The Fairy Queen is Meeeee!

I wish I could say that in my absence from LiveJournal I had been journaling at home in my big red book that I used to use for The Artist's Way. I haven't been. I have been, instead, doing a lot of thinking and a lot of spending time with people I love.

I spent Thursday night in Valencia with my friend Madison. Her husband was away on business, so I went up to Valencia after work to stay with her. Boo to Burbank-to-Valencia rush-hour traffic on I-5. That shit is unbelievable. When I arrived, though, Madison answered the door and handed me a beer: lovely. We had a nice quiet supper at their house, which is so nice and makes me want to get a house really badly. She has tomato plants as tall as me and basil as high as my chest.

Then, after work on Friday I met Romeo and Juliet for dinner at Clancy's Crab Broiler in Glendale. None of us had never been there, but always up for trying new things, we headed there and had a very nice time. The atmosphere is a little weird: a kind of North Wood's Inn for seafood, but the food is great.
After the Crab Broiler, the three of us drove over to Brand Park to see our friend Michael Steger in a production of Charley's Aunt performed outside and (for some very odd reason) in it's entirety. The show wasn't very good at all, but Mike was quite good, as he always seems to be when I see him these days. His dialect was near-perfect and his performance was real and engaging... and compared to the rest of the cast, our friend was a fucking genius. The guy who played Charley's Aunt was a late-thirties musical theatre performer who was obviously, flamboyantly, distractingly gay. He stretched the limits of believability set on the play to places I thought they never could go. The funniest thing in this performance was his song, late in Act III, which is performed in drag (of course) as the old woman and which features, quite prominently, the lyric "There are fairies at the bottom of our garden." The song was so hilarious under the circumstances that I could barely contain myself.
After the show, we all went to the Elephant Bar in Burbank. Mike seemed ambivalent about the show, which is understandable, but the three of us all re-assured him that his performance was quite good even if the show lacked.

Oh, and I ran into two very old colleagues of mine at the show. Totally randomly, Amy Hiett and Kenny something-or-other, who were both involved with The Bakkhai all those years ago, showed up at Charley's Aunt. Weird. We talked for a little while, but they wouldn't say why they were there and didn't seem predisposed to chat with me. It was such a trip!

Ah well. I am off to see Gus Van Sant's new movie. I know I should catch up on some old films that have been in the theatre a while, but Last Days demands my attention. I will try to see The Beautiful Country, Howl's Moving Castle and Me and You and Everyone We Know sometime during the week. The movies just keep piling up. And I haven't even seen War of the Worlds! Geez.