Fall

I want to write this great blog entry about how the Renaissance Festival is over for the year and I'm sad, blah, blah, blah but all I can type is something dark and moody. Suffice to say that it is the greatest part of my professional life and has been for 17 seasons now. I will miss it more than ever before and will yearn for its beginning again so that I can truly feel a part of something great. It is the purest form of entertainment I have ever found and that gift to ones audience is the one I have always wanted to give. I hope a few people forgot about everything bad and just laughed at the giraffes in love, the childhood started in a rail-yard singles scene and a few other startlingly funny moments. Thank you all.

Closing of a weekend

A view of the sun going down as the end of another season of the Renaissance Festival approaches. After next weekend we all go back on the shelf for another year to await our coming in glory. The beauty of the sky at 7:00 always makes me aware of the end of our little harvest festival. I'm just not ready for it this year.

My car.

I wrote this blog awhile ago. Forgot to post it.

I used to dream of someday having a lamborgini countach. A black one, just like the poster in my room. Remember that? Then, later I dreamed of a camaro. Maybe an '82 Z28 like Travis' mom. When I was in college, I started to realize that I really loved the feel of a huge car with a huge engine. Not a luxury car like that '81 Parisseane Damian's mom had. You know the one. You felt like you could swing the wheel in 2 complete circles with enough pressure from your index finger to turn the page of a novel, and when you did, the car would calmly change lanes. No, I wanted a muscle car, but the oversized version with enough room for a bunch of shriners to drive in circles on the floor mat.
Well one day, as I was reading the car for sale ads in the local shopper (i still do, even though I need no car), I saw an ad for a 1968 Impala SS convertible. It said it had a 396 cubic inch engine(the original one) and they were asking $1750 for it. Depending on the condition, I knew that might be a steal. Or it might be robbery. But what I was positive about was that it had just become my car, no matter the condition. I got my big sister to co-sign on a loan, took a cab the 45 miles into North Dakota and drove it home. Well, most of the way. The tow truck finished that for me. Now, 15 years later, that very car sits, almost completely disassembeled in my shop waiting for me to finish what I told Bob would take 7 years of ownership to do. Make everyone else see what I see. A dream.

Ahhhhh. . . . Sunday drivin'

Here is sit in tech rehearsal for the first show of the season already tired of the show, and this is actually quite good.

I got up early today, put on 3 shirts and went to the renaissance festival. I rarely have a good day when butch is gone. Not because I love him, but because the majority of my work as an entertainer is in reaction to him. Today felt different. I connected with people, helped a young entertainer learn to juggle and even had a nice moment with my hero out there.

got cold, left early and drove straight to work. On the way I got a call that proves I am getting old. A friend called and asked if I had seen "Big Trouble in Little China." Do I feel old because it's an old movie? Is it because she clearly is upset about the 2 hours she will never get back? Perhaps the maligning of Kurt Russel's magnum opus? No. It is because friends of mine are watching movies at 6:00 on a sunday. Well at least they'll be able to make that 8:30 bedtime.

back to rehearsal. Fuck I'm tired. . . at 9:15.

Now THAT'S a lunch break. . .

Once last year, on my lunch break, I just started driving, not sure where I would go and saw a sign for a county park. Lake Washington County Park, in LeSeuer County, to be exact. Shanaska Creek runs through the park and the only remaining active* bridge from the 1856 DOT system is in the park. (Shanaska Creek Bridge, surprisingly) Last week I took my camera with me on my lunch break and went back. I have been there 3 times and I have seen beavers, frogs, deer, a great Blue Heron, and even what I believe was a Great Grey Owl in this park. (Great Grey Owls are not generally native to this area) This is the only part of my personality that I KNOW I learned from my father. When I didn't go home for 3 days when I was 16 and my Mom called Dad to straighten me out, he took me to the local state park to sit me down on a rock beside the river before he told me how little my Mother deserved to be saddled with a pain in the ass like me. Just up and going somewhere wild is a part of the package with me and I can't tell you how thankful I am for that. Maybe I should become a park ranger. . . . .

* apparently "active" includes foot traffic. No roads in there anymore.

What you have wanted your whole life is never quite what you expected.

I have said for many years to anyone who would listen that all I want in a President is an intelligent person who is a good speaker. I think the presidents job is largely national cheerleader. Present a pretty face to the world, (an by that I mean an intelligent person who can understand the problems before them and not appear befuddled or ignorant) and get all of us whipped up into a patriotic fervor when necessary. If they are wise enough to hear others opinions and have a solid grasp of right and wrong, I think we are safe. As you may have guessed, this particular opinion has become more important to me in the last 8 years. This however does not really take into account my very strong feelings about Iraq, gun control, abortion rights, etc. I am firmly planted halfway between Barack Obama and John McCain. I'm against more gun control, but I would give my life to ensure a woman's right to choose. I think if we walked in and destroyed a country and attracted many terrorists there as a place to fight their chosen battle, we should not just pack up and leave and get to claim we are doing what's best. But I also feel like I could use a tax break. So where does one find in all this, a candidate to support? I am lost dear readers, but as I was reminded last week, Obama sure can put a few words together. Wonder how McCain will do tonight. . . . .

Welcome back.

Went I went to grad school, there were 3 other students who entered the program at the same time. There were no returning students that year, so we were a tight knit group. One of that group, Bev, was a woman who had had a daughter and spent her life raising her and was now going to finally be what SHE wanted and get her MFA in directing. She is a really fine director and had started making a career for herself in Chicago when, a year ago Sunday, she was hit by a bus while walking across the street. There was severe brain damage and she has basically been re-learning everything about who she is and the world in general. On the anniversary of her accident, her daughter and she were riding a bus down the street where she had lived before the accident and that part of her place in the world all came rushing back to her. As the bus rolled past the places she had visited, shopped and lived she started to remember where she fits in the world. In her own words, as transcribed by her daughter in a blog, "I feel like I've been away for a long time, and I finally just got back."

I have failed, in this year, to go and visit my friend. Partly because I shy away from these kinds of moments, partly because I allow myself to be driven by my schedule, and partly because I was afraid to see this, one of the smartest and most vibrant people I have ever known, brought low by her injuries. I am saddened by my own inactivity, but feel that at least the prayers of me and many, many other people have been answered, and Bev is coming back. Maybe now I can find my own way back to her, even through all my whining.