Dress Rehearsals

Often when you are anticipating, or dreading, a future moment in your life, you act out the coming scenes in your head. Usually over and over again.

And in these scenes, you want to be the hero, the person doing the right thing, for the right reasons, with perfect ease and no errors.

But in reality life doesn't work that way.

This world is made up of many actors, all trying to be the stars of our own dramas. Yet we are also the co-stars, character actors and bit players in the stories of others.

And as we get older, and perhaps wiser, we slowly learn this fact. So when we start doing dress rehearsals in our heads, we begin to play them in a more realistic light.

We won't always be the hero. More often than not, we will just be 'that guy'.

We won't always say what we want to say, because other people get in the way, with either their words or their emotions.

Each time, over the years, the scenes we play out beforehand resemble the eventual truth ever more.

We become jaded, or cynical. Practical or accepting, in more positive words.

I suppose, when we have it almost perfected, the credits roll.

Joseph Mello - 2009

Vote for Rob Kelly's Spider Lady

My friend Rob Kelly, who is a very talented artist and illustrator,
has a design up for voting at Threadless.

Here is his design, Spider Lady:



You can go to the site and vote here:



Also use this link: Vote for Spider Lady by Rob Kelly aka namtab29

Please vote, Rob is not only talented, as you can see, but he is a cool dude!

View Rob's work @ Rob Kelly Illustration

and also his very cool Aquaman Shrine

New Miss Marple - WTF???

Okay, file this under WTF:

"Agatha Christie's elderly sleuth Miss Marple is moving into the Mouse House
and will go under the knife to hit the bigscreen
as a younger detective in the form of Jennifer Garner.

Thesp, who is currently lensing "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" for Disney, will play Jane Marple in the adaptation that Disney hopes will be a female version of
Warner Bros.' Sherlock Holmes franchise." (via Variety)



Why bother making this Miss Marple, then? Just to cash in on the name recognition??

Gah!!!

Lessons from My Third Parent

We have been watching and enjoying Laverne & Shirley reruns with our kids. The show airs on the new Hub channel at 11:30 pm and 5:00 am, Monday through Thursday.



Most of the show is just silly fun, but one thing they did try to do, in their own wacky way, is keep true to the fact that these characters were from the "other side of town" in Milwaukee. That is, not the nice suburban neighborhood that the Cunninghams and their friends lived in on "Happy Days." These characters had a tougher go at life, yet they always did the right thing, even if it would have been easier to look the other way.

And friendships were paramount. Whether it was the best friend bonds between Laverne and Shirley, or Lenny and Squiggy, or the bonds between all four. The girls always recoiled at the antics of the two guys, but they were always there for them when need be, and vice versa.

I know, "Wow. He reads a lot into a goofy show." Well, maybe. But I watched this show often as a kid and I think the lessons in friendship were good lessons to learn. My third parent (aka TV) stepped up again here, and I was the better for it.

This is a clip from a show that aired back in December of 1979 called "Testing, Testing." The owner of the brewery has all the employees in for testing, and the gang is worried they will be fired because they all have their own issues and problems that make them less than perfect. But the examiner sees through all this to the truth. Watch, the clip below is just the last 2 minutes of the show.



A good little bit from a wacky, goofy, fun little show.

You can view the whole episode here: YouTube: Testing, Testing

The Office last night

Okay, Michael Scott is not a character I like. At all. And I have been getting more and more anxious to see the character hit the road. But this scene last night - and Michael and Holly's relationship as a whole - gave the character the wee bit of redemption he sorely needed, at least in my eyes.



Carell deserves an Emmy for creating such a jackass of a person in Scott.

FRINGE!

From theTVaddict.com:

"Score one for our universe! Fox has officially confirmed executive producer J.H. Wyman’s tweet from earlier in the night that had him “letting it slip” that FRINGE has been renewed for a fourth season. “Fringe was picked up!!!! Thanks Fringedom!”

What’s more FRINGE hasn’t just been picked up for a fourth season, it has been picked up for a full 22 episode fourth season. Which means, it’s a good great day to be a fan of quality scripted television."

Great news to wake up to! Love this show and was really hoping it would be back for another season. Although this might mean bad things for either "Lie to Me" or "Human Target". Or both, as FOX doesn't appear to have a lot of room left on their Fall schedule.

We shall see.

Crossroads

Last week I did a post of one of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I have been reading them lately, and am subscribing to all 154 of them through DailyLit. Felt like sharing it.

And that is what brings me to this blog title: Crossroads. I haven't posted here since New Year's, except for a cartoon and the sonnet. I have felt like this blog lost its purpose, for me. Why? I am not sure.

Part of it might be the Horror road I went onto here. I never intended for this blog to be just a horror blog. I had originally intended this blog to just be, well, whatever I felt like posting. Here is what I originally posted when I started this blog:

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So, I will post what I want, when I want and how I want. I won't ask anyone to read it or comment on it or care about it.

I will at least be getting some flotsam and jetsam out of my head. Maybe I can help my writing, find some ideas for stories, articles - whatever. But it will all be just for me.

Feel free to read, or not. Feel free to share, or not. Enjoy it, or not.

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I don't want to just close up shop here, so I am going to try and get back to that mindset. My blog, my space, I will post whatever.

Let's hope it works. And thanks to those who didn't delete me when things got quiet in these parts.

It is appreciated.

116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixéd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose Worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116