Happy Halloween, kids!

Whatever you decide to do today, please be safe about it. I probably should have said that before the weekend, huh? Because I'm guessing I'm not the only person who got nice and drunk on Saturday night while wearing something no person in their right mind would wear in public. But isn't that what's so much fun about Halloween anyway? Doing things you wouldn't normally do? Wearing things you wouldn't normally wear?

There is a guy directly outside my window destroying a lot of lovely plant matter. I guess the bunnies won't be coming back now. There's nothing for them to eat.

But yeah, have a safe and happy Halloween. And I'd like to send out a big thank you to all of the Sox fans out there for the 8,000,000 Cubs fan hating e-mails that were in my inbox this morning. You guys are a stand-up bunch and I'm glad you now have the chance to tell the world how much better you are than the rest of us. I wouldn't have known otherwise.

Sorry. Y'all know I'm a Cubs fan. Y'all know I'm a liberal. Y'all know I'm a vegan. Y'all don't have to read my posts if you don't want to; if you disagree with my opinions, that's fine. We can chat about it. But the outright vitriol has no place here. The one thing I said about the Sox was nowhere near as mean as the things you guys have been sending me. I'm happy for you that your team won, and I'm jealous as all hell that you guys get to know what it feels like to have something you love so much do so well. I just choose not to participate in the celebration because I don't love the Sox. And telling me I'm a stupid, ignorant nit-wit is not going to make me love the Sox. And it sure as hell isn't going to make me want to celebrate with you, or even support you in your celebration. Congratulations to your boys. Now why not go celebrate with other Sox fans instead of belittling Cubs fans? Just a thought. And I promise, when the Cubs win, I'll keep my celebrating amongst my Cub fan friends.

I've been really tired lately. The kind of tired that hurts while you're sleeping, you know? Maybe that means the sleep I've been getting is nice, deep, REM sleep (though I've not had a single R.E.M. dream. I did have a dream about work last night, which was kind of disturbing, just because I don't like seeing people from work in my dreams), but when something wakes me up and it hurts to open my eyes and it hurts to lift my head off of the pillow...that's not really fun. I passed out on my couch at about 8:30 last night. 8:30. How sad is that? And it really was a passing out. I wasn't drunk or anything, just so tired that I fell asleep without really wanting to. It's been really hard to get up in the morning, too. I think part of that, though, has to do with the fact that it is still pitch black outside when I get up, and the heat hasn't come on in my apartment yet. It usually comes on while I'm in the shower, so my towel is nice and toasty when I get out of the shower, which is nice. But the whole waking up thing -- not fun.

I was thinking maybe I'm low on iron or something, so I picked up my iron supplement again and have been taking that daily. Still tired. Though it never hurts to take vitamins, you know? I wonder if it's a caffeine crash. Or maybe I'm a narcoleptic insomniac. You know, like manic depressives? Sometimes, I'm almost narcoleptic, falling asleep when I don't really want to, and other times, I just can't sleep at all. I've got a bipolar sleeping disorder. Or something. Which wouldn't be so bothersome if my cat didn't need to practice for the Olympics every morning at 3:00. He keeps asking me to time him while he does laps through the living room.

It's hard having a professional athlete for a pet.

I would like, if I may, to try to explain a little bit of physiology to the manufacturers and designers of women's footwear. I'm hoping that while I do this, I manage to spell physiology correctly at least once.

Human beings were not designed to walk on their tip toes. Elephants were, and they have this nice, spongy cushion in their feet, under their heel bones to accomodate this. Humans, however, do not. We do have nice, hard heels, and our feet can become quite caloused with enough wear and tear to make it possible for us to walk around without shoes. But the point is, human beings were designed to walk with even pressure distributed throughout the foot. Talk to your chiropractor and he'll agree with me.

Now, when you make high heeled shoes for women, what you are doing is essentially throwing this balance off. You are forcing the majority of the woman's weight to be carried on the ball of her foot. While the ball of the foot is somewhat padded, it is not quite padded enough to withstand the weight of the whole woman, even if she is Kate Moss, or Kate Moss sized. See, this goes along with the principle behind lying on a bed of nails -- if you have just one nail, all of the pressure focused on that tiny little point will puncture your skin, but if you have all of your weight distributed evenly across hundreds of nails, you will feel all of the little points, but there will not be enough pressure exerted on any one nail to actually puncture the skin. Same with high heels -- what used to be easily sustainable weight and pressure distributed across the entire foot is now focused intensely on the ball of the foot only and therefore becomes more than the foot can handle.

Meaning high heel shoes are uncomfortable. I wear high heeled boots every day, and I can handle them because they are well made shoes (sort of). But when I put on other high heels, even if the heel is no higher than the boots I wear daily, my feet start screaming at me. Why is this? It is because my body is not conditioned to handle the weight shift?

NO! It is because 95% of the designers and manufacturers of women's shoes put no padding in the shoe under the ball of the foot. None. They want to create this cute, sexy, strappy sandal that showcases the foot and has a paper-thin piece of wood or steel or some other almost completely inflexible bit of material separating the ball of the foot from the ground. So as the woman walks, or even just sits with her feet on the ground, all of the pressure from her entire body is focused on the balls of her feet which have absolutely zero support. It's literally like walking around on tip toe barefoot all day. What the hell? Is it that hard to make that part of the shoe a little bit cushy? Or do y'all just not understand physiology at all? Granted, I'm no physics whiz, but I know that the cute little sexy strappy sandals hurt the balls of my feet every time.

I'm just sayin'. It wouldn't have to be thick padding. And it's not like it would be really obvious, because it is under the foot, completely hidden from view while the sandals are being worn. And it would make it possible for women to walk and run and do things other than sit there and be pretty while they are out and about wearing their cute sexy strappy sandals.

I'm just sayin'.

Congratulations to the White Sox. You guys played really hard.

May it be another 88 years before you win another World Series.

And now stuff that isn't about me.

2000. I don't know what to say about that that hasn't already been said. 2000 families broken up over the loss of a loved one. 2000 people who won't ever come home again. Still pales in comparison to the 30,000 Iraqis who have been killed, but I don't think either group is more or less worthy of grieving than the other. I wonder what the population of Iraq is. If we keep going like this, maybe there won't be any Iraqis left. Will we pull out then?

I'm kind of happy that Rove is back in the news. It went away for a little while, but I'm glad to see that it didn't disappear completely. And Cheney was directly involved, too, apparently. How exciting! Maybe people will finally see that these are not nice people running our country. I'm not saying I have a suggestion for someone better to do the job. I'm on a lot of Democratic e-mail lists and most of them seem to be focused on stopping the Republicans from doing more bad stuff, instead of focusing on what could be done to make things better. I think that focus is going to have to shift if they are going to find a viable candidate in 2008.

And the White Sox. Did you know that one of the Astros' wives was slapped during one of the games here in Chicago? What the hell? I've always known that Sox fans were...not very nice, but this is ridiculous. I'm kind of afraid of what will happen to this city if the Sox take the Series, just in terms of rioting or looting or what have you. I know that if the Cubs won the Series, we'd all just be hanging around Wrigley drinking and singing, "Hey Chicago, whaddaya say? The Cubs are going to win today," really loud. What is the security plan in place in case the Sox win? Could the Astros please win the next game or two so we have a couple more days to figure it out?

And now for another exciting episode of Random and Scattered!

Thank you guys for your support. It honestly means the world to me that you're all in my corner about the career switch. Even Dad. Thank you.

It occurred to me this morning that not having this income doesn't mean I won't have any income. I will make it work. I'll do what I have to (short of porn and prostitution) to make it work. I'm smart. I'm capable. It will be hard, but I will do it, and I won't starve. That was kind of a freeing thought, you know? To know that I will still be able to make money somehow.

My bangs are long enough to get caught in my eyelashes when I blink.

I've been auditioning again lately, and have run out of headshots. At least out of my most current headshots. Which leaves me with the option of getting more printed, or getting entirely new shots, or giving people really old shots. But if I'm growing my hair back out, I should probably wait to get new shots. But if I just get more printed, they are misleading because I have longer hair in them. Which wouldn't seem to make that much of a difference, but it was a topic of conversation at at least one of my auditions this week.

I really want to rerecord a lot of my songs. Spruce them up. It's time. And record the new ones that haven't been recorded yet. Put together a new album. Move on from the Hamburg Demos to something else, yet to be named. I'll have to see if I have enough cohesive stuff to make an entirely new album. Probably. I'm listening to a lot of my older stuff today and it's cool to listen to it from a distance like this, you know? I'm much less judgmental, and yet moreso. I even put a couple of the older tunes up on my MySpace site, just to change things up a bit.

Does anyone know a place that makes custom yo-yos?

Liz was awesome last night, too. All in all, a really good night. I need more of those. And I need to start seeing other concerts besides just Liz Phair.

I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be more than okay. I'm going to be very well. Thank you guys.

I quit my job today.

Shit.

Please tell me it will all be okay. Please tell me I won't starve. Please tell me I'll be able to keep my apartment. Please tell me I'll find another job. Please tell me I'll be happier after the fact. Please let my co-workers see that it's not my fault that this job sucks. Please let them see that I did everything I could and the job still sucks. Please let them get rid of this idea that I'm anti-social or against them. Please let these next couple of months be livable. Please let me save up enough to live on. Please let my other endeavors work out.

Please tell me it will all be okay.

So I have, as of late, been on this Odwalla Bar kick. Chocolate Chip Peanut, to be precise. Because I really miss Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and need some way to get my chocolate and peanut butter fix at the same time.

Kidding.

No, seriously, I've been eating Odwalla Chocolate Chip Peanut bars like they're going out of style. Which is funny because I was never a food-in-bar-form person. But these puppies are tasty and make you full for an extended period of time. Anyway, the whole point of this: since I have three auditions after work today, I stopped in a little convenience store thingy on campus here and picked up a couple of Odwalla Bars to make up for the fact that I won't be able to eat dinner until probably 10pm. And there in the Odwalla display is a flavor I haven't seen before -- Chocolate! A pure chocolate Odwalla bar (well, with other stuff in there, too, to make it healthy)! What could be more wonderful than nutrition dressed up in chocolate? So I picked one up. Fewer calories, less fat than the Chocolate Chip Peanut one. More carbs in the form of sugars, though, but that's kind of to be expected, wouldn't you think? Anyway. As it turns out, there is very little that is LESS APPETIZING than a chocolate Odwalla bar. It's not very chocolatey. And it's really dry. And the dried berries in it do nothing for flavor or texture. All in all, a disappointment. Drat.

Good thing I picked up a Chocolate Chip Peanut bar, too...

I went to this audition yesterday that I'm pretty sure I blew horribly. But it's okay. The director asked me, after I had read the scene once, if I could do something with my voice to make the character sound more girly. So if/when I am not cast, I can take solace in the fact that I was not cast because I am not girly enough. She asked about my hair, too, if I planned on keeping it short. I'm not sure how to take that. If she was out and out not interested in casting me, I don't think she would have asked about the hair, you know? But the fact that she asked...I don't quite know what to make of it. Meh, we'll see.

I have three more auditions today. That's right, three more auditions after work today. I'm looking forward to the first one and the last one, but the one in the middle is another "if I get it, I get it; if I don't, I don't" kind of one, I'm thinking. I just need to be doing things, you know? Take charge. Get some non-Corn credits on my resume so that other people will hire me down the line. Get more exposure all over Chicago, not just in my little corner of the world.

But where does this leave the music career? If I get one of these jobs, I will have to cut my east coast visit short, if not cancel it all together. I hope I don't have to cancel. The thought of seeing two Moby shows in one night has been keeping me going these past couple of weeks. But it may mean I can't make it to Rhode Island and/or Washington, DC and/or Pennsylvania. But it means I would be performing a lot and getting paid for it.

Too many options! Too many unknowns! Too many possible outcomes! Too many things to sit and wait for. I'm really bad at waiting. I guess I could eat my lunch. It is just about that time...

Ladies and gentlemen, we have heat! Hooray!

It's not sweltering in my apartment, but I did hear the radiators go on. And my windows are kind of fogged up. I don't think I can do the whole storm windows thing, mostly because most of my windows don't open at all, but the heat did come on. We'll see how well it does through the winter. But yay!

I started making a halloween costume last night, too, because I actually have a party to go to this year. I love Halloween. It's been a while since I made a costume from scratch and I have to say, it's a lot of fun. I miss sewing.

They didn't show and I won. I now have a legal document that says they owe me the rest of the security deposit penalty. Hooray! On the down side, they have 30 days to pay or file an appeal. If they file an appeal, I have to go back to court and fight it. If they don't pay, I get to look into collection hearings. I have seven years to try to recover the money. SEVEN YEARS. Is this really worth it? Probably not. Then again, the more money I pay trying to recover the penalty, the more they will owe me, because the judgment was for the full amount plus court costs. I just have to make sure to hang onto all of my receipts. Don't you just love the American legal system? Yeah, me neither.

The really strange thing was, though, while I was sitting in the court room, after I had checked in but before the judge came in, for the first time in my life, I felt a connection to the name Katherine. I've always been Kitty. It was my great grandmother's name and she carried it with pride. I've never been a Katherine. Katherines are sophisticated and together and poised and beautiful. I've just never identified with that name. Until about 9:25 this morning. I sat there in the court room and felt like a Katherine. It only lasted a moment, but it felt really good. Made me start to wonder if there will ever come a time in my life when I will introduce myself to people as Katherine. Will I ever drop the Kitty? I have no idea. But it is something to think about.

And speaking of cold, you boys from Houston better bring your turtlenecks. It's gonna be chilly for the World Series this weekend.

When people look back on my life fifty years from now (if people decide that looking back on my life is a worthwhile expenditure of time), I hope they remember it as it really was -- one continuous failed attempt to stay warm.

Granted, I'm wearing a skirt today because most of my clothes still smell like warehouse (I had a lovely dinner with my mom last night, which meant I didn't redo my laundry. Maybe tomorrow after court), but I'm wearing pantyhose, for Pete's sake! And a long sleeved shirt and a sweater. And I'm drinking hot tea. And the powers that be seem to have decided that when it is 60 degrees outside, it's okay to have the heat on, but if it's only 50, that would be a good time to shut it off. I know there are people out there who like being cold. Who are more comfortable at lower temperatures. I am not one of them. I hate being cold. Can't stand it. I'm fine with appearing anti-social by closing my door to keep the heat in, but it would be nice if there was some heat to keep in. I know I'm the odd one out here. I don't think that should mean I have to be cold all of the time, especially when there are so many mechanisms to heat our environment ready at our disposal. That came out sounding very non-environmentalist. Yes, I believe in conserving energy. But sweet jebus, let me use my neighbor's share of the heat since he's not. He blasts his air conditioning in the summer, so I should be able to blast my heat in the winter. Honestly. I barely use air conditioning. I use heat. In the end, it all balances out, right?

Sorry. I'm cold today and I don't like it. And when I die, I want the people standing around my coffin at my funeral to say, "Poor girl. She was just never warm enough."

Okay, you thought I've written some embarrassing stuff before, just wait until you read this one.

Last week, I bought myself this cute little corduroy jacket. Almost qualifies as a blazer. Olive green. Really cute. I wore it one day last week and discovered that it had a kind of funky smell to it, like it had been sitting in a warehouse too long or something. I figured it was nothing a trip through the washing machine wouldn't fix.

So last night, I did my laundry -- all of it -- including this jacket. The load of laundry containing the jacket ALL SMELLS LIKE IT HAS BEEN SITTING IN THAT WAREHOUSE. It's disgusting. And the jacket smells worse than it did before. I Febreezed it twice last night after I took it out of the dryer and it still smells. And my towels smell. And my pillowcase smells. And my sweater smells. I even smelled the dryer sheet that came out of that load and it smelled like warehouse. What gives? What on earth could they have done to this jacket to make it smell that bad, and to infuse the smell into the jacket so strongly that it makes everything it touches also reek?

So tonight I get to redo that load of laundry, but this time, without the jacket. I'm thinking I'll take it to the dry cleaners or something and see if they can get the smell out. In the meantime, though, I'm wearing a stinky sweater and it's really starting to bother me. What choice did I have? I have to be warm enough, and all of my warmer clothes were in that load of laundry.

I hope the jacket didn't taint the washing machine and/or dryer. Though a couple other people did laundry after me last night, so if the smell was still in there, hopefully it's gone by now.

And the ideas just keep coming.

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you who have sent me little notes of encouragement. It feels wonderful to hear you all say that out of all of the starving artists you've ever met, you know I could pull this off. Yes, the wording sounds a little strange, but I know it means you all have faith in me and in my art, and that means more to me than I could ever tell you. So thank you all for that.

So on Saturday night I recorded "Insomnia" and played around with a bit. And I have to say, shameless as it might sound, that I am in love with this song. I liked the song a lot before, too, but it sounds so cool and creepy now. I could even keep playing with it and turn it into a hip hop or techno sounding song. I love it.

Which is good. I need a bright spot right now. Which may come in the form of an amp and a mic stand so I can record more stuff at a better quality at home than I have thus far been able to. I'm petrified to hand in my resignation letter, but I've been thinking about it and I can't think of anything they could do to make this job palpable. I wish they would just pay me for being me and let me go on my own way to do more interesting things. Like make music. Buy lots and lots of instruments and make lots and lots of groovy songs.

Speaking of the almost overwhelming fear, I do want to say thank you for the notes of encouragement I've been getting from you all as of late. They really do help. So thank you.

Man, I'm in a funk. I blame my job. I wrote out my resignation letter on Friday and then just left early. Didn't explain why. Didn't sign or give the letter to anyone yet, though. I wrote it out so that I will officially leave a month after my car is paid off, so I won't have to worry about making car payments while I am playing the role of starving artist. It was somehow liberating to write it out, but signing it and giving it to my bosses is turning out to be the most terrifying thing I've had to do in a long time. I've been sending out resumes and applying for other jobs which I know I won't enjoy any more than the one I currently have, but they would pay the rent, except they're not biting. So I'm kind of figuring that like just about everything else in my life, if I want anything to happen, I'm going to have to make it happen. If I want a different job, I'm going to have to create it.

I have ideas. I have people to help me. What I'm going to need is a LOT of positive energy and support. Please wish me luck as I begin this new phase of my life. Please send me the strength to hand in my resignation letter and be done with this toxic occupation. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

But in the meantime, I don't feel like doing all of these other things that I had planned for a long time. I was going to go to a concert tonight and now, I don't want to. I was supposed to go to a family reunion thing next weekend, and now I don't want to. I feel like I need to conserve my energy and my resources for when I will need them badly in the upcoming months. So I'm sorry if I come off as anti-social for a while. I'm sorry I'm not going to your concert tonight. I just need to stop and regroup. This next piece is going to be REALLY HARD and I need to make sure my infrastructure is all in place and bright and shiny and new so it will continue to hold me up.

I watched this movie last night called "Sick" about Bob Flanagan, who was the oldest living man with Cystic Fibrosis until he died at age 42. He was also an artist and a masochist. The film does get rather graphic, but honestly, that's not the difficult part to watch. At one point in the film, a 17 year old girl with CF gets the opportunity to meet Bob Flanagan through the Make a Wish Foundation, and she really got to know him. In one of the DVD extras, you get to see her in 2003 and see what her life is like and she talks about watching "Sick" with other people. Most of them say that watching him nail his penis to a board is the hardest part of the film to watch and she then asks them if they actually watched the movie, because for her, the hardest part is watching him die. For me, the hardest part of the film to watch was this montage of him coughing. Cystic Fibrosis is a lung and pancreatic disease that basically produces too much phlegm, so when someone dies of CF, they essentially die from drowning in their own mucous. It also means that throughout their lives, they have this horrible, raspy, mucousy cough that wracks their entire body. At one point in the film, the director put together about twenty or so clips of Bob coughing and it's hard to watch. It's hard to see a man in that much pain. Which sounds really weird, considering the things he did to himself, or allowed his partner to do to him. But he explains his masochism by saying that it was a pain he could control. He was in charge of it, as opposed to the constant CF pain that he could not control or medicate away or wish away.

This is not a film for the squeamish. But if you can see beyond the masochistic stuff, it really is worth seeing. It is a beautiful portrait of a highly intelligent, artistic man who spent his entire life in pain, but did whatever he could to deal with it, cope with it, turn it into something more than just constant pain. I would very highly recommend it.

So someone in my office has, as of late, had, um, really bad aim in the bathroom. Which is frightening because it is a ladies only restroom. But nonetheless, the floor is often wet when you go in there and it smells like, well, like someone had really bad aim. One of my other co-workers, to rectify the problem, has placed paper towels around the toilet, thus absorbing any offending liquids and hopefully to catch any future mishaps. Except when I go in there to use the restroom, I feel like I'm being trained to "go on the paper."

I love people. I really do. I know you've heard me say a million times that I don't, but really, I do.

This morning, on my way to work, there was a guy crossing the street in the middle of the block. He had just bought a sandwich and two sodas from the sandwich truck on one side of the street and was (presumably) going back to the other side of the street (his work site) to enjoy his purchases. And you could see him carrying the sodas gingerly so as to not spill them, and it just struck me as a really beautiful, very human moment. He worked hard for the money to buy those sodas and the last thing he wanted to do was spill them. For a moment, he was a three year old child again who has just learned how to drink out of a big boy cup and is walking across the room, cup in both hands, to get to his seat without spilling so Mom and Dad will see how much he has grown up.

I have no idea what kind of man that man was. Maybe he beats his wife. Maybe he is a single father raising two kids who think their dad hung the moon. Maybe he grew up in Bulgaria and moved to the United States in search of a better life. Maybe he grew up down the street and has never been outside the city limits. Whoever he was, for one moment, he was the guy who didn't want to spill his sodas as he crossed the street.

There are so many things that are the same about people, regardless of where they grew up or what level of education they reached. We all want to eat. We all want to sleep. We all want to love somebody and be loved by somebody. We all want to create diversions so that we don't have to think about our own mortality all the time. We fill our lives with so many other things that create drama and headaches and make us feel important or make other people feel bad, but really it comes down to eat, sleep, love, live. And maybe poop. I just love seeing people in those human moments when they can't help but be regular beings on this planet, doing the best they can to get along just like everybody else. A guy trying not to spill his soda. A parent's face melting as their child reaches up to take their hand. Those moments we try to hide from others so they will think we are cool, but are just too important to stay hidden. It is for those moments that I love people.

I don't think there is such a thing at THE meaning of life, with a capital THE. I realize that probably sounds rather defeatest, but just bear with me.

I just watched a documentary about death and the ways that humans try to deal with the knowledge that we're going to die and one of the assertions in the movie is that all culture is a form of denial to help us focus on things other than the fact that we are going to die, or something to that effect. Religion, art, music are all ways to escape the idea that we will one day no longer be here, and you can either deny your mortality in productive ways (artistic) or non-productive ways (violent). Which, when it is all put together has brought me to the conclusion that there is no ONE MEANING OF LIFE. I have my meaning of life, and you have yours and he has his and she has hers, but they are four entirely different meanings. There may be similarities, but they are four different meanings. The documentary also pointed out that most of the longest lasting, most violent conflicts in the history of the world are the result of one group of people believing another group of people with a different ideology, or death denial tactic, shouldn't exist. Maybe instead of everyone looking for the ONE MEANING OF LIFE, we should all just realize that my way of coping with my impending morality is fine, as is yours, as is his, as is hers, and that whatever we have to do to make ourselves feel better is fine, as long as it doesn't involve annihilating an entire culture of people. Or even one other person. Stop looking for the ONE MEANING, and just look for your meaning.

Anyway.

I also decided to sponsor a child in the Philippines today. We'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to writing her a letter, and I'm looking forward to getting one back from her.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it is time once again for another episode of Kitty's Ovaries Stage a Coup!

If you'll remember, in our last episode, the Ovaries and Uterine Wall formed an alliance and were planning on escaping though Kitty's Abdomen. Little did they know that General Advil was circling his troups in the Stomach and would soon put an end to their plans. Let's join the show already in progress:

Ovaries: We can't give up. It's warm and dark in here and we deserve to see the light of day just like anyone else.

Uterine Wall: It would be nice to be on the outside of things for once.

Ovaries: We've got a new plan. It will be difficult, but it should work this time.

Uterine Wall: Groovy. How does it work?

Ovaries: Well, first, we have to make sure we can trust you. You're not going to break down and disintegrate in one great, bloody mess like you did last time, are you?

Uterine Wall: No, I'm feeling pretty strong today. Got a nice firm grip, and just look at how thick I am. No way I'm coming apart like that again. That was so embarrassing.

Ovaries: Okay, then, listen up. We're going to focus really hard, and release eggs one by one down the Falopian Tubes until we are small enough ourselves to fit down the river. Once we've passed you, then you can follow and voila! We're free!

Uterine Wall: Sounds great. I'm just gonna chill for a bit, then until you get here.

Meanwhile, in the general abdominal region...

General Advil: All right, men. We've got a tough road ahead of us. Intelligence suggests that the Ovaries are going to start releasing eggs soon, and in mass quantities so as to distract us while they make an escape. I know, I know, they're just Ovaries. But now they have the Uterine Wall on their side, too, and man, is he looking thick and healthy. We must stop their escape at whatever cost. Without the Ovaries and Uterine Wall, our entire world will become so Estrogen-deprived that we turn into viscious brutes who sit around watching football, drinking beer, and scratching themselves. Do we want that?

Advil: No.

General Advil: I can't hear you! Do we want that?!

Advil: NO!

General Advil: No what?

Advil: SIR, NO SIR! WE DON'T WANT TO BE ESTROGEN-DEPRIVED BRUTES OTHERWISE KNOWN AS MEN, SIR!

General Advil: That's better. Now let's move out!

General Advil moved his troupes out of the Abdomen and down towards the Ovaries, just as the Ovaries were releasing their first egg. It was a tough battle, and the Uterine Wall just plain freaked out, broke down, and disintegrated in a bloody mess. Knowing full well that they could never escape without the help of the Uterine Wall, the Ovaries surrendered and became quiet.

Or did they...

Join us again next month when the Ovaries strike again, this time with laser guns!

We had an audience of 31 today and they loved it. My family loved it yesterday. Everyone walks out of there happy, and half the kids are singing songs or quoting the Produce Guy as they leave. Craziness. And more and more people are saying I should look into taking this show on the road, or into schools as part of an assembly or something. One of the themes of the show is communication - teaching kids to talk to each other and to their parents - which is apparently a big thing in early childhood education right now. I don't know. I have no idea how to put a touring children's show together. I guess it is something I could look into. Talk to people about. I don't know if I would want to do it as part of my theater company, or as an endeavor on my own. If I did it as part of my theater company, an expansion project, if you will, a lot of the legal stuff would already be taken care of -- I wouldn't have to start my own company or write out bylaws or anything like that; it's all been taken care of before. But if I did it on my own, as my own endeavor (maybe with a business partner), I could actually make some money at it. I have recently been talking to a friend from college who had written a children's show and was going to put together a tour -- I should talk to her and find out how she did it. Hell, if this one went well, I could write other shows with other lessons and start my own touring children's theater company. Or, I could do this as an extension of my theater company. Maybe. We've talked a million times about expanding our children's theater project. If it is something I could make money at, I would totally do it.

It's so sad that I'm all about making money wherever I can right now. I don't like being that person. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I have to get out of my current job, and if that means finding sixty-seven other random sources of income so I can continue to eat and have my own place, then I guess that is what I'm going to have to do. It also means looking at severe insecurity for the next phase of my life, which is really scary. But doing children's theater...I loved the children's tour I did in college. I've loved doing this show. I don't know. Something to think about. Something to bring up at the next theater company meeting.

Cheese should be shredded. Vegetables should not.

Except maybe cabbage.

So it is approximately 40 degrees Farenheit colder today than it was yesterday. Does this happen elsewhere in the world, or only in Chicago? Just wondering. I'm not complaining. It's nice "staying inside and drinking tea and watching movies" weather, which is exactly what I feel like doing as of late. I swear, if I could hibernate, I would. How awesome would that be? And then, when I woke up in the spring, I'd be about twenty pounds lighter because of all of the calories my body used while I was sleeping, just in time for bathing suit season. Of course, I'd have to eat a lot more in the fall. Darn it.

Tee hee.

Boston, I'm counting on you. Focus, guys, focus! No more silly errors. And time to ignite those bats! Come on, Boston!

I'm flattered that you love me and think of me enough to send me those chain letter e-mails, I really am. Thank you for thinking of me. But if you love me so much, why do you send chain letter e-mails that threaten the health of my family and friends if I don't pass them along? Because I don't pass them along. Chain letters die with me. I don't want to put my friends in a position of having to pass something along to 39 people out of fear that if they don't, their children will get sick or their parents will die. So why do you send those things to me? If I don't pass them along and my friends get sick or have some horrible fate befall them, guess what? YOU'RE my friend. You could be in serious danger because I don't want to put my loved ones in the same position you just put me in.

So thank you. I'm flattered that you think of me. But please just send along the occasional joke. If there's some threat of iminent death, send it to someone else.

So there are about a million places (websites) you can go to play online games. I'm not talking big, complex games or anything like that; I'm talking Solitare or Mah Johngg. That kind of thing. Just little puzzle games to keep the mind occupied while you spend hours upon hours upon hours sitting on your ass trying to find something to do. And to all of these companies who let you play these online games for free, I thank you. You keep my work days semi-interesting. Thing is this: so many of these games are not Mac-compatible. Are the game manufacturers functioning under the assumption that there is so much kick-ass Mac software out there that Mac users don't need to clog their computers with games? Or are they just lazy, seeing as only about 10% (I think -- I don't know the exact number, but it's small) of computer users use Macs? They figure there aren't enough computers out there that would want to play this game anyway to make creating a version of the game that is functional on a Mac cost effective.

Well, I, for one, would like to play those games. I hear my friends talk about Zuma, I see the pretty pictures for Barnyard Invasion or Diner Dash and I want to play them. I have no idea if the games will hold my attention or will be deemed stupid upon first opening them, but I want to try them. It's a strage brand of cruel and unusual punishment when I log onto one of these sites that is touting a new game, but I can't play the new game because it doesn't work on my computer.

Okay, maybe I'm just in a pissy mood lately. I just wrote a two-paragraph diatribe about the unfairness of online games. And not even the cool online games, whose names I don't know because I don't play those ones. I play QBz and Mah Johngg and Slingo and the like. Sweet jebus, I'm a dork.

The Cubs season has come to an end. It finished with a fizzle. Oh well. Next year, right? Next year will be our year.

And I'm back to the usual grind, hating it just as much as ever. Seriously, if anyone out there is hiring, please let me know. I learn fast and work hard, especially if it is something I enjoy doing.

So we opened to a kind of small house, but they liked it. We're officially open. My job as director is done. Yes, I will still be there for all of the performances, save the ones that I will be out of town for, but I don't have to take notes anymore or make changes and adjustments or any of that crap. Doesn't necessarily mean I won't, but I don't have to. My actors no longer expect notes after each performance. If there is something glaringly wrong, I'll say something, but no need to be nit-picky anymore.

I thought I would feel different, but I don't. I think opening day is totally different for those not in the show. I don't feel like I did a show. I didn't connect with the audience. I didn't really do anything besides hang a curtain and then take it back down. It's like I put in just as much work as the rest of them through the rehearsal period, but I didn't get the payoff at the end of it. People told me afterwards that I did a good job of it, but it hasn't really hit me yet. It doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel like I directed this show.

I dunno. I don't know what I expected to feel after this. I guess I just expected to feel something more than this. In a lot of ways, it was just another show. And we've got another one tomorrow. And next weekend. And the weekend after that. Meh.