#11: The Gentlemen's Ploy, An Exciting Month

It has been a very exciting month since I last wrote.

For instance, I got my house painted. That was more stressful than exciting, I guess. At one point they managed to get the entire house vibrating with their sanding. That was too much for me. I left for the nearest coffeeshop.

Coffeeshops have some advantages over staying at home. For instance, they serve pastries. They also get you out into the world and almost make you feel as if you too could become a part of humanity. But I do not drink coffee. I drink tea, and one can make much better tea at home than one gets at a coffeeshop. However, I’m an old campaigner, I can take the rough with the smooth, and I am disinclined by nature to complain, so I bought my pastry and tea and had a rather pleasant afternoon.

As for the painting, it was eventually finished, and although I am disinclined by nature to complain, there are things about it which are just not right, and I would be happy to point them out to you, should you be interested.

But that wasn’t the only exciting thing I did over the past month. No, I also traveled to Seattle for a long weekend. I realize that there are those who wouldn’t think that traveling to Seattle for a long weekend would rate very high on the excitement scale, but considering that it was the first time I had been traveling since 2017, it was, for me, exciting. Actually, it was more nerve wracking. Traveling makes me nervous. This is one reason I don’t do it often.

But I took the train, and I enjoy taking the train. Taking the train allows one to get up and walk around, get something to eat, read a book, snooze, even consume alcoholic beverages, none of which you can do while driving a car. Granted, once you reach the end of the line you don’t have a car to get around in, but the friends I was visiting were willing to drive me around, so that was all right. And the trip turned out quite well.

But that’s not why I’m here! I’m here to provide you with an update on The Gentlemen’s Ploy.

Shortly after I got back from Seattle I had another meeting with Matt, the director. We still do not have a music director. Nonetheless, he advised me not to slit my wrists just yet. (I put the razor away.)

We do, however, have a costume designer, which is great. And Matt tells me that once we have all the designer folk on board he will have us all over for pie. So I am looking forward to that on many fronts, being a big fan of pie (specifically fruit pies, Matt).

And I personally have not been idle during the past month. I finished the demos and lead sheets for all the songs in the show so everything with singing in it is now complete. (Now, if we only had a music director....) And I’ve nailed down a rehearsal space, which I am quite pleased about.

And, heck, there’s almost six months before we open!