dear everyone in the world.

camping photos are coming, but for now, i'm asking for crazy wild good and strong thoughts to flow toward our friends, brynn hambly and john kaufmann, who are navigating weird and rough seas right now. brynn was diagnosed with breast cancer in late april, and is currently occupied in giving it the smackdown. we are enormously excited about their june wedding in my favoritest of places, seattle, surrounded by many of my favoritest people. the more good juju, the better, so please send it out.

for those of you who are wondering about my good friend kirsten's mom, too, last word i had is that karen is feeling better, off the vent, not intubated, and that there is optimism afoot. it's been a big month for scary health stuff, so i'm going to go have a little extra broccoli.

where in the world is darling topher?

if i gave you ten guesses, i am pretty sure none of them would be, "catering the american idol season finale."

oh, the irony. with a harelip and laryngitis, he could still sing the pants off either of them.

i won

a small award at school--a five hundred dollar prize given in memoriam of Carl Mueller, a theatre historian and translator who taught at UCLA and maintained a presence as professor emeritus until his death this year. he came to speak to one of my seminars fall quarter, and he was great--funny, interested in us, ready to tell the best stories of 1960s berlin and the travails of translation. the award is one of a truckload that are bestowed at the same time, all funded by external donors to the school of theatre, film and television.

in return, i'm to attend a special breakfast where the donors hand out their swag to a roomful of vaguely uncomfortable students. the invite says "professional dress requested," although they don't say professional what. i'm going with meter maid.

Long Time Gone

Things have been busy here at the Manse West. I just closed a show (my first real show in LA) and it was a great experience, and lbh has been hard at work making a Ph.D., and spent last quarter being the assistant of her program adviser. The weather is becoming much warmer – 80's, 90's – and it is beginning to dawn on us that summer is coming, and it's going to be fierce.

We're making lists and filling boxes getting ready for our first LA camping adventure, heading tot he San Gabriel mountains. Unfortunately these mountains have recently been on fire so the chances for 'smores are fairly low. But we're still pretty freakin 'excited about sleeping under trees.