Quo Vado?

We don’t want get ourselves in a pissing match, but we do want to play like lawyers. Can someone tell me how this is possible? Aren’t the steps you’re directing us to take inflammatory? Some days I just don’t get it.

Well, just a quick update before I crash back into bed. Mom’s returned all the way home safely. We survived four days together and in general had a good time. Let me tell you, hearing your mom gush like a school girl during her fourth major dating cycle takes some getting used to. I survived work today - barely. Now, I’m off to bed.

Maybe, I’ll try to listen to last nights Studio 60 as I fall asleep. There was something sparkly about it - but I’ll write more later.

The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.
- (Justin) Brooks Atkinson

Hey readers - you know the six of you - Mom’s in town and we’ll be off seeking adventures soon. Expect a spotty posting until Wednesday.

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
- James Truslow Adams

A couple of weeks ago I ordered two pair of jeans online. The were the color I wanted, a price I could swallow and the perfect cut for me. Or so I thought. I ordered a pair of low-rise boot cut jeans. Yesterday, I wore the jeans for the first time. In addition to having to find a ‘special’ pair of underwear [1], I wondered if my britches were going to fall everytime I stood.

I have hips - substantial ones. There is no way in hannah that I should spend even a moment of my time worrying if my pants are going to fall down. How do women without hips wear these things? Is there a point in which you just stop worrying about it? Doesn’t the occasional brush of air at the bottom of your back give you shivers? Can I use the back pockets without additional fear?

Why am I planning to buy more ‘special’ underwear this weekend instead of exchanging the jeans?

[1] The hipster style didn’t leave me feeling any more protected than the jeans. Though, being purple they could have been an interesting - and hopefully not gross - suprise if my pants landed lower than I expected.

Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Episode 1.04 “The West Coast Delay”

I speak only from this untrained position of writing for pleasure, but the power in writing, in claiming ownership of thought - whether it be original, provoking or funny - wedged itself into my soul and pushes continually outward. What I have to say with these electrons defines me. The fourth episode of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip offers interesting insight into the room, reminds us that somedays we’re all still in high school and returns us to Aaron Sorkin’s Real World where men stand up.

Rick, Ron and the Writer’s Room
We start the episode in the writers room as fifteen or so people cast about for something to fill ninety seconds. The room exudes hostility, and Timothy Busfield (directing his first Studio 60 episode) uses the camera, vocal tone and general disarray of the room to infuse the air with a nervous desperation. These people earn their living trying to be funny on paper and they’re completely baffled with the ninety seconds Matt’s granted them to fill. The writers - specifically Ricky - latched on the first idea approaching funny and managed thrust the spot onto the air giving credit to the ‘room’. That idea turned out to be material plagiarized from another comic at a previous date. This episode shows more Ricky and Ron interaction with the show, clearly painting Ricky as a wildly swinging blowhard without humor and Ron as a pointed deflating needle with my kind of humor. I’m not sure I buy the selling of the spot as a product of the ‘room’ and the subsequent singular bearing of blame by Rick and Ron.

High School Drama Club
As desperately lame as the writers room feels, it felt amazingly adult compared to the high school hysterics surrounding Matt (Matthew Perry) and Harriet (Sarah Paulson). The fight in the tease entertained, as it overflowed with words and included a shot down Harriet’s shirt as she said, “… if I wanted to make you jealous.” The first forty-five minutes of the show included sophomoric sniping between Matt and Harriet and geek-boy amusing verbal tennis between Matt and Tom (Nathan Corddry) about the state of Matt’s non-relationship with Harriet to completely invoke way too many high school drama memories. I liked the stuff between Matt and Tom. It confirmed my suspicion that women aren’t the only ones with relationship neurosis. I fell for Matt a little more. Yes, he has his issues - but he once again demonstrated an amazing willingness to listen. From Tom, to Wendy, to Danny (Bradley Whitford) he considers what others have to say and often follows their advice. The basketball moment proves he doesn’t always take responsibility for the choices he makes based on those conversations, but he does listen.

Moving Back to the Real World
As the plagiarism comes into play, the show moves from high school back into the real world. Here we see Danny doing everything in his power to insulate Matt. Danny provides Matt the power to address the plagiarism as he sees fit, goes gazebo on Rick and Ron’s heads and nags the watching reporter granted all-access to note the positive things about The Six-O’s handling of the situation. The speed with which Matt sidelined his Harriet angst to deal with addressing the issue gave me whiplash - in a good way. The episode ended with The Six-O cutting (three times) into the west coast feed (three times) to apologize and credit the plagiarized material, to correct the credit for the plagiarized material and then somehow say that The Six-O owned the copy-write of the piece is ho-key, stopping at two would have been sufficient.

Stray Thoughts

• I found it amusing that the younger writers wanted to take the swing at the pitch Jordan offered last week.
• Harriet’s belief in Genesis isn’t in the top three reasons why she and Matt shouldn’t date in his eyes.
• Don’t look at the countdown clock - it’ll drive you bonkers.
• Tom is adorable in a young puppy kind of way.
• Simon’s hand through the no longer existing window was a funny sight.
• Jordan nudging the reporter’s computer at the reveal to Matt moment was a nice touch.
• I laughed when Jordan referred to Jack as her boyfriend.
• I think it might be entirely possible that Aaron flipped Ricky and Ron somewhere between episodes three and four. I had them straight last week, but now I don’t.
• The first thirty minutes lagged, but there were enough giggles to make me happy.

Excessive amounts of paperwork isn’t in my job description. I’m on the phone right now with a contractor who wanted me to keep a log of all the changes and field sketches I’ve made for his project (which has has been in design/construction for five years). Dudes, you want everything right now and you want me to spend hours of my time trying to keep up - keep dreaming.

Drink anyone?OK, so I have a drinkin’ problem. Right now, decorating the cell’s tables I’m actively drinking from four containers. The big Chick-Fil-A cup contains room temperature iced tea - half sweet, half unsweet. The red solo cup hold’s the water I should be drinking. The flat remains of this morning’s Diet Coke sit in the rebar cup. The brown paper cup has the last bit of this morning’s hot mug + some of Rubios tea, unsweetened. (MPC also has a recently abandoned can of Diet Sunkist I mooched from this afternoon’s site visit.)

All I need now is a nice glass of wine.

Difficulties show men what they are. In case of any difficulty remember that God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil.
- Epictetus

Lights
Linens
Reds
Darks

I’ve completed or written off all of the tasks to be completed prior to the start of Mom’s visit on Thursday with exception of those four loads of laundry. More importantly, the exception of putting away those four loads of laundry. Luckily, my room got bad enough a couple of weeks ago that I’d picked up and put away a whole pile of stuff. So, tonight all I had to do was vacuum and shred. I don’t know if I can handle being done with it all so early. I usually procrastinate until the night before, leaving even more things undone. Now, goodness only knows what I’m going to do for the next three nights.

Well, I just managed to get myself into trouble [1]. In choosing the color for the new office Kid and I settled on a middle of the road green color. It’s not dark. It’s not bright. It’s not a crayon color. It’s just green. Over the course of a tennis conversation someone in our office just had to have the last word over the nature of the green we chose - including calling it lime and non-soothing. Instead of holding my tongue [2] like I usually do, I made a comment about the color choice being soothing to those of us under fifty. Not exactly PC, I know, but not necessarily mean.

PS. I want to DO something, but I don’t want to work.

PPS. That nasty tickle/scratch at the back of the throat warning of impending doom - or at least a stuffed head - I’m feeling it.

[1] Consensus is, that given it took me six years to get into trouble with this person I’m not doing too badly.
[2] Let me tell you wiping the spit away before shaking hands is a chore.

I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them.
- Blaise Pascal