I'm excited to be part of of a brand-new Victorian music hall-style Christmas show this season!

A Victorian Christmas Music Hall
produced by the Maryland Renaissance Festival
December 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, and 16
7:30 and 10:00 pm (Saturdays) and 5:00 pm (Sundays)
At The Comedy Spot (Ballston Mall, Arlington VA)

What is a Music Hall? Think vaudeville. It is music, comedy, theatre, and variety skills. Set in Victorian England in the 1890s, the show will feature music and acts that the Victorians themselves would have enjoyed. We are adding to that by giving it a festive holiday flair. Audience members are welcomed to come dressed in their Victorian, Steam punk or Renaissance best to add to the fun.
The show is created and directed by Carolyn Spedden (Artistic Director of the Maryland Renaissance Festival and Shakespeare's Skum) and features some of your Festival favorites: The Pyrates Royale, Stephon Walker (Shakespeare's Skum, Swami Yomahmi), Steve Wannall (Shakespeare's Skum, The Drum Runners), Jay Tilley (Christopher Spittle), Julia Williams (Isobel Yaxley) and Brian Morton (Dinty the Moor).
Of course, the real stars of the show will be the audience, as we all join together in an old-fashioned sing-along of holiday favorites and Music Hall standards. The show is suitable for ages 12 and above.

Visit this link for ticket prices and more info.

And my neighbors must be suckers.

In the past few weeks the following friendly people who just happen to be in the neighborhood -- and are providing all these great services for my neighbors -- have knocked on our door:

- A tree cutter

- Someone who thinks we could use new siding

- Orkin -- they're doing "pest flushing"

- Someone who offered to do a free analysis of our roof

- A one-month-old, unlicensed "company" that smears asphalt on people's driveways. They do no other prep, guarantee the work will last 8 years, and charge about $1500.00 for something I could do myself with one afternoon and $100 worth of materials from Lowe's.

Meanwhile, more lawn/landscaping companies than I can count have left flyers at our front door and tucked behind the flag on our mailbox.

I say my neighbors are suckers because "High Land Paving" has signs posted next to driveways all over the neighborhood... someone across the street supposedly reported them to the county, but not before they made plenty of money here.

We had a NO SOLICITING sign posted on our front door at our old place. Looks like we need to put up a sign here.

NO SOLICITING

We cut our own grass
Our roof is fine
Our basement is dry
Our siding is perfectly good
We have no bugs
We want to keep our trees
We have already replaced our windows
We like our driveway just the way it is
We replaced our pipes
We don't read magazines
The heat and AC work just fine
We have already renovated our kitchen
We use our basement for storage
We don't want a deck
We don't buy frozen meat out of a truck
We walk the dog ourselves
We gave at the office

IF WE WANT YOUR ASSISTANCE, WE'LL LOOK YOU UP
WE HAVE A VERY BIG DOG, HAVE YOU NOTICED?

That would be kind of a large sign.

This chart is a helpful guide: http://jezebel.com/5799608/are-you-wearing-pants-this-chart-will-help-you-answer-that-question

...but since I found it on a "news" web site, it must be true! (Actually, I'm really pointing to this to say, "See? She was dead on.")

Your Clothes Are About to Get More Expensive

There's a blogger who's been getting a fair amount of love on FB lately. First he wrote an essay about being bullied in school. Then there was "You just broke your child. Congratulations." Both were hard to read.

And now there's "Worthless Women and the men who make them."

Okay. His heart is definitely in the right place. And he means well. But I kind of want to punch him in the arm and suggest that he toughen up a little. He's SO EARNEST. He just lays it on a little thick; to the point where I start to feel that growly, grouchy, snarky way that I feel when someone is being condescending to me.

It just goes on, and on, and ON. And on. About what a crime it is that women are held to an impossible standard based on the magazines and on the movies and all of that. About what a tragedy is it that we women catch our men looking at other women and at the magazines and movies and how it makes us feel so wretched about ourselves, like we'll never be good enough...

STOP. Just... shut up, please. Seriously. I KNOW the women in the magazines are airbrushed and Photoshopped into images of impossible perfection. I'm a grownup. It's stupid and disgusting, but I can handle it. But I'd have to have some serious emotional and mental problems to not be able to handle it if my husband looks at other women.

Hell, I look. I notice gorgeous women. I also notice gorgeous sunsets, and gorgeous butterflies, and THEY don't make me feel inadequate.

Maybe that's because I somehow managed to learn that looks just aren't that important. I value my heart, my mind, and my character. Somebody looks more beautiful than me and I honestly don't care. It doesn't make her or him a better person than me. Remember that old saying "Beauty is only skin deep?" Did anyone care that LadyBird Johnson was homely? It didn't stop her from changing the world. Hell, most women are younger than me (I'm 44) and better-looking than me. And yet I'm not suffering from low self-esteem. I'm busy focusing on what I think are more important things.

I'll admit that it took me a long time to reach that conclusion. I wish it hadn't taken so long; I wasted a lot of time and energy worrying about my looks. And not to brag, but I look pretty good... yet even when I was younger and fitter and prettier, I was still worried that I wasn't thin enough and pretty enough. Stupid.

I was born with these looks. I didn't work hard to look like I do. So why should I care? It's not like it's my fault I have mousy brown hair and thin lips and a rather big chin, just like I can't take credit for being tall and slim.

And by the way, all of this importance placed on beauty kind of helps the magazines and the fashion and cosmetics industries justify their existence, doesn't it? It cracks me up when shows like "How Do I Look?" lay on the emotional blackmail bullshit to convince busy women that they deserve to take care of themselves and take some time for themselves. Hey, sure, we all deserve a little time to indulge ourselves. So, what's a better use of "me" time -- sitting in a hairdresser's chair until my butt falls asleep, or climbing up the rigging of a tallship? I'll tell you which one is more fun, more thrilling and more satisfying to me.

Now, I do enjoy playing with makeup and clothes; to a point. I enjoy playing with my hair and my looks; again, to a point. It's not my life. Fashion and makeup to me are fun. Why not simply have fun with it? Why not lighten up a little and leave the self-esteem and emotional baggage out of it? It's putting way too much importance on this stuff when we act like it's going to save our lives or even transform them; it's not that important unless you let it be.

And honestly, after the glow of the makeover wears off, guess what? You're still left with your imperfect self. And if all you care about is your looks and outside validation, you're not going to be happy. Happiness has to come from within or you'll forever be chasing the next big thrill/life-changing experience.

I have a 2-year-old daughter. I have given a lot of thought to the matter of keeping her self-esteem intact in this ridiculously superficial world that we live in. Oh, when the people on "How Do I Look?" start preaching about how a mom should be a role model for their young children, it makes me want to scream. When I was growing up I didn't give a damn what my mother was wearing; I cared about whether she played with me and talked with me. (And she did. She was and still is a wonderful mom.)

At first I appreciated Dove's recent campaign to make all girls feel beautiful. Then I thought: maybe that's the wrong focus. Maybe the focus should be on the importance of being a whole person, someone worth knowing and loving.

So, Single Dad Laughing... I appreciate the support, and you seem like a really nice guy. So I'd like to suggest that maybe what we should all really focus on is not necessarily how to make everyone feel beautiful, but on reminding ourselves and others that while beauty is powerful, it is just one thing, not the be-all and end-all.

We're in Day Two of Weekend Two (the three-day Labor Day weekend) at MDRF. Today's weather was spectacular; sunny but not too warm with low humidity. So comfortable! And Tuesday it's supposed to go back into the 90s again. Wow, we sure got lucky.

Beth and Glenn joined me today. It was so nice to be together, although I was running around A LOT with two solo music sets in addition to four shows with the Pyrates Royale plus Pub Sing. Then there's this new chore I'm doing which is carrying mics, cords, and stands to the Boars Head Tavern and setting them up for the Pyrates' noon set. I'm afraid that Glenn didn't get much in the way of breaks even though every time I was off-duty I immediately took Beth from him. Not out of a sense of obligation but simply because I wanted to hold her and talk with her.

Beth may have been a bit overwhelmed by the festival. She wasn't fussy or cranky and was in fact quite cheerful and fun, but she wanted to nurse so much more than usual that I'm pretty sure it was for reassurance more than milk. She also didn't nap despite Glenn's and my best efforts to persuade her. So it was a very long day for Beth and Glenn, as evidenced by Beth's meltdown on the car trip home and during the World's Quickest Bath. (She was filthy from playing outside all day and looked very authentic.) She fell asleep almost immediately after her bath. Glenn and I agree that the next time he and Beth go to the festival it would be better for them to leave for home at around 3 pm instead of waiting for Pub Sing to end.

While it was a long and logistically-challenging day I had a lot of fun. The Pyrate camp was downright lousy with children -- Damon's daughter Isabella visited with her mother, one of the O'Danny Girls brought her son and husband, and even Jennifer Garman (Fifi, our original fiddler way back when) dropped by with son Finn. And other friends and fans showed off their kids.

One moment that was pretty wonderful was at the Boars Head. We Pyrates were on the beautiful new stage singing into the terrific new sound equipment. I looked into the audience and saw Glenn and Beth sitting at a table with some dear friends. It was so nice to be out on a perfectly gorgeous day making good music, joking around, and smiling at some of my favorite people!

This season it's the O'Danny Girls' turn to ruin The Boatman. They wrote a parody about "the little man in the boat." Which is a euphemism for what you might think. It is hilarious and so, so wrong.

I've just finished CRAMMING chinese takeout into my face. So good! A new restaurant opened near our house and on the way home I realized that I was craving Chinese food. It was a good choice. I was particularly pleased with the Kung Pao chicken, which was spicy but not too hot and included plenty of crunchy veggies.

I stumbled across an article that made me think -- "Oh my GOD, why didn't I do this????"

Two young men went on a road trip to correct the grammatical errors in signs across America. And they wrote a book about it. What a fabulous idea. Honestly, I want to go out on my own trip now, except of course this has already been done. Story of my life.

After I got over my bitterness at What Could Have Been... I read an excerpt from the book.

The writing is... oh, it's AWFUL. Oh, of course it's flawless grammatically! Somebody joked that it had to have been the most carefully-proofread book in the history of publishing. Unfortunately, it's also pretentious, smug, and not at all funny.

Sadly, I can tell what the author was going for. It's a ridiculous task, really; it's like Don Quixote walking around with a red pen instead of a sword. An Impossible Dream, to correct every single sign put together by thousands of functionally-illiterate people who obviously slept through their high school English classes.

(I think that's one of the things that offends me so deeply about the sloppily-written English that I see everywhere. I have forgotten everything that I ever learned about trigonometry because I simply don't use any of it in my daily life. It's the Use it or Lose it thing. But most of us use the written word every single day. At the very least, we are exposed to it; text is everywhere, thanks (I guess) to advertising. Even if you stay in your house all day long, there's even text on your television. About the only way to avoid the written word is to stay at home and listen to the radio. We have no excuse. It's pure laziness or apathy.)

It's a nerdy task. It's a task that honestly, the way this country seems to work, is a little impractical and self-indulgent. It's... kind of silly. This could have been comedy gold. I can almost see a character from "Seinfeld" doing this. Or Lewis Black! Oh I'll just bet that poorly-composed signs make him nuts. So the author tried to write in a kind of epic style (the word "quest" was used) but instead of going far enough to make it funny, just comes across as condescending and smug and really self-indulgent. I think the only way that could have worked as humor would be to really take it over the top. Unfortunately the author seems to want you to know that he knows how silly this is... there's too much ego to just go wholeheartedly into goofiness like say, a character out of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Oh, can't you just picture John Cleese playing a red pen-wielding Don Quixote-style editor running around? That would be so awesome.

Look, NOBODY likes editors. I've been an editor, I know this. People see editors and proofreaders as humorless, obsessive, snotty nitpickers who don't appreciate the hard work that writers put into their work (we do) and focus only on little mistakes. (um... that's our JOB)

This book is not going to sell. Obviously the topic is not exactly accessible unless you are a grammar nerd. And there's no real humor in it to attract any readers who aren't grammar nerds -- i.e. most of the public.

Honestly, I hope it doesn't sell. Not because I'm bitter and I want these guys to fail, but because the more people read the book the more it will keep alive the idea that editors and grammar nerds are unlikeable people who think they're better than everyone else. We don't. We just wish they'd use it's/its correctly. Please. Before our heads explode.

Article and excerpt from The Great Typo Hunt.

No, really. This is the second time that Seanbaby's writing at cracked.com has made me laugh until I cried.

The first time, Glenn was home and he walked into the room, took one look at me crying and gasping and shaking (I was laughing but I probably looked like I was sobbing) and said, "What's wrong?"

The column that made that happen: Every Women's Magazine Ever.

Today I have Seanbaby to thank for the name of my future punk rock band: Congenital Tragedy.

The column that inspired this thought: Stupidity Digest: 1516 Ways to Kill the Romance.

These are, as the blogger put it, insanely beautiful... vintage brooch bridal bouquets

I almost wish I wasn't already married, I would LOVE to do this. I'll bet you could totally make it work for boutonnières and corsages, too.

How to Suck at Facebook: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/facebook_suck