The Consulting Company art show is this Thursday, and while my books aren't complete yet (the bookblocks are sewn, and all pieces are cut, but they need gluing), Chris finished the table he's showing as an example of his work. I had asked him for a round table on which I could place the books, and he came up with this terrific piece.

The amazing thing to me is that he built this in spare moments with scraps he had left over from other jobs. Sean can do the same thing; his dining room floor has an amazing pattern of wood, because he used scraps from Chris' shop and he didn't have enough of one type of wood to have it all be even.

At any rate, this is beyond anything I could have hoped for. I love it, and I hope that Chris not only sells this piece at the show but also gets many commissions out of it.

One of Chris' ideas for his display was to create a miniature table upon which he could place business cards. Sean later told me that the miniature table is built exactly to scale from the first one. Chris' mind works like that. It's not enough to make a replica, he has to make an exact replica. He was like this when we were kids and he had an HO-scale train set. Nothing was ever placed in that landscape unless it was perfectly in scale with the trains that ran on the tracks.

Just for the sake of true scale, I've put Ernie at the smaller table, having lunch with a very small dinosaur. I am so jealous of Chris' talent. I don't have the ability to make something tangible like that from nothing. Sure, I'm binding books, but that's a matter of following instructions and then getting just a little bit creative with papers and stamps and items glued onto the covers. I'll never really be a visual artist, just like I'll never have the talent to sing (my other great jealousy of people with a particular talent). I think I write well enough, and I like concentrating on that, but every once in a while I'll see something one of my brothers made, and I wish I had that kind of mind.

Hey, at least my "artwork" is going to have the best display unit of any other artist in the show, which is only right since I'm the official "curator."

If this entry turns into line after line of a;ldskfakvnalkdIUP(3[0a90r*(, you'll know that I've fallen asleep on my laptop. I'm utterly beat tonight, even though I didn't do anything particularly "active" for most of the day.

I asked Suzanne if she would be free today to get together and discuss her long short story (which I believe would make an excellent novel), while I was in her end of Massachusetts picking up my transcripts for my application to graduate school. It turned out she had a floating holiday she could use, so she, Laurie and I made plans to get together at around 1:30.

Unfortunately, between the time I set up the meeting and today, I found out the rehearsal schedule for the show I'm in, which is Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday at 7:30pm. Since the Amherst area is 1 1/2 to 2 hours away from where I live, that didn't give us too much time to get together.

I was running late during the morning, and didn't get to Laurie's house until 11:45. By the time we had the car gassed up and on the road, it was close to noon. We took the Pike, which probably wasn't the best idea, since I always think the Pike takes longer than Route 2, but it's an easier shot than getting to Route 2 from Laurie's house.

We arrived at Suzanne's around 2pm, and announced to her that we would have to leave around 4:30 or so, which is too bad, because I think she was planning on a longer stay. We played with the dogs for a minute or two, and then headed out to lunch.

(I tried to get good pictures of Azuki and Maisie Roo, but they're very active dogs (they're very young, unlike the two old men in my house), so I only have blurry pictures of them. However, their cuteness trancends my lack of ability with a camera, so here are the best of a very bad lot of snapshots):

Lunch was a buffet at a Chinese restaurant that has been in Hadley since I used to live out that way, but I've never been there. Buffets can be hit-or-miss, but luckily, Suzanne knows from good Chinese food, and this one was a hit. I especially liked their crab rangoons and wonton soup.

Afterwards, we drove to campus, where I picked up my transcripts. I had forgotten how inefficient anything to do with a university is; having to fill out a request form at the Undergraduate Admissions Office, then going to the Bursar's Office to pay for the transcripts, and then back to the Admissions Office to pick up my copies.

While I was there, I felt terribly old. I realized that I could have legally married and fathered most of the kids who were standing in line with me at the Bursar's Office.

One of them was a very distraught young girl who was practically crying into her cell phone:

"I understand that you might not be able to change the grade, but I have never, never gotten a C+ on anything in my life! Yes, I know that it only counts towards 10% of my grade, but I just don't want that grade showing up on my record at all! Is there anything I can do? I know, but-- Yes, but-- But, I never ever have gotten below an 86 on anything!"

I just wanted to take the phone out of her hand, lead her into a quiet corner and say, "Honey, it's 10% of your grade. You can still get an A in the class, even if you had gotten a zero on that paper. It's not like you have a felony charge on your permanent record or anything."

Still, students have to go through student drama (I know I did enough of that), and it was really none of my business whether this girl had a nervous breakdown over an English paper or not. I paid my $12, got my transcripts, and went back to the car.

Suzanne asked if we wanted to pick up her daughter on the way back, and Laurie asked what time she usually picked her up. Suzanne said around 5:30, so I made the executive decision to let her stay in her after-school program while we had some quality time with Suzanne. I love her daughter to death (nobody who has met her can resist her), but I can't remember the last time Laurie, Suzanne and I did something with just the three of us there.

What we did was head back to Suzanne's place and chat. She's almost done with the bookshelves she's been building since the beginning of the year, and they look great. Again, with people who can do tangible, visible art. And Suzanne is a kickass writer, as well. If I didn't like her so much, I'd hate her.

Far too soon, 4:30 rolled around, and I made noises at Laurie for us to leave. It was good that we left when we did, because we got home right at 7pm, and my rehearsal started a half-hour later. Since Laurie's house is about a half-hour away from the theater, I had no time to spare.

I got to the playhouse right on time, and we started in on blocking the first half of Act One. The children's theater group was rehearsing in the performance space, so we had to use the tiny, tiny rehearsal room.

Does anyone remember that Carol Burnett Show skit with the two actors who are used to a tiny set being forced to do their show in a giant amphetheater? Where they had to take 20 steps to get from the coatrack to the chair? I've always loved that sketch. Anyway, this blocking rehearsal was that sketch, in reverse.

Whenever the script said, "Peter crosses to Minna," that translated into, "Peter shifts slightly to the left and tries to avoid bumping into Minna." It got funny after awhile, blocking the show as if we were performing an episode of Are You Being Served?.

The blocking went well, but after our first run-through, the director and the assistant director both gave me notes about being a little too flat with my lines. I apologized and told them that I'm not that great at doing blocking, reading from a script and getting a character down right all at the same time (some actors can do it; it's just a little too much multitasking for me), and they said that was fine.

I tried harder on the second run-through, which went much better. Since all I do during Act One is ask questions incredulously, it was tough to get in too much range, but I managed as well as I could. I'm going to have to get off-book quickly, because I can do much better without a damned script in my hands, and since I have so many lines, I'll have the script in-hand forever if I don't just buckle down and memorize.

We ended the night with both directors saying they really liked what they saw, which really pleased me. At least I'm not sucking the life out of the show just yet; there may be hope for me as a leading man. And we didn't get to the kissing scene yet, which is just fine by me.

I stopped off at McDonald's on the way home from rehearsal, where it took the crew about 15 full minutes to get me a Big Mac. I don't know if they'd suddenly run out of food or if they were playing hackey-sack out in the stockroom, but I was starving, tired and cranky by the time I got home.

I watched CSI: Miami with Mom, and the combination of silly television, family news (my cousin Diane has a new job) and greasy food jollied me up a bit.

I called The Fabulous Robert to confirm our plans for tomorrow (hilariously enough, it's driving back to Western Massachusetts). Hopefully, I'll be able to keep those plans, since Mom and I are taking Trooper to the vet tomorrow, and he's been doing very poorly the past couple of days. Maybe the vet will give us some magic pill to allow him to stand up without his back legs shaking as badly as they do, but most likely she's going to say it's our decision as to how long Trooper should stay with us.

At this point, it's a tough call. He has a great appetite, is alert and isn't crying, so he doesn't appear to be in pain, but he gets utterly panic-stricken when he slips and can't get back up, and he could seriously injure himself while we're both out of the house.

I'll reserve worrying about it until tomorrow. Right now, I have to sleep, because I have books to bind, an art show meeting to attend, a vet's appointment to make, and socializing to do tomorrow, as well, and I want to be well-rested for all of that.

Some pictures from our road trip:

There's nothing growing in the fields yet, but Hadley is a nice town to drive through. This really captures the Pioneer Valley in winter, I think.

Trees are always an interesting subject to me. I think every first-time amateur photographer likes to photograph trees, since they provide patterns and shadhows.

I was trying to focus on the fence, but the whole shot kind of works for me. I like this because I took it from a moving car, and you can't really tell that. My hand is getting steadier with practice.

Trying to be "artistic" here. I like the rust of the underside of the bridge and the roughness of the stones combined with the focal point of the parking meter. Still, it could just be a really dull picture of a not-so-interesting location. I'm still learning.

On the Pike on the way home, Laurie said, "Turn around! Turn around!" as if Colin Farrel had suddenly materialized in the back seat. He hadn't (too bad...maybe he likes Duran Duran), but there was a gorgeous sunset in the back. I didn't capture it well enough (we were moving at 65MPH at the time, and we'd gone over a hill), but I did get some of the red from the setting sun, so I'm including it here.

That's all the "art" I'll subject you to tonight. Any more time awake, and I'll officially become a zombie.