So happy to wave good-bye to 2007. It wasn't a good year. It wasn't a good year that went out with a bang.

Well, more of a "crunch" or a "grind", to be honest...

Heavy snowfall on Sunday, and a slow start to Monday left me out cleaning my car off to go to work in the early afternoon. Criss, who'd taken Paddy Cat into the vet hospital earlier that morning, had parked her car directly in back of mine in the driveway. Not paying as much attention as I should have been while moving Criss' car so I could leave in mine, I managed to crunkle both cars.

Crunkle. That's a portmanteau, born from "crunch" and "wrinkle." I managed to back the CR-V just right so that I snapped the driver's side view mirror off the Accord while managing to shatter the bottom of the CR-V's driver's-side taillight. *sigh*

I am so happy 2007 is over.

Did have a good time at Steve and Margaret's party last night, which has become something of a New Year's Eve tradition for us the past few years. Enjoyed spending time with Keith and Mary, and Rich and Denice, and of course Steve and Margaret (tho' it wasn't as much time as we'd've liked with Steve and Margaret, they being the hosts and having other guests to deal with.)

But, as nice as that was, I'm still so happy 2007 is over. Here's to a much better 2008.

Happy New Year, everyone!

As much as it's true that you are what you eat, you're even more what you read. This is what I read in 2007:

( The Reading )

For those who were wondering why I haven't posted much this past year, here's the complete and unexpurgated recapping of our 2007 doings. Somehow, Criss is going to edit this down to just four pages for our annual Christmas newsletter...

( 2007: The Recap )

Had a good night out with friends last night (R & K G, who are long time theatre friends.) Met them at the Okinawa Restaurant in Troy (well, officially in Wynantskill, but it still felt like Troy to me) Japanese and Chinese cuisine. We got there early, so had no trouble getting a table -- if we'd been there later, it'd been much more difficult as the place had filled up completely by the time we left. I had a Bento Box special (Sushi and Sashimi version) which was excellent. C stuck to the cooked Chinese menu, as she's not much of a sushi fan.

Then off to the theatre, to see R.U.R (Rossum's Universal Robots.) Well, the 15th Street Lounge, at RPI, anyway. Which is why I ended up feeling old. The 15th Street Lounge (an earlier incarnation of it, anyway) is where I first met C, over 26 years ago, which is a part of it, realizing just how long ago it was that we met. There were several other things that contributed to that feeling over the course of the evening.

First, there was realizing just how young everyone working there looked. I look in the mirror, and I don't really look any older, to myself (and I certainly don't feel any older, inside my head,) than I did when I was an active member of the RPI Players. But that's because of how slowly one's own face changes over time. You don't notice the incremental changes. The difference from one frame to another in a movie is minima, but over the length of the entire movie, you've gone from The Shire to Mordor. Add that to the fact that most of the folks I work with, and hang out with, are my age, and I keep forgetting what really young looks like.

So, lots and lots of young kids running around. Then I saw a couple of the "kids" who joined the Players after I'd been an active member there for a few years. The first one was the Executive Producer of the show, and is twice the average age of the general membership. The other's hair has gone completely white. So, more feeling older.

Then I read through the listing of the complete history of the players, and realized that it'd been 26 years since my first show there, the same show I met C and R in (Twelfth Night.) On top of which, it'd been 15 years since the last show I worked on there. Fifteen years. *sighs* Felt really, really old.

But, I won the 50/50 raffle, so it wasn't a complete downer. :-) The raffle was run by the Delta Chi cast of Alpha Psi Omega (that's the local cast of the national theatre honorary society,) and since, I'm a (very inactive) member of the same cast, I gave the money back to them, to help them out. Had another old friend tell me that I should have kept the money, that being the least they could do for me, after we had to sit through the entire show.

[The show was pretty dull -- old play, very wordy, very uneven cast, not much direction, and a set that was horrible. No decoration, ratty old flats that had barely been painted. Tacky props. And a way over the top lighting effect -- an inverted star shown over the face of the robot leader of the uprising right at the end of the second act, just so the slow audience members knew that he was the bad guy, I guess.]

Final recap: food good, company great, show not so good, winning the 50/50 raffle, priceless. :-)

Cleaning off my bedside stand, and getting rid of old ticket stubs. Thought I'd make a note of them before pitching them, to save a little of the history. Not a complete list by any means.

20060114: King Kong (@ Crossgates 18)
20060306: The DaVinci Code (@ Crossgates 18)
20061223: Happy Feet (@ The Madison Theatre)
20061229: Night at the Museum (@ Crossgates 18)
20070415: The Reaping (@ Crossgates 18) [And I'm amused that we saw a show called "The Reaping" on tax day. ;-)]
20070505: Of Mice and Men (@ Albany Civic Theatre)
20070621: The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (@ Crossgates 18)
20070712: Live Free or Die Hard (@ Crossgates 18)
20070916: And Then There Were None (@ Albany Civic Theatre)
20071117: R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (@ The 15th Street Playhouse)
20071123: Enchanted (@ Crossgates 18)
20071205: Trans-Siberian Orchestra (@ Times Union Center)
20071229: Sweeney Todd (@ Spectrum 8)
20080112: Albany River Rats vs. Worchester Sharks (@ Times Union Center)
20080201: Stagedoor (@ Schnectady Civic Players)
20080209: Juno (@ Calabasas 6)
20080319: The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein (@ The New Victory Theater)


[ETA: 20071231 Added Enchanted, TSO, and ST.]
[ETA: 20080323 Added RR, SD, J, & YF.]

Feels like the light of the world has dimmed a little today. Found out this morning that a college friend of mine was found dead in his bed yesterday. Friends hadn't heard from him in a day or two, and had the police check it out. They found Bob gone. Still no news on what precisely happened, but since Bob lived alone, it could very well have been natural causes.

Even so, the world's a diminished place, today. Bob was one of those people who always lit up the room when he was around. Funny, cheerful, quick-minded and witty. I'm so glad that I got a chance to catch up with him at my college class' 25th reunion last summer. Spent a day with him (and a few other friends who were close in college) chatting, laughing, and playing board games.

It's...odd and a little scary...to think that someone my age could just die in his sleep. I know, 48ish isn't exactly young (in fact, I guess we've hit middle age now with middle age hitting right back,) but I don't feel old enough to have friends just...stopping. I'm not ready for mortality yet, I've still got scores and scores of years left, right? Still young, still vital, still lots of time left to deal with hopes and dreams, right?

I dunno. The sun still shines, but it isn't as warm as it once was.

There are Days,
When I am Sad
For Things that
Haven't Happened
Yet.

Yes, Will Shetterly is the second coming of Jesus Christ. But then again, so is Emma Bull and Steve Brust and Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. So was Mike Ford. So are Digby and her crew. So are the founders of the EFF and the ACLU. So are volunteer firefighters and EMS and rescue crews. So are teachers. I could keep adding to this list, but rather than bore anyone with that, I'll try to get to the point I want to make.

Despite my being an atheist, I'm not trying to be facetious here. I don't believe in a divine being named Jesus Christ. I don't believe in a divine being at all. I don't need to believe in a guiding hand, nor an underlying cause for everything. I don't need to believe in the threat of final retribution after I die to try to live a good and proper life in the here and now. What I do believe is that there was a man at one point, Jesus, called the Christ, who saw tyranny and cruelty and intolerance all around him, and tried to do something about it. He tried to make people's lives better. And in Will, and everyone else I mentioned, I see that same impulse. The desire to make people's lives better. Through example. Through discussion. Through education and argument and entertainment. Through music and writing and their own day-to-day lives. In all of this, I see the second coming of Jesus.

Even if I'm completely wrong, and there is a divine being, God, and Jesus Christ is his one and only son, and he really will return some day, can you think of a better way to do it, than this? If you're divine, why bother coming back as a single individual, especially in this day of the Internet and the World Wide Web, of everything being televised everywhere, all the time? Wouldn't it make sense for the return to be as white and black; as yellow, red, and all the shades of brown? As man and woman, as rich and poor, as queer and straight and transgender, as young and old? With the only common factors being that they are human, and tolerant, and want to help those they can.

Welcome to the world where everyone who helps others is part of Jesus Christ. Welcome to the world of Jesus Christ, Distributed.

Spent the afternoon at a rehearsal for "Our Country's Good." Raced home, cleaned up, and then down to Albany Civic Theatre to watch C's show "Frumpled Fairytales." Lots of fun, and the kids in the audience loved it. [One little boy in front of me kept chanting "You rock!" as the Woodsman defeated the Wolf in the Little Red Riding Hood section of the show.] Out to dinner at the Applebee's in the Wal-Mart plaza in Glenmont with the cast afterwards.

And one final post to list all of the links:

The A's
The B's
The C's
The D's
The E's
The F's
The G's
The H's
The I's
The J's
The K's
The L's
The M's
The N's
The O's
The P's
The Q's
The R's
The S's
The T's
The U's
The V's
The W's
The X's
The Y's
The Z's