My Hand is a Lobster

While making alfredo, I lost my brains, stuck my hand in the pasta pot, and steamed it red. Bright red. The worst part was the pain grew in intensity with each pulse. It didn't blister, so it wasn't so bad. I smeared it with moisturizer (after mentally rejecting butter and water and ice). When the moisturizer worse off, my hands were kissably smooth but tender. The air tickled. I smeared on aloe vera and let the hand air dry for about 90 minutes.

This morning, oddly, my steamed hand is lighter than the other; I expected it to be darker and redder. The pain is gone, but it's still surprisingly sensitive. I could put it in and out of my jeans pocket, and that's the roughest treatment it should get all day. I think I'm OK.

After dating and eventually suckering a teacher into marrying me, I'm more attuned to the homeschool arguments. While reading my hometown newspaper site, I noticed this week's homeschooling activities at the county libraries:

Wednesday
11 a.m. Boiling Springs Library, home-schoolers program. For home-schoolers in first through sixth grades. Call 864-578-3665.

1 p.m. Inman Library, Home-school Teens: Computer Autopsy and Diskette Notebook program. We'll make notebooks from old diskettes. Refreshments provided. Registration required. For ages 12-18 (grades seven-12) only. Call 864-472-8363.

THURSDAY
4 p.m. Westside Library. Meet Ingrid Norris and her canine friend from the Spartanburg Humane Society. Call 574-6815.

5 p.m. Woodruff Library. Join us for the movie screening of "Twilight," rated PG-13. Those younger than 18 should pick up permission slips before the show. Signed letters of permission from parents are also acceptable. Call 864-476-8770.

Crafts, a shelter dog, and Twilight. That's homeschooling. Throw your mind back to 10th grade. If you were assigned to make a notebook out of old disks, it would be considered busywork. That's scrapbooking. No wonder the local home students have to go to Bible colleges. They can't get in anywhere else.

Picture of the Day
A handy dandy guide to the plot of every House episode. Clicky-clicky to embiggen. It's over 1 MB, but it's worth the download.

Sign Me Up

Read the script at lunch yesterday. It's a sitcom episode, a mix of Mama's Family with Golden Girls. I'm sure that's not intentional, but that's what we have. The majority of the piece takes place with all four characters sitting around a table. There are perhaps seven entrances and exits. As long as I can approach it as a sitcom -- a good one, with tight delivery -- then it's going to be as good as something this slim can be.

A 60-year-old is visited by her two daughters for her birthday. One's a floozy, the other's a square. The square brings her boyfriend. Jokes and plans are made. Everyone leaves the house. That's it. Anyone could direct this. Brooke could direct this. How can I turn it down?

Kathy and I jogged and walked at the college. There's a growing trend in run training that stresses a timed mix of effort. Walk for 90 seconds, jog for 60 seconds, all for 20 minutes. It's to build up the cardio. I worked out a bit at home beforehand. Because Your Sis had afterschool labs, and this rendezvous was so late, we were eating supper around 9. We caught maybe five minutes of the presidential conference.

Picture of the Day
The drawing is done, and I'm emailing it to her today. Fixing the hair made a big difference.

Almost Beginnings.

I picked up the script after work, but I won't read it until today at lunch. It is thin. The script is written in a different format than almost every script I've seen. I suspect the writer used film script software to make it. I haven't agreed to do this yet, but I catch myself planning floor diagrams and establishing directorial philosophy. Two things will keep me from directing this: a horrible script and a lack of actors. No, I don't see myself doing this as a one-man show. The writer will allegedly be there to see the show's one performance, and I wonder if we'll have to make any changes to her script to perform it in a church.

I'm supposed to walk with Kathy tonight as she begins her couch-to-race regimen. She wants to run the annual spring 5k. I ran yesterday, and the mixture of a faster pace and warmer air left me weak and breathless after the three miles. I hope the pain and sweat means I'm whittling the pudge away. I've cut back on the frapps and midday snackage. I did have a chesseburger Happy Meal yesterday, but I think its small size says I'm prudent. I just might start turning the garden soil this weekend, depending on how much it rains. That, if nothing else, will slice away the fat.

I indeed worked on the drawing of Your Sister and showed her what I had done by last night. She seemed happy with it, but I'll put money she's unhappy to see what she thinks are her defects. I know she's insecure, and the presence of hundreds of teenagers could wither anyone's defenses. But I see the drawing, and it's unmistakably my hot wife, and so I'm content with it.

Picture of the Day
The poster for the upcoming Maurice Sendak adaptation. This movie's been on the shelf for over a year now.

An Offer

I got a call Friday afternoon from my murder-play director. He was also the head of the script committee. He offered me the chance to direct a one-act play for one performance in late May. "Offered" may be too strong a word. "Asked with hesitance and a touch of desperation" may be better. It's apparently a tradition for the theatre's new play program. They mount a full production of a three-act play for two weekends, and they offer a reader's theatre production of a new one-act at a member's luncheon.

I told him I was curious and that I'd like to read the script before I agree, and he said that was fair. I'll pick up the script Monday night. It's supposedly less than 40 pages. Given that and the one performance and the reading format, it's too good an offer to turn down. Unless the script is crap. But I'm more worried about the actors. Can we get four actors for a one-act to run at lunchtime? The sex farce died when they couldn't cast six people.

Your Sister asked me to draw her for her website image, and I cobbled it together from three photos. I also worked on the noir comic. I bought new ink because I was afraid my old ink was too old. maybe clumpy and gooey. But the new ink I bought (Higgins) is trash. It's thin and watery. I fished out the old ink (Windsor Newton) from the trash, and it worked fine.

Picture of the Day
I need to work on her hair.