Well, dear readers, how can January be more than halfway over already? It’s flying by, like a gazelle running amok in underpants. I gotta tell you. But I must not have detours in these here notes because they should have been posted six minutes ago and yet here I am having just begun them. So, there will be no further details – no more talk of gazelles in their underpants, no telling of the tale of The Randy Vicar and the Sharpie, no amusing anecdotes without point. In other words, the notes.
Yesterday, I woke up very late, at eleven-thirty after about ten hours of sleep. It took forever to fall asleep, but once asleep I slept like a rock, not that I have a clew as to how a rock sleeps. So, I got a late start on the activities of the day, namely futzing and finessing and writing, oh my. I spent about forty minutes futzing and finessing, then continued on my merry way on the third to last chapter. I wrote about seven pages in all before having to get ready and then be on my way to our little Inside Out fundraiser.
I arrived a little after three. There were a bunch of nice silent auction items out front, but we really had very few bidders for them. A few things did sell, so we did get some money from that, but most of the proceeds came from the twenty-dollar fee to attend our little cabaret matinee. Adryan Russ assembled a very good group of singers, each of whom sang one song. We had a decent turnout – around fifty or sixty people. I don’t have the list of performers in front of me, but the ones I remember are Eileen Barnett, Amanda McBroom, Michelle Brourman, Maddy Claire Parks, Robert Yacko, Peter Welkin, Zachary Ford, Pat Whiteman, Alan Chapman and Karen Benjamin, Shelly Markham, Kevin Symons, Sharon McNight, Sandy Bainum (doing my song Who Do I Have to Blank To Get Out of This Show), Dianne Fraser, Adryan Russ, Amy Gillette, and Will Collyer – I hope that’s everyone. Oh, and Guy Haines was a no-show so I ended up performing. I got a nice laugh when I went up and said Guy couldn’t be there because he doesn’t go to Burbank, and another nice laugh when I said I was going to do some Yiddish folk songs. Instead I sang my new song, Let Me Sing, which went over very well. I cannot remember the last time I played and sang in public – something I rarely do.
The show went by quickly and then the Haverty clan, actress Barbara Brownell and I went to a new restaurant across from NBC – formerly Chadney’s, a terrific steak house a la The Smoke House. It’s been sitting empty for over a decade now, but the new jernt, Simmzey’s. I wasn’t so thrilled by the menu, but everything was okay – we had two orders of their weird bleu cheese french fries stack – just weird but oddly addictive. And I had a pulled chicken sandwich, which would have been great if they’d just left the cumin out of the sauce. It was fine, though.
After that, I stopped and got two small donuts and then came home. I immediately wrote five pages for a total of twelve and then took a break and watched the final two episodes of The Fall series two. They were fine, but I had no idea the final episode was ninety minutes or I wouldn’t have started it. So, I had to finish and it was then thirty minutes later than I wanted it to be. As I said, the show has tried to sustain one story line across two seasons and twelve episodes and that rarely works. The first season of the Danish The Killing had a really long storyline, like twenty episodes and it was just deadly. Then went down to ten for subsequent seasons and that worked much better. But at the forty-minute mark of the final episode I could see they were about to do a very stupid thing and not conclude this storyline at the end of season two. Bad mistake, stupid mistake and I’m done with the show.
Then I came back to the computer and wrote two more pages for a total of fourteen, so not a bad day of writing despite the almost five hours away. Had I been home for those five hours, I probably would have kept writing and definitely finished the chapter and begun the penultimate chapter, but alas, that didn’t happen.
Today, I shall be up early to futz and finesse and maybe try to write one page before being on my way to our first music rehearsal for Inside Out. I like to be at these rehearsals for tempo purposes and just to see what the actors are about and what their approach is while learning. That will last from ten to two, then I’ll eat a quick something then come home and write for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, with only a few breaks for relaxation. I’m probably less than thirty pages away from finishing and I’m in that mode to do so.
Tomorrow is another music rehearsal, and if I haven’t finished the book I will then. I’ll futz and finesse everything, print it out and get it to Muse Margaret and hope she likes it. The rest of the week is rehearsals, meetings and meals, announcing our new title and writing the commentary for the next Kritzerland show as well as a new set of liner notes.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, futz and finesse, write, rehearse, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, write, write and write. Today’s topic of discussion: Of today’s crime shows, which are your favorites and which don’t you like at all? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall write with only one detour for the day.