I'll get to the other stories later. I've had a busy day of laundry and dusting and reading quietly on the couch (Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island.)

For those that need to know, my travel plans have shifted by a week. I now leave on July 24th and return on the 22nd of August. I made the grievous mistake of leaving a week before The Governor's wedding. All is corrected now.

In honor of The Gov, I give you this picture of Cindy Crawford. It was her nude appearance in a late-80s issue of Playboy that made us dress up The Gov in an army jacket and sunglasses (to look "convincingly 18", because all 18 year olds dress up in old army-navy surplus wear, right?) and send him down to the mini-mart to purchase the Holy Grail of all Playboys.

Those were simpler times...

How great is it to be me right now?

I just got a song dedicated to me (Neko Case's "Lady Pilot" ) on Bella by Barlight's radio show.

Damn it feels good to be a gangster.

Tomorrow I will tell the tale of achy muscles, dinner with old women, and the Great Furniture Auction.

Most everyone has been paying attention to this story with interest, I assume, so I won't go into too much detail about it.

I got a bad feeling about this. I know most of these guys were on steroids, but seeing them all hauled up there in front of a Grand Jury Investigation, I got an uneasy feeling about it all.

From the AP wires:

Asked by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., whether he was asserting his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, McGwire said: "I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to be positive about this subject."

Mark McGwire can duck the question all he wants, because he's out of baseball. He can stay "positive" because he doesn't have to worry about testing positive any more.

But if it all comes out that these guys were all Juiced (to use Canseco's word), it certainly diminishes all of the spectacle and splendor of the great home run races of recent memory. I could have cared less about Bonds hitting 70, but the McGwire-Sosa chase in '98 was entertaining and memorable.

If it's proven that all these guys were hopped up on 'Roids, I hope they at least put an asterisk next to all those shattered records. I'd just as soon see them denied the record completely, and give it back to Roger Maris, but I doubt that'll happen.

Maybe this is the great tipping point, the turn baseball needs to take back to great pitching and great defense. I'd rather see guys like Mark Prior and other "skinny" pitchers be the heroes of the game, rather than the hulked-up morons of the past ten years.

Come to think of it, I just want Prior healthy.

17 days until Opening Day...

In celebration of many things (of which I will discuss at a later date)....

I bought the ticket.

Chicago to Dublin, July 17 to August 15. Cheap tix still available until the 21st at Aer Lingus, for those that are interested in coming along for part of the ride.

A month in Ireland, Britain, Amsterdam, and beyond...

It's going to be glorious, I tell you.

Don't worry, I won't disappear. I'll come home. Maybe.

As long as I have a place to come home to...(anyone got a room to rent out?)

It's Paddy's Day!

Celebrate! Celebrate! Eat some corned beef, drink a Guinness, kiss a lovely Irish girl.

Celebrate a country that's been kicked on, shit on, and spat on by the rest of the world for hundreds of years.

Celebrate a country that got through famine, emigration, and English domination, and now finds itself a healthy, vibrant place to live.

Celebrate the land of Willie Yeats and Van the Man, Michael Collins and Shane MacGowan.

Since I've been talking of nothing but travel and theatre for the past week, lemme tell you about the loveliest piece of music I've found lately:

Sam Cooke's live version of "Bring it on Home to Me."

Why has it taken me this long to find something this good?

If you've been reading me carefully for the past few months, you will have noticed that I am quite preoccupied with Where I Am Going in my life. Perhaps it's interesting, perhaps it's insufferable, but you just have to bear with me. This blog seems to exist largely for me to sort my thoughts and get them out of my head. An electronic Pensieve, I suppose, to use a Harry Potter reference.

Most of my life is in transition right now.

Job: took a new one this year; not sure where it's going.

Home: ready to move out this summer; been looking at purchasing something for the first time.

Theatre: 5-year anniversary is here; told myself I wouldn't make a serious move until that time.

Social Life: Many, many friends and a strong family never keep me lonely.

Love Life: Up and down as usual. Things with K are in a sort of purgatory right now.

In a sense, I've "wrapped up" a fair portion of my life. I feel like I've accomplished everything I had laid out in some vague 10-Year Plan I subliminally set for myself while finishing up college back in '95.

Now I find myself asking, What's Next?

The house may be bought, the promotions may continue, the girl may be won. There is nothing wrong with building on what I have developed, and it will be a fine life. An ordinary life, but a fine life.

There is that desire, though, to just start over, hit the reset button, disappear in a flash and turn up someplace strange and new and become someone different. It's something I've never, ever allowed myself to do.

That is what's on my mind these days: The Choice.

My talk of wandering Europe again this summer isn't merely a desire to bum around old cities all summer. There is something much deeper going on with it. The desire for the life less ordinary. Less predictable. Less safe.

Scary stuff, but it's an exciting scary. I literally have no idea what my life will be like a year from now, and I'm cool with that.

As if I didn't need one more reason to head overseas this summer, I just discovered that The Tolkien Society is having a 5-day celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the publication of The Lord of the Rings in Birmingham, England in mid-August.

Total geek-fest? Most likely. But it would be like the mother ship calling me home. I would go to see Alan Lee and Tom Shippey speak.

But I ain't wearing no motherfucking costume.

It would provide me with some good stories, though.




There's only one piece of the puzzle left to put together, regarding my summer plans. (Actually I have many pieces left to put together, but this is the biggest. Another involves actually going to live overseas, but I'm still on the fence about that.)

My Plan is to move out of my apartment in mid-July, go wander the world for a while, then (probably) come back and (eventually) buy a place of my own. This enables me to have some extra spending dough, since rent won't come due in August.

But upon my return I will need a place to hang my hat. I'd like to crash somewhere cheap so that I could save up additional monies and pay off any remaining debt I have.

This requires some serious thought.

We wrapped up things on Saturday with another fine show. Took our bows, tore down the sets, and had some celebratory pizza at Gario's. Finally let myself geek out with some of the boys and we talked Tolkien and music at length.

It's done, it's done, it's done. My mind is much clearer now...

Thank you, by the way, to all the well-wishes I received in the comments over the past few days. A small theatre group made up of kids isn't perhaps the most exciting thing to blog about, but it's the only story I can really tell right now. Thank you for reading along and expressing an interest. Some people I know find Limelight rather ridiculous, but I don't really think they understand the point of it. If they were to spend any time with these kids, and understand why they are there and what they get out of it, I think they would not be so quick to condemn me.



In other news, I was so happy to read this article this morning. Good to know that I'm directly in the cross-hairs of the terrorists now.

My project this week is to make some final decisions about my travel plans for this summer. I've put a lot of thought into this, and discussed my options with many learned individuals, and I think I know what I'm going to do about it. More on that topic will come very soon...

So the show last night was.....good. Not great, but good.

I'll take much of the responsibility for that. It's a tough show; high schoolers and junior highers trying to play bitchy, despicable people fighting over an inheritance. While doing English accents.

I give 'em a lot of credit for doing as well as they did with subtle British comedy. I don't think One O'Clock from the House will go down in Limelight history as Best Show Ever, but I think it's exactly the show we needed to do.

I think many of us are realizing that we take on too much, and that it's time to slow down a bit. These guys are all overachievers and pile on drama, chorus, band, AP courses at the high school, and also attempt to have a social life, which stretches everyone pretty thin.

I mad a calculated error in thinking that I could step back some and let them direct themselves at times, and it worked and it didn't work. So I guess I'm kind of an important part of the process.

Many of my friends were at the show last night, and they laughed and laughed, which made me feel wonderful.

And then I realized that I had forgotten T's birthday on Tuesday.

She's one of my dearest friends, but since I took this new job, I don't get to see her and the others quite as much. And as usual I got so wrapped up in theatre that I completely forgot her birthday.

I feel like a real ass. I always make a huge deal about my birthday, and gather everyone around me and we drink and get merry, but do you think I remember most of my friends' birthdays?

If I met you after 1985 then I need reminding. Over and over again. For some reason the information just doesn't stay in the hard drive.

Maybe Naperville's Only Child, but that's because it's on her license plate.



One more show tonight, then we pack it in. I think they'll do great tonight. Prince Fan gave me lots of good suggestions for story clarity. (No one understood the bit with the axe, apparently.)

Thanks again to all my friends and family who came to the show.

Got this from a friend of mine. You must all go here to Save Toby.

Bicyclemark, I want that PayPal $$ I just sent you returned to me immediately! I have a much more important quest right now than getting your Amsterdam ass a Mac!

Is that correct English?

In other news, it looks like Matt Hale, central Illinois' favorite white supremacist, might not be behind the Lefkow murders. I'm now sure how big this story is outside Chicago, but a federal judge's husband and her mother were murdered last week; some suspected Matt Hale to have ordered the murder from his prison cell. You see, he had wanted this judge killed a while back, which is why he sits in jail today. (I think that's how the story goes.)

Did you know that Hale went to college with me? I'm quite embarrassed to say so, but he went there the same years as I did, and even got the same major as me.

(No, I didn't major in white supremacy.)

In all my years of going there, I never saw him once. But he wrote these idotic, awful letters to the local rag all the time. I wonder if I saved any of 'em...

What a fuck-nut. I never would have believed that he would become the most famous graduate of Braley U. since Charlie Steiner.

Hello anxiety, my old friend...you've come to fuck me up again...

I keep waking up in the middle of the night, my mind racing, until I find myself unable to fall back asleep again. It's typical of the final week of a show, but add job anxiety and a frustrated love life and all these thoughts about summer theatre and the future and buying houses and wanting to disappear completely and it all adds up to a very tired Brian.

All my classes were cancelled today due to the kids taking state tests. When I woke up at 3:30 AM and realized that at 5:00 AM I wasn't falling back to sleep any time soon, I made the call.

Slept until almost noon, which was probably a mistake, considering I'll never fall asleep tonight. But I am refreshed and have been working on school-related matter at home most of the morning, and I can now get to rehearsal earlier to put the sets together, so I'm putting my time to good use.

I've taken too many sick days this year, mostly due to lack of sleep.

I could launch into a huge rant about my job right now, but absolutely no one wants to hear about that.

Instead I will leave you with a picture of a puppy dog. Everyone likes puppies!

Okay, I need to stop. All I've been doing is looking at airfares.

Aerlingus is the best deal, by the way. Only $674 to Dublin!

Who's up for a trip?

A big trip.

A month-long globe-trotting pub-crawling city-hopping country-rambling train-riding plane-catching ferry-boarding people-meeting life-expanding do-it-while-you've-got-time-before-we-grow-old-and-settle-down-with-kids-and-houses-and-Responsibility Trip.

It's one of the things I do best. And the desire to Move and to See and to Experience has been growing and growing and growing in me, and I can't deny it.

That world is calling me, and I gotta get out and see it again, the last time, or at least for a while.

Perhaps I'll come see you, or maybe you'll come along for part of the ride.

Who's up for a trip?

Do you believe in the SI cover jinx?

Sports team/individual gets on the cover of Sports Illustrated, then all sorts of horribleness happens.

They put Mark Prior and Kerry Wood on the cover and then Prior gets hurt. Cubs choke at the end of last year.

Dee Brown of the #1 Fighting Illini is on the cover this week.

I almost wrote "undefeated" Fighting Illini, but, well, you know what happened yesterday.



I was so wrapped up in getting laundry and theatre stuff done I forgot to turn the game on (I just can't get my head around the idea of watching a game at 11 AM.)

One more reason to hate Ohio.

Big Ten Tournament starts Thursday. Illinois plays Friday.

New poll isn't out yet. Will Illinois still be #1?

Losing the last game of a heretofore-unbeaten season is pretty typical of Illinois, I think.

Not the college. The state.

As Illinoisans, as Midwesterners, we're not comfortable with being #1. That's something New York does, and never lets us forget about it.

We're the Second City for a reason. For all our achievements, for all of the glory that is Chicago and the small prairie towns, we are always reminded that We Don't Matter.

You gotta be on a coast to matter. New York. LA. Hell, even Boston has better cred than us right now.

We're located in that region that the important people flyover. Isn't that the old joke? The "flyover states"?

We're the Rodney Dangerfield of the Midwest. We don't get no respect. We get lumped in with everyone else, from Alabama to Minnesota.

We're a Blue State, though. We got that going for us.

Here's hoping Dee Brown and Deron Williams and the rest of the Illini plow through their opponents over the next few weeks, and give Illinois a little more cred and respect, and get people to stop talking about fucking Duke for a change.

U of I is a great school, and we're a great state. We deserve it.

Final rehearsals begin...



For the last eight years (save last year) I have roughly spent the months of January through March directing a play. It started long ago with the musicals at Sandwich High, then I moved on to create Limelight, where I think I've directed a dozen shows or so over the past five years.

I still love the huge summer season, but it's getting tougher and tougher to commit myself to shows during the school year. Work gets more complicated, my personal life gets neglected, and I find that I just don't have the mental energy to concentrate on both school and theatre to the extent that I desire.

So One O'Clock From The House will most likely be the last winter show I do for a while.

It's a good show. Not as powerful as The Crucible or as polished and perfect as Midsummer, but it's a good show. In so many ways, the exact show we needed to do for right now. Nothing too overwhelming or exhausting; auditions for Romeo and Juliet are only a couple of months away, and I need everyone at the top of their form for that one.

We get bigger and bigger and better and better. And if all goes well, a brand-new auditorium awaits our performances. After five years, I think we're ready.

And whither then? I cannot say.

Asia's talk of moving got me thinking about my own impending move this summer.

I'm finally warming up to the idea of buying a house of some sort. I've held off for several reasons, most of them usually had to do with money and whatnot. But I'm doing well enough, salary-wise, that I can finally commit to buying something for real.

Still, it's a big thing. I keep thinking of that old Northern Exposure episode, where Chris Stevens debates buying a house, and finally decides that "there's two kinds of people: Buyers, and Renters. I'm a renter, man."

I've been a Renter most of my life. I always thought buying something meant that you were Permanent, stuck, and of course that oh-so dirty word, grown-up.

Buying a house was that thing that my married friends did, the ones who had kids and didn't go out any more. For me, renting was just one more way to stay in Neverland.

So I'm looking, and looking, and looking. And for what I can afford, there ain't much. High taxes everywhere, and most everything seems to be a slight variation on the standard Boring Vertical Townhome.

I hate vertical. I hate high ceilings. I hate white walls.

But the townhome seems to be the standard first step towards being a homeowner. I suppose I should just bite the bullet and but one of 'em, but to me, they're just hideous. So bland and treeless and everything is exactly the same as everything else.

But it's silly to continue paying rent for the tiny rectangle I live in now. So do I go with the townhome with the name like Winston Waterway or LakeMeadowForestGlen, or for the old and quirky home that's most likely a big money pit?

I need a plan.

Want to get the most blog hits you've ever had?

Just put tits on your site.

Just ask xtx, right?

The best comment wasn't even posted. Perhaps I'll share it with you another day.

Seriously, what is with people posting anonymous carpings on this blog? Have some balls, people. Back up what you say.

A few sites of note that I'd like to share with ya'll...


This is a great site that a guy showed me a while back.

This is one of my favorite bloggers right now. Bella, I'll have that answer about Timothy's arms any day now.

She has a great story about the Gates in Central Park, if you're interested in a first-person description.

And that is Jiro, Japan's favorite performing monkey. In traditional attire.

Japan is one fucked up country.

But not as fucked up as this blog. Seriously, Laird--this site is for you, if it's not by you.

Time to go watch Lost now. It's the Fat Man's origin show...

One final bit about the Oscars:

It was all about the Breasts this year.

I submit Exhibit A and B for your consideration.













I'd like two pickets to Tittsburg, please!


(With apologies to my many female readers out there. This is the only blog-worthy thing I could come up with today.)

Stupid Smarch weather!



That's it. That's all I got right now.