You know, I'm old enough that I remember before a lot of these vaccines came out - I was vaccinated for smallpox when I was a baby and got regular polio boosters (ow!) until the Salk vaccine came out. Got mumps, measles (which I was seriously ill with), chicken pox the old-fashioned way. I remember when there'd be talk of closing down the town pool in the summer if there was a rumor of polio. I remember hearing stories of babies being born with problems because their mothers had caught rubella when they were pregnant. So ... people are saying that the chance of autism is worth running the risk of any of these? I really don't understand it.

Owen's on the spectrum. I don't regret getting any of his vaccinations because, helloooooo, WHOOPING COUGH can kill kids. His autism isn't going to kill him.

I get upset with the non-vac crowd because I think they're trying to avoid tiny risks at the expense of the entire herd. But I guess everyone needs to make their own decisions.

If people want to get their panties in a twist over mercury, they should be more worried about mercury in the environment. I want my canned tuna, dammit!

skippity skippity skip

So, our Tech rehearsal was yesterday. It was supposed to be a dress/tech, allegedly (and certainly some people were doing it in full costume) but we were told at the last minute that, no, we wouldn't need our costumes. (Largely, one cannot help supposing, because he still hadn't obtained the pivotal salmon suit that the lead actress is supposed to wear. Or the pink slutty dress that he's decided to pass off as a salmon suit. Rather than taking advantage of the 2000baht budget and the huge number of tailors in this town and, you know, getting something made to measure.) Also, we didn't have most of the props.

I felt flat and lacklustre and generally pretty crap about the performance, as did the others. The ending didn't work.

We had another rehearsal tonight, and then tomorrow it's the dress tech, and then it's the actual performance. And tonight we were all pretty gloomy and prickly about it. I have been trying very hard not to be a dickhead, and not to make it clear that I think the director couldn't direct his way out of a paper bag. But clearly I have not succeeded very well, and he was clearly pissed off this evening - I think with me. I did lots of irritating things, like agreeing that I had felt crappy and lacklustre the night before, and trying to suggest a way of salvaging the ending (which was: stick to the script, and drop the bit we added, which evidently doesn't work) with which he did not agree, and being evidently rather bleak.

I came home feeling all knots-in-the-stomach about the fact that he was clearly pissed off, and feeling bad about this, whilst also wishing that he would ask himself what he could be doing to help boost his actors' confidences OTHER than slagging off the other plays (which I just don't think is either classy or constructive, and I said as much, which must have sounded like a dig. But I'd much rather focus on OUR play, and what is working, and what isn't, and how we can make it successful, than say that the other ones are crap and we're better than them. Personally).

So prior to opening Facebook I had just been trying to be all zen about it, and telling myself that being arsey or frustrated or cross about his lack of direction (and evident obliviousness to the importance of things like understanding the text and the characters, or thinking about how the play actually works - oh, I am a bitch) does nobody any good. And that the sensible thing to do is to let it go, to chalk it up to experience, to keep being polite and cheerful and get on with it.

Anyway, he has just changed his Facebook tagline thingy to this:

[Director Bloke] "is gonna break someone's LEG prior to the performance even starting."

...and I'm sitting here, still feeling bleak about the fact that our play sucks, and thinking: "Fuck this for a game of soldiers."

I am very tempted to post this on his wall:

Sorry you have to deal with such a bunch of annoying bastards. Thanks for your support and understanding, though, mate. That sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and the lack of confidence is all gone. Cheers.

...because, you know, I have vented about him here and to 2 friends who don't know him and aren't involved with the play. Because one needs to vent. But your Facebook profile? Really, not backchannel.

On the other hand, I really don't want to start a thing, you know? I would rather be grown up and try to be all Jedi about this - release the bad energy into the Force, or whatever.

Gah.

Thoughts?

((((Kristin and Byron)))) If he's eating, that's a good sign.

I had chicken pox when I was 6. Some kid in the neighborhood got it from somewhere, and the virus spent most of the winter sweeping through the neighborhood. I was the last and was so sick I spent an entire weekend on the couch.

I never had the pox, but have the immunity somehow.

I am beyond annoyed at my back pain. I have had to cancel Restaurant Week plans TWICE already, and frank, it's not looking too great to get together with you though the menu looked AWESOME.

My older brother had the chicken pox for two weeks, I got it for two weeks as he was getting better, and then my little brother got it for two weeks as I was getting better. Poor my mom and dad! But at least we were all through with it at once.

My older brother had the chicken pox for two weeks, I got it for two weeks as he was getting better, and then my little brother got it for two weeks as I was getting better. Poor my mom and dad! But at least we were all through with it at once.

This was our family. I started it all...the day after my baby brother came home from the hospital. So, not only was mom dealing with a newborn and two toddlers, she also had three cases of chicken pox. Poor thing. And her mom couldn't come help, because she had just been through chemo for breast cancer.

How old is this director, Fay? Three?

The anti-vaccination people make me crazy. As others have mentioned, the only way to keep a disease from spreading is for a significant percentage of the population to be immune. I had measles, mumps and chicken pox, and I don't wish them on anyone. I was very sick with measles and still remember days of hallucinating because my fever was so high.

The "evidence" for the autism-vaccine link is almost completely circumstantial and anecdotal. The reasoning used to support that link could just as well prove that cell phones, Sesame Street, color television or the space shuttle causes autism.

Is it wrong of me that my brother's invitation to come to Easter dinner just makes me tired? I want to see baby niece, of course, but I'll be seeing them all up in DE the following weekend and the thought of driving out to their place (about an hour away) for the third time in about a month is just exhausting to me. Also the thought of having something planned for Sunday.

I'm sure I'll go but ... tired.

He's in his mid/late 20s. And we're acting together in another play in May, playing husband and wife. He is a nice boy. I don't want to be a jackass. I think I already have been, in a number of ways, inasmuchas I care very much about narrative, and think that things should make narrative sense unless there's a bloody good reason for them not to, and thus I poke my oar in and say "...but what about...?" quite often.

But we're going to be working together on another play. And I don't want us to be all shitty with each other.