I've added so much to Count of Three that I decided to send it to another vict fresh reader. Justin of Make a Death Wish Foundation (MySpace) is a buddy from w a y back and he's got a similar celebrity fetish to my own. I hope he likes it but look foward to hearing any criticism, too, especially because he's very eductated as to all things Anna Nicole Smith-ian. (Smithesque?) On a lark, I sent him a PDF of Lindsay Lohan's Birkin, too.

…Mrs. Veal from Arrested Development is Ione Skye.

…Pastor Veal from Arrested Development is also Wash on Firefly.

A very happy Mothers' Day from moi to vous. Monstro celebrated by cooking brunch at the church with the menfolk; the food was great and they even attended to the tablesettings. Thanks honey!

Lots of baby-watching today but also a ton of writing. The fourth draft of my Anna Nicole play is up to 27 pages; the third draft topped out at 18, so nine pages in two days, I'm happy with that. And I don't think that they suck. And now Anna Nicole doesn't enter until page nine, whereas in the third draft, her entrance started the show.

Monstro asks, “do you really need that much” and it's a valid question; perhaps it's overwritten but I don't think so — remember, in the third draft nobody even figured out all the characters were dead until well into the play, and I'd never intended to obfuscate that, so the things that I did intend to obfuscate? Need a little more background as well.

Tomorrow is Mothers Day and Monstro has offered to pay off my electric guitar but I'm not certain it's the one I want anymore, because (as Patrick would say) it's the “cheap Squire Strat” and I think my music deserves a fuller sound, because I don't know if you know this about me but I have a lovely big singing voice and could totally be famous.

You know how every once in a while you get on a plane and some woman is already buckled in with a screaming red kid on her lap? Monday night, I was that woman. The plane had been delayed and Baby was in NO mood for anything besides screaming… I offered him food, I sang to him, I changed his diaper while he stood on my lap; nothing worked. Except for the Motrin, which took effect 15 minutes after I'd dosed him and for the rest of the flight he was all conked out (praise Jesus).
I told the flight attendant I wanted to buy drinks for the two people in front of us but she told me to keep my money in my pocket, that she'd take care of it. The man in the seat directly ahead of us ordered scotch; I guess the woman next to him wasn't a drinker.

Baby remained asleep as the plane landed so I waited for everyone else to debark before waking him up. The woman sitting behind me stood and pressed a five-dollar bill in my hand.

“Listen, you didn't have to pay for my drink,” she said.

“I didn't!” I replied. “The flight attendant did. Please, keep your money.”

“No, you keep it,” she said. “Because the only thing that made it OK was your singing. That was awesome.”

So now I'm either a professional singer or a professional mom. I was going to frame the five bucks but instead I swapped it for laundry quarters. Guess that means I'm a professional mom.

Whoever first said “On Saturday, don't call people before 10 a.m.” obviously never got that news to my kid. He was awake at 7:02 this morning. Ugh. We were out of the house for Mytown's Farmers Market by seven-thirty, went there and to four other stores and were back just after nine. Monstro thought maybe we'd taken our show on the road. Well, we did… and we came back home with a steak and some buy-local asparagus!

Count of Three has grown six pages since Wednesday — I am firmly planted into draft four and now Anna doesn't enter until the bottom of page seven. The men are asserting themselves and I learned some things today about Daniel that will only help me to capture his character. Happy Friday!

Katie came over for lunch today and we watched an episode of “Iconoclasts” that I'd DVRd. It featured old friends Mikhail Baryshnikov and Alice Waters (of slow-food, local, organic veggies, and Chez Panisse fame), talking singly and jointly about their worldview of diversity and difference. It was fantastic, especially punctuated by my homemade fritatta and cherry-blueberry jam. Mmmmm…

I've been working off-and-on with the fourth draft of my Anna Nicole play all day. Now she doesn't enter until page six. Before, she entered on page two (page one being the title page). Now it's obvious from the get-go that everyone's dead, and good underlying relationships (and exposition) are taken care of before the demon diva gets her entrance.

I finished reading Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty a couple of days ago and remember being eifersuechtig at a passage where one of the writers wrote for hours and lost all sense of time. Then today there was a knock at the door and oh my goodness, it was 3:30 and the mother's helper was here.

I've put it down for today… well, for the time being…