i love sitting here... in the middle of my mother's classroom surrounded by second-graders. i love days like this one... when the kids are scurrying across the floor, doing errands for their teacher; my mom. chris is straightening quilts on the reading chair. he wants it to be just right, you know, lest he displease his teacher in any way. precious, these little ones.

i am well. i am enveloped in creative focus... writing, reading, working on a character for a play later this month, forming travel plans.

things do not always go well; often they go south of the way we might expect/want/hope/demand they go. go north, young man. phone calls with friends who live all over make me laugh(not always because something is funny) and cry(not always because something is sad). it's not bad, really. it is just life and love... and other mysteries. (hehe, i couldn't resist.) love includes the giggles and the tears, and before you go youth camp on me, i do not only mean romantic love.

i am working on a play, for a play-reading later this month, about a russian poet/soldier named mikhail lermontov. i read the part of lermontov, and the soul of the play is so very shrouded and scarred from life's suckerpunches and switchblades. come to orlando and see it on 21 december. the playwright is directing, and on saturday, our first rehearsal, he told me, "ben, you are just about there; very close." wow. i want this character to have the heart this man gave it. it is up to me to bring that heart to the surface, if slowly. i love to act.

momma murph is reading to the children now, as they sit on the story rug... why christmas trees aren't perfect... a tale about how outward appearances do not dictate what the inside holds. a good thing for us all to hear.

i am going to dunkin donuts now, for coffee and a bagel. maybe the newspaper, too.

"baby, close your eyes
to the lullabies
of the news... tonight"

i like jack johnson. bye.