirts with the logo that I’m using as my userpic!!

We’ve been wearing them since they arrived a few days ago, and I’ve already gotten a bunch of folks asking where they can buy one of the hats! We may get some similar to sell at our events.

My little girl turns 8 on Saturday! Last night was spent making cupcakes for today’s birthday party at school. (There’s no school this Friday, so they’re celebrating today.)

This got me to thinking; Remember how cool it was to take a whole bunch of cupcakes or something into school for your class? Or how fun those parties were that you’d have in your classroom – for Valentine’s Day (did you make a mailbox for Valentine’s to be delivered to your desk?), or Halloween, or Christmas (well, back in my school days we had Christmas parties in Public Schools. Now they have “Holiday” parties, so that folks of all faiths can celebrate together. I think that’s good.). I remember St. Patricks Day parties, where we all wore green and ate green snacks. Man, those were just the best – you’re in school, but having a total free-for-all party?! I’ll always remember what a treat those felt like!

On the flip side of that, I remember a moment from one of those parties as a kid that was an emotional trauma: On Halloween, in First Grade, we got to wear costumes to school. No masks, though. Well, I went in my very very awesome store bought Spider-Man costume. (This was before I’d discovered that DC Comics like Batman and The Justice League were way better!). Well, since we couldn’t wear masks, my mom drew the Spider-Man mask on my face with face paint. Just a black grid of lines, matching the lines on the costume. When I got to school, several boys teased me mercilessly about the lines on my face! Whoo boy, I got so upset and embarassed and started sobbing, and ran to my teacher. Mrs. Bright punished the boys and helped me wash off my face and dry my eyes, but then I felt bad that I’d washed it off after my mom had worked so hard on it. So I don’t remember much else about the actual party, just the trauma of being teased like that, and then the conflicting emotions of Mrs. Bright cheering me up again mixed with feeling bad about washing off something my mom had done for me!

Come to think of it, I wonder if this whole event is WHY I like DC Comics better than Marvel?! 🙂

Andybody else got any school memories they’d like to share?

Pamela Anderson is boycotting the Kentucky Derby.

Yes. I know, I know…I’m disappointed too.

Why, just this weekend I was just laying around the house (as I so often do) and thinking, “God. I can’t wait to see Pam Anderson at the Kentucky Derby this year.”

She was there in 2001. And again in 2003. And I think it’s common knowledge that those were the best two years of the Kentucky Derby in recorded history.

I mean…it’s Pam Anderson;
Big fake boobs.
Big fake lips.
Big fake blonde hair.
Hepatitis C, which she said was from sharing a tattooing needle with her then-husband Tommy Lee. Turns out Tommy doesn’t have it, so she got it from under some other rock.
Barbed wire Tattoo around her upper arm (because of her starring role in that blockbuster hit Barb Wire. You remember that, right? It was in
theatres from 11:15am to about 7:15pm on May 3, 1996.)

Yes, THAT Pamela Anderson. Of the celebrity-home-sex-video craze that swept the nation. Her presence elevates any event, including horse racing, to a new level. I mean, she’s a CELEBRITY.

And we all know how great those are, right?

And now she’s gone and ruined the whole Kentucky Derby. Apparently, Kentucky Fried Chicken does something to their chickens that makes her unhappy, so she’s not going to watch horses race in a circle. There’s some connection, of course, some company that owns some company is sponsoring some company blah blah blah I fell asleep reading the frelling article. I’m sure her intentions are good, and this isn’t a stunt to get back in the public eye after having no good projects in years, but all I know is that now the Kentucky Derby is going to just be about the horses, and what the hell is the point of that?!

Seriously. If Pam Anderson isn’t there, I’m not going either. I’m not even watching. I don’t care if the whole cast of Baywatch is chasing Seabiscuit around the track with Tobey Maguire shooting webs from his wrists while jockeying the horse, I’m not watching. If Robert Redford comes out and whispers to the damned horses while Dakota Fanning tries to convince Kurt Russell to buy her one, I’m not watching. Hell, you could add Tom Cruise, a bunch of aliens and a horribly overacted character by Tim Robbins, and I’m still not watching.

The whole event is ruined.

Ruined, I tell you.

*sigh*

Pass the bucket, I need me a drumstick.

Hi LiveJournal. It’s been a busy week. Much journaling has been missed, so I’m going to bullet point some stuff…

• Last Monday, sat in on Auditions at The Boarshead Theatre. Had a great time sitting and talking with Kristine Thatcher, the Artistic Director, and her staff. Saw a days worth of auditions, nice to see people I’d not seen before. This was a nice introduction to a bunch of the actors from this area I’ve not worked with. Of course, a lot of the actors from the Detroit/Ann Arbor area that I already know auditioned as well.

• The Williamston Theatre “Open House” went well on Thursday. As expected we had a smaller attendance than our first one, but got a nice amount of donations and got to spend some nice one-on-one time with some very supportive, interested people.

• The news from last week that sucks: My TiVo did not tape all of Arrested Development’s 2 hour series finale. Serious, serious devastatingly sad disappointment. You may remember me mentioning a couple of dozen times how much I loved that show, and now it’s off the air. For whatever reason, my TiVo decided to stop taping the 2 hour and 10 minute event at about 1 hour and 16 minutes into it. No idea why. Anybody out there got it on tape?? 😦 *giant sigh*

• Spent a very fun weekend in Westerville, OH at Otterbein University. I’ll be directing “Leaving Iowa” there this Spring, and we held auditions this weekend. Great group of student actors, it’s going to be a lot of fun.

• So this weekend Vice President Dick Cheney shot a friend while they were duck hunting. The VP of the United States, when entrusted with a firearm, shot his friend by mistake. The jokes are coming too fast to even record them.

• Did I mention that Survivor has returned? Yep. Only 2 episodes so far, so the jury’s still out.

• Spring Training starts soon. Can’t wait! C’mon Baseball Season!

• EDITED TO ADD: People who don’t return email and phone calls are moving up another notch on my list of annoyances this week. That’s two moves in a month. *Taps foot impatiently*

“From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.”
Anais Nin

“Naturally, when one makes progressive steps, there may be some who see it as a betrayal of their goals and interests.”
Louis Farrakhan

“People are never more insecure than when they become obsessed with their fears at the expense of their dreams.”
Norman Cousins

“Big egos are big shields for lots of empty space.”
Diana Black

So on Saturday Maggie and I went to the Daddy-Daughter Dance. It’s a school sponsored event, for girls I think in kindergarten through 5th grade, and their dads (or significant person in their lives). This was our third, and I realized as we were getting ready that we’ve not had much time of just Daddy/Daughter since last years dance. Where did the year go?

She got all dressed up in her beautiful gown, and had her Mom do her hair up. So pretty. Such a little lady.

I of course wore a suit. The cafeteria was decorated in a very “Valentine’s Day” theme, and very pretty. We got our picture taken, and had cookies and punch, and danced the night away for about 2 hours. For the first little while, it was a lot of fast songs, and we had a blast jumping around and dancing, sometimes holding hands and doing “Swing” type dance moves where I’d flip her around and spin her and dip her! It was very funny, and a little surprising, to see how many lyrics she knows! She’s in second grade, but I guess I didn’t expect her to know the lyrics to a lot of pop songs. She did, though, and was singing to a lot of the songs as we danced. “When did she learn these?” I wondered, and reminded myself that she has a lot of time at school, or with friends, or listening to her radio – a lot of time that I’m not with her that she could (and should!) be playing the radio and having fun.

At one point, about an hour or so into the dance, I was left to stand with a couple of other dads, chatting, while she joined a conga line/train and ran around the cafeteria shouting and giggling with about 30 other little girls! I stood with the dads, whom I had met before, and we chatted about how quickly they were all growing up. One said “I’m trying to slow that process down a little bit! I’m not ready to lose these times yet!” and we all nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.

Time. Where does it go?

Then she came back, sweaty and tired, and put her hand in mine. “Dad, do you wanna get some more punch? I’m thirsty!” So we did. Then we hit the dance floor again, just as a set of slow songs came on. (“Dads, this is your chance to rest, from here on out we’re jammin!” warned the dj/hostess.)

And as we slow danced, hand in hand, and I was thinking about the other fathers comment about losing these times too quickly, she said “Dad, can you pick me up?”.
And I did.
And she rested her head on my shoulder, and I held her up, and she snuggled into the crook of my neck. Then she let out a big contented-but-tired-from-running sigh.
“I love you Daddy.”

And for a long beat I just hugged her even tighter, because I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“I love you too, peanut.”

As Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” played, I held my little girl, and we swayed in time with 100 other fathers and their little girls.

And, like I imagine a lot of the fathers were doing, I wished for time to slow down.

Okay, I had to share this, because it’s really hilariously brilliant.
Brokeback To The Future

This guy figured if he didn’t show up to his trial, they’d just cancel it! Shockingly, that turned out to be wrong…