jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

Last night I made the trek deep into the wilds of Queens to see a mob of 13-year-old kids do their thing Annie-style. They were absolutely terrible and charming, it was worth the trip. I even got to see some DRAMA. One girl seems to have worked her pretty/moody persona hard enough that she’s made a few enemies. So apparently (I learned later from Damon) one of the other girls hid her mic and she had to go sing her four lines without. What I did see was her come onto stage, start singing, panic a bit, forget her lines, whisper the rest and dash. Because I was house right I saw her walk back through the door to get backstage. It was actually hard to miss because she flung it open so hard it banged against the wall. That also left it open long enough for me to watch her fling her shoes down the hall in a fury. It seems she stormed out right after that. So exciting.

I was then punished for enjoying that by being forced to go to dinner with the teachers and, oh, the entire cast. Hitting a diner with 40 fresh adolescents is not my idea of even a tolerable time.

Now I’m watching Wild, Wild West which I think is going to be just awful, despite having Will Smith, Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline in starring roles.

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On the nightstand: The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
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Sooo….. What what am I supposed to eat? I got a little busy last week and didn’t really plan. I wandered around the apartment for a few hours this morning before decided to scramble some eggs. Which was fine, but not delicious. Normally I would have a bowl of spaghetti. I guess I need to get to the market. Right now it’s tempting to eat tuna steaks all day every day, but that kind of negates the health kick.

I hate April Fool’s Day. I spend the whole day paranoid that I can’t trust anything I hear. I’m not usually the target of pranks. There’s nothing about me that telegraphs, “It will be really hilarious if you trick me.” But still… annoying.

So fellow Lost fans, I have to take you back to the episode where Sun finds out she’s pregnant. Did anyone else catch the abberation in Jin and Sun’s subtitles? I fear even mentioning it will make me sound like a pedantic know-it-all, which is hugely unappealing. But “you’re” where a “your” should be? On possibly the most expensively-produced serial drama out there? By people who make more in a week than I do in a year. And generally show themselves to be both smart and clever.

If you would have been here with us you would have seen my eyes just about fall out of my head. Thank god for TiVo or I would never have been sure.

And finally, starting today Damon and I are doing a two-week sugar fast. I shouldn’t really call it a “fast” since that implies a total absence. So let me call it a simple sugar fast. No candy, no soda, no refined flour, no alcohol. I’m sure you get the picture. We thought it might be nice to kick off spring trying to clean up some bad habits that have crept in over the past few months. On one hand I’m really looking forward to it. I want to see if I feel or function better. And I’m always interested in nutrition, so I enjoy thinking about food. I’ll enjoy finding tasty ways to feed us with these new restrictions. On the other hand, I have never in my life gone two weeks (probably even one week) without a bowl of spaghetti. I may wind up weeping into my pasta pot in a matter of days.

So this is a bad thing. You may remember a while back we agonized forever about whether we should get a second cat to keep Zoe company.

We finally found Sam, who was everything we wanted in terms of our best shot at building a friendship.

Several months later, it’s still not working out. We can’t let them out together at the same time.

Believe me, I have heard the whole idea of letting them work it out. And if you don’t believe me that that isn’t an option, you will just have to accept that we’re not going to do it. They do not hiss and hide, Zoe screams and they fight.

We cannot have this.

I have read everything I can lay my hands on. We’ve tried Rescue Remedy and Feliway. We’ve tried feeding them on either side of the door. We’ve tried squirting them when they get nasty with each other. We’ve tried reassuring them. We’ve tried ignoring them.

Damon said to me tonight: Do we need to find another home for Sam?

And my heart is just breaking because I couldn’t justify saying: Absolutely not!

We’ve agreed to try everything, really put our backs into it, through April. And if there’s no progress we’re going to have to have this conversation again.

Any thoughts that aren’t already covered above are most welcome.

Damon’s been building a set for a junior high production of Annie. He drew up the plans and has been leading a production team of tweens in getting it built. The show is this weekend and we’re going Saturday night to see it in action. I hear tell Daddy Warbucks parlor has been decorated to look exactly like our living room.

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On my nightstand: Servants of the Twilight by Dean Koontz*
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*I don’t want to admit that this is what I’m reading. But it’s true, so I will. And now you are free to mock me. My only defense is that I inhereted my ex-husband’s grandma’s trashy book collection when she passed away and I can’t bring myself to get rid of a one of them without reading it first.