Today i'm reading student poems for the poem of the month contest. If i have a brain left when i'm through i might write more...~w

I'm on vacation hiding...~w

If all goes well, i should be in Winston-Salem this evening listening to some great jazz and hanging out with friends relaxing. The key will be to get through the day of work and to the show without creating more distress. I'm starting early so there will hopefully be enough time for everything.~w

I forgot to post earlier...and the day has just been full. I'm alive, though who's to say where my brain has gone.~w

Sitting in a Red Roof in High Point, NC i feel like i've been here before...even if i haven't. I have been sucked back into the strip mall of America with it's safe sanitary rooms and the golden arches like a beacon only a few hundred yards away. We're going to do three shows this morning and then hie it back to Asheville. I like that word "hie." It means to make haste, but says it more succinctly. Anyway, i have stretching to do.~w

I made pumpkin pie yesterday and ate a delicious potlock dinner while some people watched a football game. It's nice to have a gaggle to hang out with on such a day that when the game got boring we could turn it off and watch a reeeaaaalllly bad sword and sorcery movie made bearable only by the fact that one of the gaggle had a fight and death scene in the latter part of the film.

Today, the plan is to work and then drive to High Point, NC to do shows tomorrow morning. It might be just another day on the road, or it might be a wacky adventure. Who can say...~w

Since this year's Renn Faire involves a visit from Queen Mary Stuart to the town of lower Tidmarsh amidst controversy over whether chivalry is dead, and since i'll be the wife of the Mayor of Tidmarsh, i decided to do some research on Mary. Here's what i found...

Mary (who became Queen of Scotland soon after her birth) technically had more claim to the English throne than Elizabeth (and tried to claim it at age 17), one of the reasons she was a threat enough to be put to death (the other being a plot to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586). She was also a Catholic as opposed to Elizabeth who was Protestant. She was also married...3 times I think...as opposed to Elizabeth "the virgin" queen. She grew up in France (wed at age 16 to the French King) and returned to Scotland a widow at 18. She was rumored to "fall violently in love" and "rely too heavily on her male advisors." With the rise of the Protestants, and her being Catholic, even though she issued a decree of tolerance, she was controversial in Scotland, and was deposed in 1567 (mostly due to the fact that she married the chief suspect in her 2nd husband's assassination). She was favored among Catholics in both Scotland and England but despised by Protestants and Elizabeth's supporters...i don't know quite how this relates to Tidmarsh, but it could make things interesting. I'm not sure exactly where the fictional Tidmarsh is located, but apparently it's somewhere between England and Scotland, perhaps near Bristol.~w