Today, after a short Hamlet performance, we are off toward Nebraska to start rehearsal. For those of you coming here to find the schedule for that tour, scroll down, it's here. For those of you looking for comment links here, they're acting screwy and have been forever. Anyone know of any other (free) commenting services that are still taking new members? These still work, when they're here, but they aren't dependable.

A long drive today and tomorrow, and two months away from this computer on the road with a persnickety laptop that was cobbled together during the stone age. I won't say how fast it is, except to say that right now most new computers are ten times faster.

My better laptop, that I bought myself for Christmas last year? It died in May. Bah! Lucky I kept this old one. It should suffice for e-mail and etc.

Anyway, wish us luck on our long drive and on yet another production of Christmas Carol. Eventually I will be able to make a resume entirely of Christmas Carol productions.

Back from Delaware. In my absence, the sniper came callin' here in Richmond. Then he ... they... got caught. "Alleged", "suspect", whatever you wish to say 'bout them, they had the gun.

Let's say they weren't the sniper(s), and were just holding her gun for her.

She still has to go get a new gun. That buys us time if nothing else. If we can't feel secure in the knowledge that these men are the snipers, as some sensationalist media drones would like to say, we know that the weapon that was used is off the streets.

The media - It worked against what the task force was trying to do for most of the investigation, but at the end it helped a great deal in getting the information out there. Weeks of sensationalist fearmongering to a night of sincere (?) help to the cause.

Now let us watch them pat themselves on their collective backs.

I am afraid to go outside.

Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty minutes from my apartment a guy was shot last night by some unfeeling indiscriminate coward with a rifle.

I was a little unnerved that this was going on, but this last one brings it both literally and figuratively closer to home.

I could look up this term before I write it, but I won't... "agorophobia" - I think that's it. I think I understand how they feel, afraid to go out of their homes.

How do you deal with this kind of thing? Of course you can throw off the old John-Wayneish "You gotta go when it's your time, pilgrim," but I prefer the much more the old Woody Allen "My doctor told me I'm not supposed to let any bullets enter my body. I've got an allergy."

I don't get how this is happening, I don't understand how it's real. I see people duck and weaving in the parking lot at the video store. I see people hiding in their cars while the gas is pumping. I notice myself unconsiously changing my pace radically as I walk and taking unconventional paths to my car. (That's grown up talk for "running like a scared little girl")

And if something happened to Rachel? I'm afraid for her to go anywhere alone! I notice myself totally without realizing it putting my body between her and "harm's way" as we walk places. It'd be worse for me to have to live through something happening to her than for it to actually happen to me I think. Selfish, or noble, whatever, the definitions change.

We can't let fear run our lives, though. It's trying to. With every tendril of its reach, every call of cthulu, it is trying.

So we're going on the road with the show this week, then back here for a few days, then off to Omaha.

Why in God's name would anyone do this?

What a colossally long week.

All the filming is done, it turned out to be no big deal, but you'll see me in the film.

The company I work for is again pissing all over the people who are working for it. We would quit, but we want our money, and we don't want to have to wait for it throughout any drawn out legal process. So we give them a chance to get us our money in a timely fashion, and if they don't, well...

Let's just say I've never had lawyers be so friendly to me. NO ONE likes the guy who runs this company, I swear that everyone we run into on the road who overhears his name looks to us and exclaims "THAT GUY!"

How is it that I made thie huge mistake? I never trusted the guy, none of us did, now I... well, what's the opposite of trust?

Whats a good word for the opposite fo trust? When you expect someone to do exactly not what they say they will?

That's him. I am cruising on financial fumes right now, the bastard.

That "Iron Jawed Angels" movie called today.

Rachel and I were both, by coincidence, offered roles - still doing the extra work as well, but now we have more work as day players. Rock on.

I'm a 20s era beatnik, Rachel is (surprise surprise) a dancer.

Happy about this I am. Happy Happy.

Anyway, we don't know exactly what we're doing but wish us luck. Woohoo!

I hate Barbra Streisand.

Not a fan.

However, that's just as an icon. As an actress, no problems. As a singer, well, I like her as an actress, fine voice but stylistically indulgent.

Still she misquoted Shakespeare the other night, and I don't care. I actually think the words still have weight, and it is unfortunate that the meaning is blemished by the fact that it was a fake Julius Caesar quote. She didn't know, and I don't care.

Our President is a power-hungry skull-and-bones baby with designs on anything that can profit his friends regardless of the long term damage to our republic. This is not the man anyone (not me) voted for, and if it is, well, civil war doesn't seem so absurd looking 20 and 30 years down the line.

Barbra Streisand and civil war in one post.