Oops: Dumb Matt forgot to post a message on here noting the NEW BRIGADOON PICTURES yesterday when he actually uploaded them. The usual lesson can be gleaned from this: I am an idiot.

The new pictures include one final one from Aldersgate, and 18 more from Longwood, where we started rehearsing on Monday.

The Longwood Outdoor Theater is immense; it seats just under 2000, I’m told, and the stage is massive, as you’ll see from the pictures. I’m so stoked for this show I can barely see straight, which gets a little scary for Sarah when I’m driving. (Not that my driving isn’t already scary.)

We’ve gotten to try on some of our costumes, and mine fit reasonably well, although I’m going to bring in an old suit of my own to wear because the jacket they gave me is just snug enough in the shoulders to be a little uncomfortable. My outfit for the first act is kinda nice, albeit WARM. The pants are corduroy, with a denim shirt and a soft fleece jacket, which I expect to sweat through thoroughly before I even walk on the stage. I brought in a pair of standard yellow work boots, we’ll see how well the directors like them. At some point I need to pick up a host of black socks, and a clip-on necktie (the suit is involved in a couple quick changes).

I have some more pictures from Tuesday as well, but I haven’t decided whether or not I want to tie myself down to daily editing-commenting-uploading extravaganzas, since technically I should be working. What with being at work and all.

Hey, Matt has nothing funny to write about today! (Hey, you’re getting this for free. If you’re expecting quality, go buy a New Yorker or a Hustler or something.) When Matt has nothing to write about, you get either pictures or poetry; today is poetry, or rather, a pretty cool song. (I think I’m turning into Jill.)

I’m all about Switchfoot (beware, it has sound, don’t deafen your coworkers). You’ve probably heard the one single on Top 40 radio, “Meant to Live:”

We were meant to live for so much more
But we lost ourselves.
Somewhere, we live inside . . . somewhere, we live inside.

Decent song, but not the best on their new album, “The Beautiful Letdown.” If you can listen to the samples on their website, give this a listen, it’s rather my personal song (aka “my cut”) of the week:

Twenty-Four

Twenty-four oceans, twenty-four skies,
twenty-four failures in twenty-four tries.
Twenty-four finds me in twenty-fourth place.
With twenty-four dropouts at the end of the day.

I want to see miracles
To see the world change
I wrestled the angel
For more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
Singing spirit take me up in arms with you
You’re raising the dead in me

I’ve been kinda down intermittently this week, and that song (along with a few other tunes on the same disc, and frequent doses of “Amahl and the Night Visitors”) has kept me going.

The CD’s worth picking up, particularly for $9.98 at Walmart. Go fetch ye a copy.

I have some questions about OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). Well, one, mainly. Do you always just have it, or can it develop late in life? ‘Cause I think I’m getting it.

It’s all been coming on over the last few weeks. I actually do a decent job of getting my lawn mowed every week; I cleaned the basement; I cleaned the garage (thereby refilling the basement with useless crap, although the basement has been avenged: my mother made me take about 300 boxes of various crap from her house, most of which is now in the garage); I’ve been doing things like cleaning bathrooms, doing laundry, things like that.

Even stranger, I’m now an absolutely stickler for personal cleanliness. Time was, if I was at home, and I had to pee, I usually wouldn’t bother to wash up. It wasn’t like I had peed on my hands, or anything! Now I wash my hands every time I do anything, and I feel vaguely repulsed by others who don’t. Amusingly terrifying anecdote: I enter the work bathroom to “drain the dragon” (see also: “quench the urinal cake fire”), and a pair of middle-aged gentlemen are there ahead of me. One of them completes his urinary task and commences washing his hands, and the other apparently has a larger bladder, so he takes a little longer.

He then turns to his buddy, announces loudly, “Well, Bob, I didn’t pee on my hands!” and walks out of the bathroom without washing. (I think he put his willy away first, but I have no proof of this.) I almost bit my tongue bloody trying to avoid screaming, “Yes, but you still touched your filthy ‘old-man’ wang, you foul, foul hottentot!”

I guess what I’m saying is, if you come to my office building, and you meet up with a pair of guys in their mid-to-late fifties, one of whom is tall and named Bob, the other being short and kinda moley: DO NOT SHAKE THE SHORT GUY’S HAND. Or at least spray some Lysol on him first.

As an added bonus, a sign on an upstairs water-cooler had me thinking twice, even three times (making a total of 6 total actual thought processes for me that day, a new record): “If you fill your water bottle, please do it without touching the bottle to the tap. It is unsanitary.” My initial instinct was to lick the tap good and germy and share the Hearnovirus with the rest of the building, but then I thought, “Ew. I’ve been rubbing my water bottle against something to which other people have touched theirs. Meaning my lips have been like 4 steps removed from the mouth of someone who may or not have washed his hands last time he successfully didn’t pee on them.”

Then I threw up in my mouth a few times. Now I’m much more careful to not let my bottle touch the tap. Admittedly, this means water tends to get everywhere, much to the chagrin of the person that comes in for coffee, slips in my spillage and demolishes his nose on the refrigerator door, but if that’s the price someone else has to pay, I’m more than willing to let them pay it. Plus, I plan to post a little sign on the water cooler that reads “Whichever of you jerks gave me dysentery: I will find you. And then I will cut you.” You know, just to keep everybody honest.

Also, I’ve gotten into the habit of putting the toilet cover down before flushing anything ’cause I’m told that fecal matter can spray out and onto your toothbrush, the thought of which caused me to interrupt this sentence twice (right after “fecal” and “spray”) and put my head between my knees.

More Brigadoon pics AGAIN! It’s like I’ve completely given up on my ability to write! Which I probably should have done years ago!

(Must stop babbling . . . must stop babbling . . .)

Anyway, this particular set is DEFINITELY worth a look, since I finally got some great pictures of Ariann and Jennifer, the two ladies in Tommy’s life. They are rad.

Whew, LOOOONG weekend. I’m sure you want to hear all about it! It’ll be great! Have a seat! Hey, where are you going, come back! Really, you’ll enjoy this. It involves livestock!

NOW I’ve got your attention, you perverts.

Anyhoo, the weekend began with a nice day off on Friday during which I cleaned out the garage. I then promptly filled it back up with more junk, particularly my buddy Craig’s refrigerator, which I’m storing for him until he moves into his new place in a few weeks. My mother was also kind enough to give me boxes and boxes of useless crap that I’d left in my old bedroom at her house.

I did manage to get my motorcycle free, so hopefully I’ll get it running soon and be able to ride it around the neighborhood a bit; I could use the practice before riding it to the repair shop for further maintenance, since I figure it might be nice to not crash into a tree on the way there. As we shall soon discover, I’m fragile enough as it is.

Friday evening, Brian and Mary came over; we moved a piano, and then went to a bar and ate things that are not on my diet.

Saturday, we went to Home Depot and purchased all kinds of paint supplies, steel brushes, spray paints, many grood things, and after spending a few hours chatting with our friendly peeps Dan and Lynn, got our paint on. We had to begin painting the living room because I want to be able to tune the piano. The logic of the previous statement is explained thusly:

1. The piano is in the living room.
2. It needs to be tuned.
3. Per #2, it is scheduled to be tuned on Thursday.
4. When you move a piano, it tends to go out of tune.
5. We wish to paint the living room.
6. To paint a living room wall, it is usually necessary that there be nothing blocking your access to that wall.
7. The piano was against a wall.
8. Ergo, it needed to be moved.
9. Per #4, I didn’t wish to pay $150+ to have it tuned (it’s very out of tune) and then have to move it a few weeks later to paint, thereby putting it out of tune.
10. We needed to move it out of the way and begin painting, which we did, so that when the piano-wall was done we could move the piano back into place to be tuned. Which we have done. Q.E.D.

Of course, I neglected to think that I might want to be ripping up the carpet if I discover that there’s hardwood under it. I’m not a great “plan ahead” kind of guy. Anyway, Saturday afternoon and evening was paint day. We thought of going out for a nice dinner Saturday night, but I was on call, and I knew as soon as we sat down I’d get paged. Did I get paged? No, of course not, because we didn’t go anywhere. My job is so lame.

Sunday, we got up and went to church since my Moms and El Maj were singing duet-type jaunpiece. It was very nice, even though poor Sarah got a little confused from time to time. (I’m trying to actually get to church with reasonable frequency this summer to try and stave off my eventual damnation.)

After that I put another coat of paint behind the piano and on myself, and we headed over to Mandy and Speech’s for drinks and grub. While there, we noticed that they had a girl’s 10 speed bike on the front porch, that Mandy immediately gave to HW. So I get to go over there later and pick that up, which will be nice, since Sarah will take any opportunity to injure herself on two wheels. (Says the idiot that fell off his bike during the motorcycle course 2 years ago.)

The remainder of the evening became rather anacreontic, as we went over to The Boys™ for vast amounts of food, wine, and political argument. (My parents friends are rather liberal; I am rather, um, not (Vote Libertarian!).) I was asked several times during the course of the evening whether or not I had an off switch. (Answer: hells no.) I was also chided by my friend Michele for pronouncing the word “absurd” in this manner: “abzurd,” as opposed to “abssurd.” I, of course, looked it up later, and discovered that either pronunciation is legal (although the latter is the preferred), so I offer this in response: Nah. Nee Nah. Nee Boo.

Boo.

Man, was I hammered on Sunday. Luckily, Sarah drove home.

The next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bad in a BAAAAAAAD way. I actually got outside and ran a mile before we got in the car to drive to Lancaster for the day, stopping first at my Aunt Rebecca’s house, where we ate crab-toast, cinnamon flop, and Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding. My mother made it. I’m pretty sure she’s a hecubus, or at least a sizeable imp of some kind.

Next, we headed over to Aunt Nanette’s farm, where we feasted on rosemary-coated lamb (as opposed to Rosemary Clooney lamb) and I ate the rest of the cinnamon flop. I also took the opportunity to take pictures of her sheep and calf. The calf will be a steer in a few weeks, and looked exceptionally tasty. The lambs, of course, looked absolutely succulent. Before I remembered myself I found myself gnawing on the thigh of one of the larger ones, which earned me some strange looks from the other barn-dwellers. My relatives, of course, took it all in stride.

Last, but certainly not least, we went over to Uncle Gord’s place, where we stuffed ourselves with dessert and swam in the pool, not necessarily in that order. Because Uncle Gord no longer drinks, nobody else was drinking, so we were even able to stay sober for the 90 minute drive home! I even managed to get off of Rt. 30 at Rt. 741 and didn’t get lost once! Man, I’m hell of brilliant. Sometimes being me hurts.

Tuesday started off poorly when I ran for 6 minutes and then threw out my back. (See? Being me really DOES hurt.) Particularly when I realized that I’d be moving our dining room furniture, and the piano, later that morning. Not good times. Excruciating times. So I pounded half a bottle of Advil with a vodka chaser and got to work, driving up to Sarah’s parents to pick up the furniture, load it into my truck and their van, and then drive it back down to the house. Luckily, it was mostly veneer-type stuff, so it wasn’t terribly heavy. The piano, on the other hand, is never getting moved again without the benefit of a crane. We’ll just leave it with the house. Or perhaps burn it, while drunk. I’m looking forward to that bacchanalian extravaganza.

The day didn’t improve when, at 4pm, I got paged for the first time all weekend, and the issues escalated from there, to the point that I missed most of Brigadoon rehearsal, for which I still feel rather guilty, since as a lead, my presence is rather important. Plus I lend an air of sexiness to the whole production that it sorely needs. I ended up being stuck at the data center until almost 1am, after which I passed out in my bed in the nude. (That’s right, picture it. I was lying face up. Blind now, aren’t you? Welcome to my wife’s world.)

I told you you’d want to read this.