Current mood:	busy
Entry tags:	austin life, family, gamers, spirituality

Labor Day Weekend So Far
Friday night was fun! martang got folks together for a dinner at the delicious Brazilian restaurant in N. Austin, Sampaio's. Oh, those delicious little wheat-free, rice-bread yeast rolls were as good as I remembered! With my allergies, eating bread in a restaurant is a rare event, so got one whole order of them to myself. Ah, cheesy deliciousness! We missed jipp, but it was fun to see willyumtx again and Jeffles and his (now) wife Sarah, she whom I hadn't seen since the Easter-egg/Engagement party in April of last year. There was a dish on the menu, grilled pork rolled in coffee, with a red cherry reduction sauce, that had intrigued me when I was there before. This time, Marty, William and I all three got it! And... it was only okay. The guys loved theirs, but I felt like I was eating overcooked meat crusty with coffee grounds. Not a primo experience. My next time, I'll stick with their fish dishes.

Left that dinner and was a little late for my dream-study group. A good gathering, the closest thing I do to going to church. One of my buddies there had a dream the very night he learned about a tragedy. His ill and manic/depressive older brother had committed suicide 10 days earlier and they'd only just located family to tell them. My friend dreamed his brother was younger, with two strong hips (multiple hip replacements had made him disabled), walking along a narrow wall away from my friend, with wonderful balance, and he'd turned back enough to grin broadly in goodbye. Very poignant!

I wanted so badly to sleep in Saturday morning, but the Blake Snyder Austin Cats have started meeting monthly, so we had a jam-packed meeting to discuss screenplays in process and brainstorm. Plus Melody made us some delicious Texas chili! It's fun to think of others' stories and help out. I got told my story was somewhat lame, however. Don't know what to make of that -- it's a story from a title that J4 gave me a few years ago. I'm not in love with the story, but the fun of the script is also going to be the big challenge of the script: it's a comedy. Those are hellaciously hard to write, and you have to have 1-3 jokes on every page. I've set up a scenario with some great potentials for character business and physical comedy. Don't know if I want to commit more effort to it to make a fantastic story. As I told the group, just doing a successful comedy that does well in contests will get you a good name.

Hadn't seen my family in 3-4 weeks due to vacation. So I visited with them Saturday afternoon and gave them the souvenirs I brought back from Nantucket and Cape Cod. Andrew really loved both the (fake) scrimsaw tooth and the shot glass: "Let's get a little dinghy. Nantucket Island."

Spent the rest of Saturday evening at home mostly on the phone as one friend after another called, or I checked in with folks. Still need to go visit my friends Deb & Joe, but then I will feel allllllllll caught up. Finally got groceries today (amazing how long I can squeak by when I don't feel like shopping; but I find myself eating weird breakfasts of any protein and any fruit things I can scrape up) and saw a movie. I blew off a grilled steak meal; just need to find more energy! And also need to write on some of my many projects... But so far, an okay weekend!