I made the final payment on the trip to Disneyworld. We’re staying in a suite because The Daughters need their own bedroom. If we all stay in one room, Mrs. Wife and I will have to go to bed at 9:00 p.m. along with the kiddies. She and I will be sleeping on a sofa bed in the living room. It’s the most $$$ I’ve ever dropped on a vacation (by many multiples) and I’m sleeping on a sofa bed. Harrumph. Hey! Maybe I’ll find a crap table there! I can teach six-year old Daughter why the prop bets in the center of the table are all sucker bets. Disney sent us a DVD of what our vacation might look like and it seemed like a lot of forced enthusiasm and bad acting to me. My plan is to anesthetize myself with bushels of weed. If I can find some. You got any? That’ll put an entirely different spin on the princess breakfast. I hope I don’t reek too badly. This trip had better be my gold ticket into heaven.

What the hell was he thinking? He looks like the junior high cafeteria lunch lady who served the tater tots. Every time I saw him in that get-up it took me out of the story. The all-time biggest offender of that particular crime was Ian McKellen as “King Lear.” In one climatic scene, he made the choice (that’s actor-speak) to illustrate Lear’s madness by exposing himself to the audience! Seriously! One moment I’m deeply involved in Lear’s mental demise and the next I’m looking at Ian McKennen’s package. What’s up with that?

I was sitting in a chair in the family room typing and my sweet, delicate, mild-mannered 6-year old daughter was sitting on the sofa watching “Miss Spider.” Suddenly, she let out a long, loud, glorious, industrial strength fart. It was like a motor boat and something that should only have come from an adult. I slowly looked up from my laptop, eyebrows raised. She was looking at me and had a huge grin on her face. She started to giggle and then, of course, I started laughing and we were soon in hysterics.

I was so proud of her that I almost wept.

CB and I saw “Macbeth” last night. ****. Blood and violence and death all wrapped up with some very beautiful speechifying. In other words, a perfect night in the theater. Patrick Stewart was The Thane of Caldor and he was excellent, but I occasionally saw Captain Picard poking up through his performance. Well, that’s the hazard of acquiring a lot of fame for one particular role. You carry a lot of baggage on stage with you. I saw a local production of “Macbeth” back in January that was also quite good. Immediately prior to that performance, I bought a copy of Cliff Notes for Macbeth and made sure I understood who all the characters were and what the plot involved prior to walking into the theater. I hate to sound so thick, but if it weren’t for Cliff Notes and the production four months ago, I’m pretty sure that some of what happened on stage last night might have gotten by me. The last image prior to the lights going out was Malcolm holding the blood-soaked, decapitated bald head of Professor Charles Xavier aloft. That’ll give you something to dream about!

Shakespeare always makes for a long night. I woke up at my usual 5:15 a.m., curtain was at 8:00 p.m. and the show ran nearly three hours. The train didn’t leave skuzzy old Penn Station until 11:30 and I got home a little after 1:00 a.m. That means I was up for almost 24 hours for the sake of a gad damn play. I explained that to CB and he looked at me with a mixture of pity and revulsion. Do you know what? It was totally worth it and I’m sure I’ll do it again! To pass the time on the long train ride home I sent drunken text messages to my sister and two friends. That’s never a good idea but it’s considerably less humiliating than drunk dialing.