Let's get a few things straight:

1. There is absolutely no excuse for going six weeks without writing. There are some good reasons, maybe, including general summer laziness mixed with copious amounts of driving, working, rehearsing, etc., yes, but no excuses. Apologies to my .7 remaining readers.

2. Summer oh summer, yee hah summer, sigh summer, you are so great. There are many specific reasons for this which shall be enumerated below.

3. I got a job. A real job, with actual financial compensation for what I am trained and qualified to do in career form. This is so very good and relieving that I think I still have not fully realized how good and relieving it is.

4. "The Sopranos" was a very good TV show, and much has been written and said about its recent, questionably satisfying ending. Two thoughts on this subject, about fourteen hours after having watched the last episode: First, yes, the show was always very good, but it became pretty relentlessly pathological over the years. All of the characters started off the series with flaws, but as the years went by, the flaws largely worsened. Relationships became increasingly toxic and dysfunctional, character traits became ever-more pathetic, annoying, or disturbing. This was all done with largely excellent acting and writing, which is why I kept coming back, but at some point you want just the faintest glimmer of something that isn't dirty, and those glimmers, what few there were, had long since departed. This seems to be a trend with some HBO shows. I stopped watching "Six Feet Under" during the third season out of emotional exhaustion. When a TV show makes you depressed, this is not good. Second, the ending was, yes, pretty frustrating. SPOILER ALERT, I AM GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE ENDING NOW. DOES ALL-CAPS GET YOUR ATTENTION? I HOPE SO. Long story short, there was no massive conclusion or great tragic end. Instead, the screen went black in the middle of a moment (Tony is at dinner with his family and looks up, then it's black), almost as though creator David Chase had decided to pull a prank on us. Okay, David, yes, we get the point that you don't want resolution because life, especially Soprano life, has no real resolution, but can we get maybe a tiny tiny bit more than just a blackout? Maybe? I don't know. It's hard to tell. In any event, my final take on the series is this: You should probably rent the DVDs and watch it, but you should not do so before you have rented all six seasons of "The Wire." To sum up my relationship with this show:

The Wire: Hey, Tyler, I'm "The Wire."
Tyler: (watches) Oh, man, you are the best creation ever created in the history of anything ever. I must tell everyone about you right now and keep telling them about you until my lungs collapse and my larynx commits suicide.
The Wire: Well, thanks, but, um, don't overdo it, okay?
Everyone: Yeah, really, calm the heck down.
Tyler: But, but....so.....good...
Everyone: We get it. We get it. Deep breaths. Geeeeez.

5. One of the many fantastic things about summer is that due to my school/career, I frequently have some employment flexibility, and spend parts of the summer doing good, solid, manual labor. I am a firm believer that being outside eight hours a day in the ninety-degree heat working your ass off is pretty wonderful in a number of ways. The wonderfulness varies to some degree based on the amount of thought put into the manual labor (building a deck: good. weed-wacking a tree nursery: bad), but there is a lot to be said for sweat and toil and the smell of freshly-cut 2x4s and the sound of a circular saw and the satisfaction of driving a screw into wood and the solving of problems with hardware. Perhaps the most satisfying things is that at the end of the day you can step back and look at something, touch it with your hands, maybe even stand on it, and say: "I made that today." Simple, tangible results are exceedingly rewarding, especially in an increasingly abstract world. I think that in some alternate universe, I was meant to be a carpenter. My grandfather, a welder, might have had some genetic input on this.

6. Here is something very entertaining to do: Take three Labrador Retrievers for a walk at the same time. I did this at 11:30 Saturday night, which is a great time to do it because nobody will be around to watch you make a complete fool of yourself. I believe the internal narrative of a lab on a walk goes as follows: "Hey what's that over there gotta go right now and see what that is over there and maybe sniff it a bit and hey now what's that over in the other direction that smells cool gotta go see what that is right away" and on and on ad infinitum. Multiply this times three, then run a line between you and each of the three dogs, and you will quickly have some idea what it is like to be a juggler, cowboy, and tightrope walker all at the same time. I laughed pretty much constantly for the entire walk, and only had to stop once to unwrap a dog from around a light post. Good fun.

7. There is something peacefully excellent about deserted streets on a summer night. There is something windily wonderful about driving down deserted summer streets with your windows down. There are few better songs to do this to than "Breathe" by Telepopmusic. (Yes, I know, the screen is black. I picked an audio-only YouTube video to embed so that you could picture yourself driving at night with the windows down, empty sidewalks flashing by, streetlights illuminating tiny moments of deserted life. Do it.)


8. Summer also is the time when The Perfect Summer Meal is fixed and eaten on a weekly basis. To wit: Cheeseburger on the grill, corn on the cob with butter and salt, potato salad, watermelon. This is a top-five meal, hands down. Of course, it helps that it is usually consumed outdoors, on a deck, in the quiet of a summer evening, with friends and family.

9. This will be the last post for about a week, as I am headed to upstate New York for a friend's wedding. This is going to be just fantastical in a number of ways, probably involving many of the above-listed good things, including summer beautifulness, friends, cheeseburgers, the ability to relieve some stress due to relative career stability, and driving at night to "Breathe", but probably not HBO shows, dog walking, or manual labor. After I return: more writing, I promise.

10. And last but not least, please see this play what I am directing: