Overheard between Diane, an attractive New Yorker who is about my mother’s
age, and Mike, who has
(unintentionally) crashed Diane’s dinner party:

Mike: Come on now, Diane, I’m sure you have young men wandering through your house all the time.

Diane: Well, not with their clothes on.

So basically I had a great weekend, all things considered. No, really.
A party on Friday and on Saturday. And then a reading of Hamlet on
Sunday afternoon, where I read the part of Laertes. In my considered
opinion, Laertes is basically the man.
His first line is to the evil Claudius, “My dread lord…” and it just
gets better from there.

His first real speech is to his little sister Ophelia, where he lectures
her to be good and not to fool around with boys. (Meanwhile he’s off
to France to drink, fight, and wench.) I love this guy already! A
man after my own heart. (You paying attention, Sarah…?)

Then Laertes heads off to France, and there’s a lot of boring stuff
with Hamlet. Blah blah blah father, blah blah blah woe is me, blah
blah blah oops! I stabbed Polonius, by the way mom you’re a shameless
hussy, blah blah blah. Fortunately
Bill cut a lot of that nonsense out.
Stanford doesn’t just pick their professors out of a hat, folks.

Then in Act IV, Laertes is back. He wants answers about his father
and he wants them now. “How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with!
To hell allegiance, vows to the blackest devil, conscience and grace
to the profoundest pit!” Damn straight.

Well, you all know how it ends. Hamlet leaps into Ophelia’s grave,
like the snivelling copy-cat that he is. (“I prithee, take thy
fingers from my throat…” — wimp.) They duel, Laertes stabs Hamlet,
Hamlet stabs Laertes, they both die. Exeunt.

There were only two bad parts.
First, Laertes agrees to Claudius’s plan to use a poisoned blade. I
mean, that was just dumb. Laertes is fencing champion of France.
He could have wiped the floor with Hamlet if he hadn’t been told
to put on a show. Second, Laertes begs Hamlet for forgiveness right
before he dies. I mean, c’mon. I can only chalk this up to the
potent neurotoxin that was ravaging his acetylcholine receptors,
causing him to twitch uncontrollably and blurt out, “Exchange forgiveness
with me, noble Hamlet,” in some kind of last-second Tourette’s-like spasm.

Like I said, a good weekend. Also, I taught Nancy
HTML (see, kid, that wasn’t so hard) and watched the first two episodes of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. Not a bad pilot — although it sure
has gotten a lot better. Not that I would know, this season. I have no working
TV, and besides, Tuesday is Poker Night. I think the guys thought I was
a little off when I insisted that we watch the “Buffy: The Musical” episode,
and I’m afraid to expend any more political capital on this issue…
assuming I have any left.