It's figureoutable

So, you ask, why was yesterday a good day?

My play SNAPSHOTS opened at Lewis-Clark State College and all in all, I'm pleased with what I saw. In spite of a pretty frustrating back and forth with the director (a good friend of mine and a GREAT director) trying to button up the ending for the last TWO WEEKS, the play ended up working quite well and was very well received. My first full-length production, by the way. Loads of fun.

This was at the end of a day that started with the Artistic Director of Idaho Repertory Theatre telling me that they had decided to include my play INTERMENT in their season this summer. I'm very excited about this because I get to work with the director and actor with whom I've been developing this script for the last year. And we get to put it up on the main stage at a pretty nice regional summer theatre.

But you know what was maybe the most fun about yesterday? I finished a monologue for a young actress in our BFA program on Tuesday night. She read it for the first time yesterday and when she was done, she looked at me with huge smile and a tear in her eye (literally) and said something like "it's perfect!. How the hell did you get so much of me in one page?"

Yes, I think that was a good day for a playwright.

It was nice to have one of those. Especially after the response to a one act that I had entered at the regional ACTF festival a couple of weeks ago. After the reading, the first respondent's first words were "I have to be honest with you: I was bored the entire time." He got really into it from there: talked to me about Aristotle for three or four minutes. Whee.

I look at the sky, the earth, the plants, the animals.
I watch the men and women, the moms and dads, the brothers and sisters.
I listen to the songs and the screams, the cries and the laughter.
I wonder at myself, Sally and our world
and I see life.

And I find stories.

Help me to leave the maelstrom and enter the core.
Help me to use the gifts I have:
caring and the empathy to know how to wield that sharp sword,
intelligence and the wisdom to know when to be simple,
vision and the courage to know when to close my eyes.

I will watch.
I will listen.
I will see.
I will hear.
I will write.
I will tell the story.

I wonder where it's going? Hmmm

I occasionally obsess on things -- no, it's true. I know some of you will find it hard to believe, but it is true. My current obsession is dovtailed boxes. It started when I acquired this new dovetail jig last week. Of course, I had to test it. So I built this:




Then, I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing so I built this:




And then I wanted to perfect a few things (and try some inlay) so I built this:




So, now my friend Katie wants one. Back to the shop...

I just spent a few hours plumbing our main site (www.eamesharlan.org) to show the latest entry from my blog and from Sally's blog on the home page.

Now you can go to just one URL to read all of the exciting thoughts rattling around the Eames-Harlan household.

Um. Yeah. Thanks for reading this, mom.

eBay is so much more than an auction site. Whenever there's a news story that is both big and odd, go to eBay and type in a keyword and "toast" into the search engine. For example... you remember the bug-eyed runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks? (I know that's so last week, but stay with me.)

Take a look at the search for "Wilbanks toast".

Ain't this a funny little world we live in?

(The eBay toast phenomenon all started with a piece of toast that was found to have miraculously sprouted ([here's probably a better word than that, but I've already spent about 5 minutes longer than I'm comfortable with on this topic] an image of the Virgin Mary [seriously. Take a look])

I told my brother, James today that the strange weather they've been having is caused by the wrath of God.

He laughed. Really.

I wonder what that means.



I like drawing pictures of roosters though.

I did this one for my friend Judy.