In the mood

Eggnog. It's not just for Christmas anymore. It's easy to catch the holiday spirit when you're drinking this stuff, especially if it's spiked with a healthy dose of Kahlua. My only regret is that I didn't buy another couple o' quarts to tide me over until the weekend.

Roller coaster

It's been a segue-whiplash weekend, as I raced from one event to another.

Friday evening I went with Sean, Curtis, Norman, Lucy, Mary and Tricia to see Doubt at the Ahmanson. I wish I could tell everyone to rush out and see this play, but alas, it's closing today. I'm thrilled we snuck in under the wire. Doubt was on Broadway last year and won Tonys for best play, best direction, best actress in a drama, and best supporting actress. The production we saw was more or less the same as appeared on Broadway, with Cherry Jones absolutely phenomenal as the gruff, implacable Sister Aloysius. In case you don't know, the play is about a nun who accuses a priest of sexual misconduct with a 12-year-old boy, although to say that is like saying Citizen Kane is about a man who runs a newspaper -- it's so much richer and deeper than any one-sentence summary. All of the performances were excellent (particularly Jones', of course, and that of Chris McGarry, who played the priest) and I liked the set design a lot. There's a surprising amount of humor onstage, considering the plotline. We had an engaging conversation afterwards about "what really happened" -- there was no consensus, which I think is part of the play's strength. If you ever get the chance to see or read this play, grab it.

Yesterday I experienced a different form of entertainment altogether. Curtis, Norman, Lucy and I went to the lovely Alex Theatre in Glendale to see House on Haunted Hill, a Vincent Price camp classic. Price plays a millionaire who invites a bunch of strangers to spend the night in a haunted house, promising each $10,000 if he or she can last the night. None of us had ever seen the whole thing, and it was a hoot from start to finish. It was directed by William Castle, creator of the interactive movie gimmick: this movie was originally shown in Emerge-O, meaning that at the climactic moment, when a skeleton rises from an acid bath to terrorize a comely young negligee-clad ingenue, a glow-in-the-dark skeleton would emerge from the theatre's wings and soar over the audience, presumably to terrorize theatre patrons. The good folks at the Alex Film Society pulled the same trick on us, leading to lots of laughter and applause. What a dumb movie! But so much fun.

Then we all came back to our house and watched Frankenstein: The True Story, which wasn't nearly as gay as I'd remembered. It's three-hour running time proved to be an endurance test for us all, though the characters' various demises left us entertained. (Best line before death: James Mason screaming, "Lightning! I hate that!") I made some milk chocolate-peanut butter fondue to eat while we watched. It tasted all right, but the chocolate seized when I added some vanilla near the end of the cooking so we ended up with curdled fondue with a layer of peanut oil on top. Extremely not pretty.

Today was both wonderful and sad. Sean and I went to a memorial service for Jane Dibbell, who was a theatre professor at our alma mater where Sean now teaches. In fact, Sean has his job because of Jane: he was offered her position when she suddenly retired in August, due to illness. She'd lived with metastatic breast cancer since 1998; I guess she decided in August that the medical procedures keeping her alive were seriously affecting her quality of life, so she decided to exit on her own terms. It sounds strange and perhaps crass to say this, and probably no one else in the world feels as I do, but I believe Sean and I owe Jane a great deal of gratitude. Her death was, in essence, a gift to Sean, giving him the opportunity to pursue a career dream he has chased for over a decade. She was a funny, generous, warm and loving person; I think she'd give me permission to describe her death that way.

The memorial service was lovely, and Jane had a hand in planning it. It took place in the university's theatre. David, the head of the theatre department, read a quotation that captured both Jane's life and her contributions to the school (and which I fear I am just paraphrasing): "Leave in your art a record of what you loved in your life." Jane had asked one of her friends to perform a dance during the memorial. This woman is a dancer, so she wasn't shy about performing, but it was an emotionally wrenching experience for her. Near the end of the piece she danced offstage; as the music faded, we could hear her sobbing backstage. Jane's daughter sang a funny song she'd written for Jane on Mother's Day a few years ago, and her son read a poem he'd written about taking Jane to chemo. All of Jane's brothers and many of her friends and students spoke, relating funny stories about Jane's free-spiritedness and kindness and sense of humor. While all of this was going on, a slide show to the right of the stage pictured Jane throughout the years. I had a hard time relating to both the young, conventionally-attractive Jane of the 1960s and the older, frail-looking Jane of the past few years. But I grew teary when I saw photos of her taken around the time I was a student at the college -- the familiar long, graying brown hair, the gypsy-ish clothes, the huge smile. That smile was present in the most recent photos, too, so I knew that even though I hadn't seen her in a couple of years, she'd maintained that glorious sense of humor. I was never one of her students and I worked with her only one time, when I did the food styling for a production of The Importance of Being Earnest that she directed; she proved to be an exacting but reasonable boss. I would run into her at college productions over the years and she always had some interesting insight or story to share. She introduced me to the Spike Jones & His City Slickers version of "You Always Hurt the One You Love," and for that alone I will always be grateful to her.



After Jane's memorial, Sean took me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The fortune in my cookie reads, "Love is like war, easy to begin but hard to stop." Ain't that the truth.

Who's that girl?

My pal Chris over at Trooperdog found out that there are 187 people in the United States that share his first and last name; Will at Be the Boy shares his name with 8 people. I decided to follow their lead and pay a visit to How Many of Me? and learn how many people have the same name I do. According to the site, there are 341,964 people who share my first name and ZERO people who share my last name in the U.S. Hmmmm, I thought. The last time I checked, I was in the United States. My passport has my name on it and says I'm an American citizen. My siblings and cousins on my father's side might be surprised to discover that we don't seem to exist. I read the site's FAQs and learned that there's only an 81% probabilty of finding your exact name in their database and that the number of matches is just an approximation. What started out as an exciting search turns out to be a sorta lame exercise in futility.

But if I start to feel unnoticed, I guess I'll know why: officially, I may not be.

De-spirited

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I usually start planning for the big day in -- oh, early July at the latest. But for some reason I haven't really been in the holiday spirit this year. I don't know why; I'm not depressed or stressed out or even overly busy. Maybe my over-the-top approach to Halloween most years has left me burned out and I need to take 2006 off to recharge.

I think people who know me well are a bit worried about me. Due to the concern of friends and family, I have recently been inundated with emails containing jokes, stories, and links designed to get me in the holiday mood, and it seems to be working. Finally, I'm looking forward to seeing The House on Haunted Hill and Frankenstein: The True Story this weekend, and I'm starting to plot nefarious ways to punish those youngsters who show up at my door All Hallow's Eve sans costume yet expect me to reward them with candy. (Can you believe it? Wearing a costume is supposed to be FUN! The rules, in case you've forgotten, are as follows: 1) Put on a costume. 2) Knock or ring the doorbell. 3) Wait for someone to open the door before you scream, "Trick or treat!" 4) A thank you is nice. At the risk of sounding like someone's cranky old granddad, I don't know what's wrong with these kids today.) In case you need some holiday encouragement, I recommend taking a look at some of this stuff:

Halloween Hangman is a good time-suck

Gothic Martha Stewart has all kinds of DIY projects for the morbidly inclined

The Incident always gives me a little chill

Love Harry Potter? Love sex? Check out Playwitch

If you're more into the Day of the Dead, check out Mexican Sugar Skull

Zombie Pumpkins has some neat-o carving patterns

What horrible Edward Gorey death will you die?

Haunted Memories' creepy changing portraits really work; I bought "Little Annie"

Peruse the doll galleries on Bastet

More eerie doll fetishism featured on Sink into Dream

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Sometimes you just need your very own corpse

Roz Chast hates Halloween (annoying registration may be required)

Area man arrested for... something or other

On Sunday evening, at about a quarter to nine, Sean and Curtis decided to head out to meet some friends for karaoke and beer. A minute or so after they walked out the back door, they walked back in and Sean said they weren't going anywhere.

"Why?" I asked. "What happened?"

Sean said there were six police cars lining the street outside our house, including one that was blocking our driveway. A helicopter was flying overhead (how had I not heard it?), shining its light into the neighborhood. Clearly, Something Was Happening.

"Well, just ask them to move. I'm sure somebody will move that one car if you tell them you have to go somewhere," I said.

Sean thought that might not go over so well as a police officer was busy interrogating someone in our driveway.

I ran out into the backyard. Our driveway is at the far end of our property and I couldn't see who was being questioned out there, but I looked out our side gate and could see someone in handcuffs standing by one of the police cars. I peered a little more closely and could see it was one of our neighbors, an old hippie biker who lives a few doors down from us. I think his name is Steve. I don't know him at all except to wave hi to when I drive by.

The neighborhood was pretty dark and I couldn't see much, but I did see several police officers waving flashlights around in Steve's front yard. Other than that, there didn't seem to be a lot going on. If it was a raid, it was the quietest, most polite raid ever. I hung around for a few minutes, hoping something exciting would happen. Eventually, one of the police officers put Steve in a squad car and drove him away. Almost immediately, another police car showed up and parked in its place. I got bored and went inside to watch TV. An hour later, all the cop cars were gone.

Here's my quandary: How hard should I work to learn what went down? Part of me wants desperately to know the facts of the case, but an even bigger part of me is enjoying imagining all sorts of sordid possibilities. Drugs? C'mon, six police cars for a couple of old hippies growing some weed in the backyard? Domestic violence? More likely, but also so sadly mundane. Terrorists plotting world domination? Now that would shake up the neighborhood.

What do you think happened?

Book-of-the-week

My co-workers and I are alternately fascinated and repelled by this book. The very first toilet featured in the section devoted to North America is the revolting commode at CBGB's. I suppose some people take pride in having survived a visit to this particular loo, but sweet god almighty. Just earlier this week I learned that the owner of the now-defunct club is moving his operation to Vegas... and bringing the bathroom fixtures with him.

One of the authors is stopping by tomorrow to autograph. I'll have to get her take on the most disgusting public restroom in North America.

Bowl-o-rama

Today I went bowling with Lucy and Norman. Lucy was ill last week and couldn't participate in Norman's birthday festivities, so she suggested getting together today for some sort of fun activity, followed by dinner at The Melting Pot. I haven't been bowling in nearly 20 years and was surprised at how much fun I had. My "technique" is a style that's beyond terrible -- it's cartoonish, involving tiptoeing up to the line, dropping the ball with a loud bang, and lots of hand-waving and jumping up and down. I have this weird tendency to flip my hand over at the last second before I release the ball, so that instead of sending it down the lane with a smooth underhand, I'm giving it a little toss up. It's very stupid-looking and hard on my hands; my middle finger is stiff and achy. I ended up with the low score of the day, but like I said, I had a blast.

Norman, one of the least athletic people I know, is actually a terrific bowler. It's like his stealth superpower. He easily surpassed both Lucy's and my scores, and he did it with great style, favoring a grandiose, royal type of gesture.

Please note that the pins are being racked in this shot. He has not just released the ball -- he simply is standing there with his arm upraised, as if to wave hello to yet another spare. I was also impressed with how un-squeamish he was about putting on well-used bowling shoes. Believe me when I assure you how completely unlike Norman that is.

The truth, and something besides the truth

Look what Norman brought over last night! It's already been added to the Halloween program schedule; now we just have to block out four hours to watch the whole thing. This luscious made-for-TV movie aired in the early 70s, and I caught it one Saturday afternoon when I was a kid. I'd never seen such beauty as Jane Seymour's! I'd never known that Frankenstein's creature was so soulful! I'd never experienced such a thrilling, icy climax! Frankenstein: The True Story was one of three films (the others, titles unknown, concerned a murderous monk with a bullwhip and mushrooms with plans for world domination) that I'd occasionally talk about tracking down and seeing again someday. Well, Sean found a used video of this flick a few years ago, and he and Curtis and I watched it one winter afternoon. (A grey and windswept weekend afternoon really is the best time for viewing such things.) The movie had been edited down from its nearly four hour running time to about an hour and a half, and it was practically incoherent. The only unambiguous thing about it was the homoerotic subtext which, due to the editing, now seemed to be the raison d'etre for the whole enterprise. In fact, when I told Curtis that Norman had scored this beautiful, pristine new DVD release, he said, "Hey, wasn't that movie really gay?" Yes. Yes it was, and I can't wait to see it again.

Backwoods cookin', Weight Watchers style

I ate lunch today in the breakroom at work. As I was finishing up my dreadful Lean Cuisine, I felt a little tap on my shoulder. It was my friend Sherri, who was looking through her new Weight Watchers points value book while eating her dreadful-looking frozen Indian meal. She pointed to an item in the list: armadillo. Armadillo?

"It must be for their clients who eat roadkill," she said.

We feverishly looked through the list and also found bear, squirrel, beaver, and possum. An ounce of possum is only 2 points!

Third time's the charm

For the third year in a row, I am attempting NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month occurs in November, when thousands of crazy people around the world try to write an entire 50,000-word novel in 30 days. I have been unsuccessful in my first two attempts, but I've vowed to reach that 50,000-word mark this year. I already have the counter turned on in my Word program, and I updated my profile on the NaNoWriMo page today. Even more seriously, Norman and I have each vowed to finish our respective projects by the last day of November -- me my novel, he his screenplay -- so this year there will be repercussions if I fail. The last couple of years it's been like, "Oh, well, who cares?" Now I face the possibility of Norman taunting me, and I've found there's nothing like the fear of humiliation to spur me to action. I should mention that Curtis is participating this year as well... except that he seems to have a truly good and perhaps even publishable idea, so I'm not sure he's truly getting into the spirit of the whole write-a-crappy-novel-in-a-month thing. I still need to check in with Gwyllion and Janine to see if they want to be my writing buddies again this year.

Once I get going, I'll put a link here so you lucky half-dozen readers can read excerpts from my magnum opus.