TUESDAY | 01.25.05 | 5:02pm | or maybe it was a possum...

for the last few days we've heard a scratching sound under the floors so we figured out pretty quick (thanks to living in new york for a few years) that we had a mouse in the house... i went out and bought the evil glue traps and set them out last night... at 6:30 this morning the cat was going CRAZY so i guessed that the mouse had been captured... nope... well, first of all it wasn't a mouse... how do i know??? well, when i checked the traps i found a tail glued to one of them... not a mouse tail, but a crazy-big RAT tail... ONLY the tail... the monster had chewed through its own tail to escape... during its escape, though, it had a spare moment and decided to chew through one of the water pipes and start a minor major leak... under the new cabinets i installed a few months ago and over the new floors i'd installed a week or so prior to that... ruined... i spent the morning ripping up floors and vacuming water up and cutting holes in cabinet bases and such... so much for getting it right the first time... perhaps replacing it all will make it better somehow... i guess we'll see... happy birthday to me...

SATURDAY | 01.22.05 | 11:56pm | ice ice ice...

what a friggin' winter storm this is... i want to move to some kind of tropical climate please... i hate it so much... the car doors were frozen shut tonight... what's that?!?!?!?

anyway, speaking of ice, ari gold's site has been revamped and relaunched... much better, if i do say so myself... i'm so much more proud of this site than the previous incarnation - it's all mine... last time i kind of came in and futzed with the existing design/organization and for the last four years i've been wanting to redesign... i always eventually get what i want...

MONDAY | 01.17.05 | 12:16pm | oh, by the way, happy new year...

wow, the last several weeks have kept me on my toes... christmas came and went without too much of a bang, but everything around it was crazy... i finished a new website a few weeks ago and immediately started working on the new show at the high school... this semester we're doing disney's "beauty and the beast"... quite an ambitious undertaking... after the last show was such a hit, i was feeling pretty good about this one... then we had auditions... 70 kids showed up for a show with a cast of 35... eeek!!! that made me a little nervous... then they sang... WOW!!! there are some incredible performers out here... it's insane!!! the first rehearsal was held yesterday and it went amazingly well... i'm very excited...

oh, i skipped new year's eve... charlie and i traveled to pittsburgh to see a free rusted root concert... (they're my favorite band, ya know)... we arrived at 4pm for a show that wouldn't start until 11pm... we just wanted to guarantee a good spot to stand... luckily, we were able to watch the show from directly in front of the stage - 15,000 people behind us...

we also met some groovy kids who drove down from new jersey for the show...

one boy looked exactly like my friend pie in new york...

after the show i got to meet the lead singer michael...

as soon as 2005 rolled around i was back to work... designing sets, redesigning ari gold's website (should be released pretty soon, now), redesigning myself... i started a sort of diet last week... i'm eating small portions of food and i've been eating mostly healthy choice brand... i've slipped a couple of times and eaten some oreos and some ice cream, but other than that i've been doing a really good job... it just really started depressing me that i'd gained 22 pounds since moving to west virginia a year ago (no exaggeration)... and oh my god i have been in west virginia for over a year... crazy!!! anyway, reinvention isn't always fun, but it's all worth it for the end result... one day, yes, one day soon i will be back to my incredibly healthy, contagiously youthful and painfully gorgeous self... you just wait and see...