Readers want to know

Q:

Now that you and Mr. E are both working, you don't blog as much as you used to, not surprisingly. How are you doing? You personally, him, etc? How's life? How's work?

A:

The simple answer is that things are pretty fucking amazing. Neither of us had been very happy for a while and last year we had a couple of well-aimed kicks in the pants and we made good choices and stuck with them and it's paid off.

My job is moving from an investigation phase to actual project planning and execution which I'm highly excited about. As opposed to "learn everything about our business and suggest software" it will be "this is what we've selected, now let's make it work". I'll be working with people and really bringing my strongest experience and skills to bear on getting the work done. My last work experience was so horrible that it's exciting to rediscover what I actually like about this field of work. The people I work with are very nice and they seem to like and respect me. I've got a few more months of this and then I have to look for another contract but I'm fine with that.

He's doing great as well. Working every day but he has the perspective of his last job (which was five years ago) as being incredibly horrible so this one is cake. He set himself to the task of learning web development (he had development experience before but not the web stuff) and he did, and he had some luck in getting in someplace without a lot of experience and now they love him and have hired him full-time.

And then there's the not-small excitement of probably having a show being produced off-Broadway. OK, more than not-small. Huge. Possibly life-changing.

Some days we meet in Manhattan and walk around and get dinner which we both love. We're engaged with living in the city again.

There are always things that could be better, always things I could do better. But overall I am incredibly proud of what we've pulled off and incredibly relieved that we were able to do it.

And it's spring!

Q&A: Why I am the way I am, sort of

Q:

Who the hell are Ed Brown and Jim Copp and why should I care?

A:

My father's sister was an odd woman. Smart and crazy, but mostly crazy, she was the oldest sibling in a family that was incredibly dysfunctional - and that's based just on what my closed-mouthed parents would actually tell me (my father was the youngest and all except my aunt had met their fates by the time I was born.)

Margaret married well, on paper, but he was emotionally abusive man and eventually she, too, killed herself.

She and my father were never close, in fact they were (I'm told) in pretty much constant disagreement but when my brother and then I were born things changed and she became a doting aunt. On her terms. We were to have the things she didn't have, we were to be exposed to art and music and theatre. Well, you don't take a 4-year-old to see The Mikado and have it end well but still, she did try.

One of her presents was (over time) as set of children's records. Autographed by the men who made them. According to when they were made the first one would have arrived when I was two and my brother four which is about right. We would sing and dance and do all the voices.

The Duck, The Tiger, The Shrimp, And The Owl

Imagine 4-year-old me playing this over and over, dancing wildly about the room and singing along to "And so do I!". Listen to the words and the rhyming. I am listening to this as I type and I am filled with delight.

They were made by two men who I am sure were gay. They'd make the records and then shop them around to high-end department stores in time for Christmas which is where my aunt would find them.

There was almost always music but sometimes there was an actual drama. Listen as a gorilla visits Miss Goggins in her classroom. We Shall Sing!

What these two guys were able to achieve with two tape recorders and HUGE imaginations is astounding.

Some of my favorites are Mr. Hippity's run in with Dick Milligan, The badly behaved Kate Higgins (another song filled with lyrical delights), and another visit with Mr. Hippity.

There's a a website with stories and articles.

If you don't give it some junket, it will die!