A couple of weeks ago, my friend Carol Davies called me up and asked me if I'd be willing to create a prop for the Edmonds School District musical. They're doing Disney's "Aladdin" (it seems like everyone is doing Disney's "Aladdin" this year... in fact, Edmonds is so fond of the idea, they're doing it in two different schools with two different casts! Meadowdale Middle School This weekend! Edmonds Elementary Anyway, I needed to make the staff for Jafar, the bad guy... remember him? So I grabbed a broomstick, some wire, a gallon of Elmer's Glue, Reynolds Wrap, some paper towels and newsprint, and a little polymer clay and went to work! But, of course it needed to be gold, so I had to make a trip to Lowe's for some spray paint... Instant Evil! Good Luck, Everybody!
This week, I had one of the best part time jobs in the world... teaching stage combat to a bunch of kids in a summer program. I had done it last summer and like last summer it was challenging and fun and over waaay too fast. Eleven kids, eight to twelve years old and five three hour sessions, to give them some knowledge of stage combat and physical comedy. They were total kids... silly, spastic, charming, needy, unbelievably creative, completely exhausting. Awkward, beautiful, fragile, clumsy, glorious kids. The first day of the session I asked them to write their names on pieces of paper, so that i could take mugshots of them and hopefully get some idea of their personalities and imaginations. Best idea I've had in a while... I had kids who knew each other, kids who hung out together, kids who'd never met before. It's amazing how fast they make friends with each other. I came in that first day and started tossing around some basketballs, hoping they might play. I shouldn
Lately, I find myself thinking about death, not just because I got to try to embody it in a film, but because it won't go away. It keeps showing up in my life and in the lives of the people I love. I lost a friend last week, this week someone very dear to me is saying goodbye to one family member while the loss of another is still so fresh... Me, I think I'm doing great one day and something will remind me of Bob and I'll be a wreck all over again... I remember the day I got the news about him. I was in Seattle. He was in Florida. My sister was in a plane flying back from NYC to Seattle. I realized that she would get off the plane and be alone and get the news over the phone, like I did. So I wanted to go to Sea-Tac to tell her myself. On the way down, I stopped in West Seattle to commiserate with Rik and Patrick. They were wonderful, as were their wives and Kio and Eric, who didn't even know they'd be attending a mini-wake. They helped me relax and laugh and
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