I'm going to see the new Harry Potter movie today. Life is good!

Yesterday's middle school shows in Marietta, OH went splendidly and now i'm home for a while (i hope).~w

Our high school groups were small yesterday, but enthusiastic and fun. Enthusiasm can make up for a lot of things. It started to creep into my brain that my own frustration and tiredness with work is leaking out to infect others if i'm not careful. Attitude is everything and mine has been a little irksome lately. I got a good night's sleep last night though and that will help i'm sure. I need to invite calm into my life and reduce the stress level so that i don't create undue stress for other people. Less thrashing about in the water makes it easier for everyone to swim.

I realized last night that i was way out of touch with the news as i caught a few clips. Then i realized why..."Terror, terror, terror." My life has enough going on in it without worrying about what terror might next strike. It wasn't so much news as fear factor 101. There is only so long that you can live worrying about whether some power hungry idiot is going to push a button that destroys the world as we know it. They have all kinds of guesses about what horrible things could happen, but any kid with an imagination can create monsters. The trick is to know that they are there and then overcome your fear. Otherwise you are being terrorized. Terrorism is not so much what has happened, but being frozen by fear over what could happen. Watching the news these days won't help me with that. So with that, i'm going to go perform poetry for kids and give them another outlet for their feelings besides violence.~w

We've finished one show already this morning and have two more show/workshops left to do before driving to the next town. We won't be done here until 4:30pm. That makes for a long spread out day. The first show at Athens Middle here in Athens, Ohio went splendidly. I'm just surprised at how awake these kids were at 7:30am. I was never that awake even if my eyes were open and i was moving.

Just when i thought things were going to get easier, i found out that the new actor who had signed a contract is breaking that contract and now i need a new person...again. That means going back through all the people we've auditioned and are interested in hiring and finding someone who can learn 4 scripts in less than a month (or at least 2 of the 4). It's never slow in this business.~w

I should have left the house 45 minutes ago to drive to Statesville, to drive to Athens, OH. I didn't now i'm late. Had to sit down and turn the computer off, so i thought i'd type at least something before driving away again. "Something"

This is the last trip for a while...i think.~w

I watched the Bollywood spectacle aosaka last night which sort of portrays the life of the Indian Emporer Aosaka first royal patron of Buddhism. Mostly i was suprised to see a Bollywood film in Blockbuster and had to check it out just for that. Now you might saying BollyWHAT? Bollywood is the Indian film industry which puts out far more films than Hollywood every year, but they rarely make their way to America. And, judging from some of the fan sites, has as much scandal and fan mania (or more) than the average Hollywood Soaps get. This particular movie had a little bit of everything in it. High drama, singing, dancing, comedic breaks, sword fights...think Moulin Rouge, Braveheart, King Lear, and National Lampoon's Vacation all rolled into one. I think that it helped having studied some of the music of India, shadow plays, and a bit of Osiri dance to keep up with everything going on in the movie. I think the hardest part though is reading the white subtitles over very light backgrounds. There were also things that were obviously supposed to be funny that didn't translate very well. However, all in all, it's quite the adventure and worth the 150 minutes of my time.~w

Yesterday i saw a joust to the death. Pretty impressive i'd say. I also saw kings and queens and town fools and a faery and an ent and a game of Elven chess and the raunchiest version of Little Red Riding Hood i have ever seen as performed by the Tortuga Twins (yes there are three of them). You could buy everything from swords to wedding goblets to leather bodices to jewelry and hats and anything else you can think of buying. They had plenty of food and drink as well. Things like honey mead and pumpkin beer and turkey legs and apple dumplings. It really was like wandering into another world. Now i return to the real one with only a pair of shoes and belt pouch (for use at the madrigal dinner and our own faire) as a reminder.~w

Oops, I forgot to post yesterday. Now this morning i'm off to the Charlotte Rennaisance Faire. I'm all in garb and ready to go except for the coffee that i need to wake up. i'll let you know how it goes.~w