Easter 2017

     It's been a restless and wandery day. There's a storm coming, the tension has been slowly building since morning. Called home, everybody's helping Amy hunt for Easter eggs, and then the traditional baseball game with them afterwards.
     The Passover dinner at GBC apparently went really well, there were about 110 people there, roughly twenty percent of them being visitors, in the sense that they aren't part of the congregation, but all were at one point or are well-known friends of folks who are.
     Dado's final living brother, Kenneth, died this morning. And yesterday would have been Grandpa's birthday, the first one since he died last summer. That was kind of hard to deal with, but easier than I thought it'd be. Maybe because I was distracted by the day's tasks. Mom, Courtney and Amy all went over to Tahlequah to Louise's Thursday, Trish and everyone are visiting, and Bob came over.

     GBC's not officially sending a group to SGYC this year, but there's a plan for an Oklahoma-based camp to start near Chouteau in summer 2018. According to an email I got from Mrs. Boyer, Steve Long will still be the pastor this year, which should be a good thing. I'm not sure if I can be a counselor this year, depends on how the job search goes. If I do go, it'll match the time I spent as a camper - five years.
     Amanda's been teasing me incessantly all week long. ("Rolling eyes") Maya's second birthday is in two weeks.

     Reading slowly through Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter, because he just can't be read quickly. And also, it's good to sit and think for a while on what his characters have to say and experience. Same way with Flannery O'Connor. I've mostly been reading her nonfiction work Mystery and Manners, which I would say is one of those books on writing that everyone ought to read, along with Stephen King's On Writing, William Strunk Jr's and E.B. White's Elements of Style, William Zinsser's On Writing Well, and William Goldman's Adventures of the Screen Trade. And, if you're into that sort of thing, the AP Stylebook.

     This week's movie of study for Gothic Film and Lit was Crimson Peak, which started well, but unraveling quickly into a horror movie that just didn't work - the harshest critique a story can have. Dr. Mackie and I hate horror movies, so there was that part of it, but Kenzie likes them, and even she wasn't a fan. Tom Hiddleston did well in his role, and there were some good ideas as far as storyline or plot developments, and it had a lot of the traditional Gothic elements (creepy mansion, ghosts, a secret, naive young woman, murder) but there was far too little backstory and far too many unanswered questions by the end. Also, all three of us vehemently wanted the heroine to die, which can't be a good sign.
     The Predators crushed the Blackhawks in game two of their first-round series, and in other NHL action today, Ottawa beat Boston in overtime, Toronto defeated Washington halfway through double overtime, and the Ducks put out the Flames. In NBA news, the Thunder start their first-round series against the Rockets tomorrow night.

     Tom Sawyer went fairly well both nights; the audiences were mostly responsive and animated, and also fairly high in terms of numbers: maybe twenty-five Thursday, thirty-three Friday, and only about a quarter of those were comp tickets. It's kind of sad that thirty people is an enormous audience, but that's the way it is with the RSU Theater Department.
     I played the voice-acting role of Sid Sawyer, Tom's insufferable half-brother, who is, in the words of Derek Steeley, "the Eddie Haskell of American literature." And he's right; Sid is (shudder). So that's partially how I played him, although I was primarily thinking of Waldo from The Little Rascals. (Indignant shudder.) Most lines were voice-acted, as it was a staged reading, which meant only key scenes were acted out. My actual character was Doc Robinson, whose only purpose is to be the brutally-slain murder victim of Injun Joe in the graveyard. Cody played Tom's friend Joe Harper, Keirstine (Jennifer from last spring's "Tales From Tent City") was Becky Thatcher.

     Jimmy Fallon was the host of Saturday Night Live this week, and about half the sketches were really funny. For SNL, that's a good average. The cold open was making fun of Trump again, which was pretty snicker-worthy. - it features someone in a Grim Reaper costume, which instantly brought to mind Jacob's Killer from "Go With the Flow," one of our SWAT skits. (Our blooper reel still cracks me up. And MAN do I miss everybody....) Another good SNL sketch tonight was a date getting crashed in the most awkward way imaginable by the woman's ex, with the punch line stating that he was the one responsible for dragging the guy off the United flight the other day. And they didn't have the best reputation in the first place even before that - remember the (parody?) tune "United Breaks Guitars"? Another was a time-traveling version of Family Feud. 

     Haven't been able to get much work done today on essays and stories that need to be written, but that's part of why I'm typing this post - hopefully it'll kick-start my word output. Sometimes that happens. But anyway, it was time for an update.