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…

Last night, there were enough of us around the table at Mytown's Playwrights' Lab to read all the parts of Count of Three; I was the only woman (a first!) so I read the role of Anna Nicole, which served to be revelatory.

Everyone did a great job with the reading and provided VERY HELPFUL comments, especially where confusion was involved:

Grant Miller Media is the newest name on my Blogroll. Welcome, Grant Miller Media.

Tonight if anyone shows up to Playwright's Lab, the THIRD DRAFT of Count of Three will be read aloud for the first time. It's up to 17 pages (don't know where the 18-page draft of it went but no loss, this one is really good) and I've filled two of the primary roles, out of four. Anyone want to come read at Forbes tonight at 6:30?

Has anyone ever referred to the country of Israel as a “gated community”? If not, I call it.

I ordered some Sea Monkeys a few weeks ago but instead they sent me sea urchins. No shiny golden crowns… these wear tattered brown jackets and too-small shoes. My tank's all grimy with soot and they're endlessly hitting up my betas for extra change, or gruel.

“Please, sir, may I have some more?” they whine, plaintive.

Mel·an·cho·li·ac (yes, it's a noun, but I want to change its job description) sea urchins. Urchin infestation; the fishtank as ghetto. It's a total drag. I'm never ordering Sea Monkeys again.

Sheesh, people… so I post one thing that shows I have serious thoughts in my head (“Infinite Jest-ing”), and nobody's commented since. So you can go ahead and comment on this one by congratulating me on MY 200TH POST! Woo hoo!