This evening I went for coffee w/ friend Minka and her roommate (and roommate's in-law pooch, Mo) and instead ended up w/ chardonnay and laughter at Apres Diem, a swell if artsy-fartsy restaurant here in hotlanta. It was a LOT of fun. Couldn't say the last time my cheeks actually ached from smiling so much.

Minka is a new friend and certainly exciting to me. I think I fell a little in love with her when she performed a monologue I'd written - the first of three scenes completing a one-act play. She'd so completely captured what I'd written - and that experience (of having such a perceptive actor) was totally foreign to me - that I immediately began gushing over her in my head. What I recognized after was how [i]everyone[/i] gushes over Minka. the girls' got talent. no shit.

this friday I get the pleasure of seeing her sing a cappella, jazz and arias. opera is her first love. should that take off for her, the acting world will sorely miss her.

the rest of the day was spent pulling weeds at the theater w/ friend Michael who'd come prepared to re-glaze certain windows only to have the caulk pretty much melt in the heat. either that or the man's simply inept.

of course, this sort of weeding /feeding at the theater meant a bit of a tiff w/ mr. zippy. I did, after all, take all his lawn equipment for the day. poor boy.

now I'm listening to Dinah Washington and wondering how much navel-gazing I'm going to do for this gig in May. Hopefully, just enough to make people cry but not wince for the painfully obvious reasons.