Well Well Well

Sooo...I haven't posted in a long time...just haven't found the time. Wow.. last post was the first of may, so i skipped an entire month, and now here we are: June is almost over! Well, let me just say that my show just closed. We had an excellent run; only one cancellation, which is good for our theater. We had 19 shows. I felt pretty good about the job I did. I played a character that only whispered; he never had any lines. Also, I graduated at the beginning of this month. We prepared for graduation for a few weeks, but we still managed to mess it up. The most fun part, though, was not the graduation or the party that followed it (a party for class members and parents), but the show that I had that night. My mom invited a bunch of people, and paid for all of them, I think. We had a full house, and at curtain call everybody waved signs around saying Congratulations and stuff like that. Then, everybody came over to our house for a party. We had a big cake with a picture of me in costume on it. The artistic director was the last one to leave, probably around 3:30. I don't remember very well. My dad also started his show, called "I Sailed With Magellan." It's based off a book, and I actually auditioned for one of the roles. They would have cast me if I had not gotten so tall and gotten such a deep voice all of a sudden. He really had a tough time in rehearsals, and said he was kind of having a rough time with his role. But I've seen it three or four times now (it opened yesterday, or I guess two days ago because it's past midnight), and I think he's doing a really good job. I got to help build the set for it a little bit, as I was always hanging around the theatre. I've helped the main set builder on sets at that theater before, too, as my dad has done several shows there. This show is certainly very challenging tech-wise. There are a couple hundred visual cues, a couple hundred light cues, and a couple hundred audio cues. Also, 10 actors play over 50 characters. It's really good though. And it's running really smoothly, which, according to my dad, wasn't the case during the first couple previews, as the actors didn't know where they were going, I guess. They have cut a few scenes, so I guess that helps. I've gotten kind of a reputation among the actors, though, because I always come backstage at intermission and before and after the show. I have a lot of the lines memorized, so I'll give line notes to my dad about lines he messed up. Now everybody backstage is teasing me about that. After opening night for the show, my dad and a couple other actors and some friends and I went to a bar/grille across the street from the theatre and had a little celebration. Since it's summer, I now have a lot more time for reading (I'm reading American Pharaoh right now, about the first Mayor Daley) and watching movies. Since the last time I wrote in this blog, I've seen A fish Called Wanda, Some Like it Hot, The Queen, Dr. Strangelove, and probably a few others that I can't think of. We've also certainly established ourselves as regulars at Cafe Selmarie, a restaurant near my dad's. We've been eating there almost every day for the past week. We ate father's day brunch there, which I gave my dad "The Assault on Reason" for. He loved it. Speaking of presents, I got some great ones for graduation...mostly money, which I used to buy some books for (library books are fine with me, but we were near a borders so we figured "why not?"). I also used it to buy "The Assault on Reason" for my dad. The books that I got were Washington Gone Crazy (about the Red Scare), Chasing Ghosts (a Soldier's perspective on the failures of the Iraq War), and God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (self-explanatory), by Christopher Hitchens. I also am looking forward to reading Freakonomics, about Economics, obviously. I only read non-fiction these days, and I like books pretty much in the topics of law, economics, and U.S. history. I also want to read two books of my dad's ( as well as "The Assault on Reason," when he's done), and those are "The audacity of hope," by Barack Obama and "Sea of Thunder," about the WWII battle of Leyte Gulf. As for a construction update on the house across the street from my dad's, they've now got the entire frame up, and the roof and chimney done. Today, or i guess yesterday, as it's past midnight, my dad and I went out to two of my grandma's (who died Feb. 1st) old houses. They're both out in the suburbs, and it will be the last time I will have seen either. Her really old one was initially built in the 1850's, when Chicago was still a teenager. That one was gradually added onto over the years, and th newest part was built in probably the early 2000's. The newer house, the one that she moved into when she got sick, was only one story (she was having trouble getting up and down stairs), and was much, much newer. Now, the newer one is getting sold and the older one is getting demolished. It's sad because the developer initially said that he was going to live in it, not demolish it. He did rent it out at first. But now he is going to demolish it, and build several new houses, although the plans are kind of on hold, as a lot of it depends on the clearance of a neighbor (something to do with the zoning), and the developer is not getting it. In the mean time, the Long Grove fire department is using it as a training ground. When we arrived, we could see they had totally raped it, but my dad said that as long as one firefighter had learned a life-saving technique, it was worth it and my grandma would have been happy. They didn't actually burn it, but instead had been practicing how to tear holes in walls and ceilings. The door was open, so we went inside. It was really sad, seeing all these rooms where so many memories had amassed with holes in the ceilings and holes in the walls right through into the outdoors. The coachhouse had taken the brunt of the pillaging though, as it was almost completely falling apart. But, like I say, I'm glad the firefighters are learning something. I am really sad to see it go, though, as my dad was pointing out to me stuff he had written in the wood walls when he was a boy. So much nostalgia. It's really too bad. If they are tearing it down, I wish they would just burn it down, so the firefighters would get practice. To me that's a more honorable way, if they do have to do it. Just keep lighting controlled fires until it's totally gone. They could also practice putting out brush fires, as the yard has gotten so overgrown that it's become like brush. We went and saw the creek one last time, too. And swung on the swing. As we were pulling away, we saw a fox. They hardly ever show themselves, so I think that was a good sign; a good omen. From the new house, we picked up some rugs and furniture, and, in the process, broke a pane of glass in a picture frame. Our dog, L.D., had a great time running around both lots. Too bad she won't be able to do that ever again. Oh, I forgot to mention my closing-night gift from one of my castmembers. He made three CDs of music for me, which was really nice. It was the top five favorite songs of all the company members. I have been listening to them, and since I don't listen to much music, it's been great. Also, in other news, I was walking home from a pet store to buy a condolence gift for our neighbor and his dog when I saw my science teacher in his car driving by. He honked, but only my dad actually saw him. The reason we were buying a condolence gift was because my dog attacked their beagle the other day when she got out into the alley without a leash on. My dad had his hands full, so he couldn't stop her immediately. It was the night of my dad's opening so we were late leaving, and then we had to double back to make sure the doors were closed and locked (turns out we were just paranoid; they were.) We still ended up getting there 10 minutes early, even though we thought we were going to be late. That's still much later than my dad likes to get there. Anyway, I'm enjoying summer, and am beginning the first leg of my real summer activities this Thursday, with my trip to Spain through Northwestern University. But I will tell more about that later. I'm sure there is much more to catch Future Will up on, as I did go a whole month and a half without posting, but I think this is enough for now, or at least enough for the basis of future posts. I must get off to bed now. Good night.