WHAT YOU WANT AND WHAT YOU GET ARE NOT ALWAYS THE SAME

19. September 2009 by Frank.

This week I auditioned for
Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap at my local college.  I did not get the part I wanted (the lead naturally) not because I wasn’t good enough but because I stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the cast because of my age.  Most of the plays I have done there have had a healthy balance of the young college age beginners and the, shall we say, chronologically advanced old timers who still enjoy hamming it up now and then.  Not this time.  The old farts like me didn’t show up and that limited the character I would be believable playing.  So I’m not Trotter, I’m Metcalf and I only have 54 lines to remember.

This is not much of a challenge and that disappoints me.  I do these things to force my memory to function better.  The only thing difficult is faking a British accent.

At the same time I volunteered to host the Humanist Symposium on September 27.  That is only one week away.  So far I have 3 submissions, two of them by the same person so essentially I have two submissions.  The Carnival of the Godless I hosted several months ago was similar, all the submissions showed up at the very last minute.  Literally.  This is hardly encouraging.

I haven’t written it yet but I have a great big idea for a theme to tie it all together (assuming I get anything to tie) that will be quite the opportunity to show off my wacky side.  It should be a great way to increase traffic here.

A couple of nights ago I was at my friend’s house to help with his incredibly feeble computer once again.  (He’s going to buy a new one but I convinced him to wait for the new machines with Windows 7 preloaded.)  Despite my protestations he insists on claiming I am a gift from god.  Nobody has my computer knowledge and my patience (which is very Job-like) and could possibly be as good as I am at it.  So the only possible explanation is that god sent me.

I’m mean shit!  I’m a flaming atheist, aren’t I?  How can I have any street cred in the computer or atheist worlds if this guy goes around singing praises to god for me?

He had the radio on to a religious news station that was reporting the teachers who illegally took kids to a church function had somehow won their case.  He was amen-ing that like it was a good thing.  Of course it was good in his worldview.  Not so in mine.

Why do these people think it’s all right to cram their religion down everyone else’s throats?

I don’t want a world without religion, some people obviously need it, but I do wish I could live in a world where declaring yourself an atheist wouldn’t get you ostracized from all your family and friends.  I’ve been on Facebook for awhile now but I have no intention of linking it to here.  Mention atheism there and I would be instantly ruined and then some.  Everyone on your friends list gets to see everything about you and what you post instantly whether you want them to or not.  I like to be me but I have to keep some things anonymous for my own well-being.

In the meantime, I have purchased a new 1TB hard drive for my soon to arrive free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.  I wanted a Western Digital that was on sale until I discovered it didn’t come with a cable and that the warrantee was screwy.  A couple of things have turned up lately with odd warrantee protection; you must register it in a certain time or you don’t get the 3 to 5 year version, you only get one year.  Not a total deal breaker but very strange nonetheless.  My old drive with XP is definitely showing signs of imminent failure.  I have nearly 60,000 photos on that drive (and backed up on the second drive (backed up on the external drive (and backed up on DVD’s))) and I do not want to risk losing them.  Having suffered severe hard drive failures before (and learning the hard way) I am department of redundancy department certified crazy about backing up my system.

The play does have one other thing going for it.  One young woman is so drop dead gorgeous that she’s worth the price of admission all by herself.  As Jim Carey once said, “Smokin’!”  I’m quite sure she will never even give me the time of day.

So not only am I an old closet atheist who’s a blessing from god, I’m an anal retentive dirty old man with delusions of grandeur and self importance to boot.

Aren’t you glad you know me?

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