Friday evening, Mer and I got together with our colleague Liz, and we headed over to Kent, to the Kent Stage. Mer and Liz both had had the day off because of a snow day, so they both had a jump on the weekend. I had to work, and had gotten up at 5:00 a.m., which is normally fine, but I was still tired from being out Wednesday when we saw Riverdance. That made me a little sleepy as we got to the Kent Stage, to see the folk group Red Horse.

Red Horse is a trio of well-established folk artists – John Gorka, Eliza Gilkyson, and Lucy Kaplansky. They respect each other’s work, and so decided to band together to release an album where they covered each other’s songs and did a few originals. Mer and I are pretty familiar with Gorka’s music, but the other two were new to us. Liz and never heard of any of them, but she was a game soul who wanted to give them a listen-to.

We had seats in the “balcony” of the Kent Stage – it does not really have a balcony in the sense I usually think of. What it does have are a bunch of raised seats at the back center of the house. I was afraid they were not going to be very good seats, but they were not bad. We could see over everyone’s head, even if a person stood up, and we had a ton of leg room.

The concert was quite good, although on some of the mellower songs in the second half I fought off sleep because I was tired. Gorka has a wonderful voice, and he is a very odd but funny man when talking between songs. It was also fun for me to hear the two women sing Gorka’s songs. I think I liked Lucy Kaplansky slightly more than Eliza Gilkyson – she played some very pretty piano songs. The group played two long sets – it was well over two hours, including the intermission. Liz seemed to approve, and Mer especially liked the piano songs that Kaplansky and Gorka played. It was a good time, and a great start to the weekend.

Last Wednesday, I took Mer on a rare mid-week date. Sadly, because we are still on our diet, I could not take her out to eat. We had out fruit smoothies at home and watched an episode of the television show Doctor Who. Once we were done with “dinner,” we headed south to Akron, to EJ Thomas Hall, where I surprised Mer with tickets to see the Irish music and dance show Riverdance.

The tickets were not cheap, so we had balcony seats. That was okay, though, because balcony seats let you see the whole stage at once; when you are too close, you have to focus on just part of the stage. We tend to like balcony seats for musicals and other big productions, and we like to sit as close as possible for smaller shows.

Neither of us can remember if this is the third or fourth time we have see Riverdance. The first time we ever saw it was back in Chicago in early 1997. Meredith took me and her then-roommate, Laura, to see Riverdance at the Rosemont Horizon out near O’Hare airport. I had never seen anything like it, and I came out of the theater just flying. It was not too long after that that I started taking Irish dance lessons.

Anyway, we do know that we had not seen the show in years, so it was great to see it again. It still has wonderful music and amazing dancing and very pretty singing. The show lasted over two hours (with a fifteen-minute intermission), but it went by very quickly. Even though we can’t go out to dinner for another few days yet, it was still good to go out on a date with Mer, especially in the middle of the week. It felt like staying up late on a school night (which it kind of was, for me at least).

Mer and I just finished up three weeks on the Clean diet, so it is time for an update. As of this morning, I weighed in at 160.0, which represents 14.5 pounds lost in twenty-one days, which is simply remarkable. It also puts me just 0.5 pounds away from my all-time lightest adult weight, with a week still to go. (As an aside, the body does shift as it gets older. I found a pair of suit pants that I bought when I was twenty-four years old. I am now as light as or even lighter than I was then, but the pants are a good two inches away from fitting.)

As far as some of the benefits Clean is supposed to impart, it has been hard to say. I do not feel as if I have tons of additional energy, but I also still have not had my typical mid-day “sleepies,” where I get tired in the early afternoon, so that has been okay.

Clean also mentions that the feeling of hunger goes away as you are on the diet. I have found it to be just the opposite. This last week has been difficult for me in that I have been hungry fairly often – usually once a day, and sometimes more. Clean also indicates that typically your cravings for “bad” food will go away, and that has very much not been the case for me and Mer. We have been both craving various foods, and have avoided certain social situations in order to keep away from tempting food.

Running for me has also been very difficult. In part, that is because I took a lot of time off in January and February. Still, when I run, I’ve struggled with stomach cramps and a pretty large lack of energy – it is hard for me to push the pace at all. I think some of that comes from the diet – I’m probably not getting enough calories for sustained exercise, and I am not eating foods that can be quickly converted to energy.

Mer and I have both been counting down the days until we can eat freely again. That has been disappointing, because we are not normally like that – we don’t usually try to rush time, wishing it were days ahead, except on rare occasions (when we have something very special planned for the weekend or the like).

So, on the whole, we have both found Clean to be increasingly difficult. Since there are two of us holding each other accountable, we have not cracked and eaten a ton of ice cream or the like. The weight loss has been wonderful, and I have been pleasantly surprised that I have found ways to prepare vegetables that I actually like (olive oil and pepper and then stir-fry). My guess is that I would not do a full-fledged four weeks again, but I can see myself doing a Clean-style diet for a week or two every now and then when I feel as if it is needed.

Last Saturday was “my” day, and it was not too exciting during much of the day – we mostly took it easy around the house. That evening, though, I took Mer to see the movie The King’s Speech. We had first heard about The King’s Speech from a student who was on our J-term London trip. He had seen it just before coming to London, and he highly recommended it. I figured it was time, and that an artsy movie two months after it came out would let us have an uncrowded theater mostly to ourselves.

Boy, was I wrong about that – the theater was packed. Mer offered the theory that people wanted to see it before the Oscars next week, and that sounds right to me. I’d say the theater was over 75% full, for a 7:00 showing of a movie two months after it came out.

Anyway, the movie was excellent. It stars three actors whom I like very much – Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter. They were pretty fantastic. The movie is based on the historical settings around the time that George VI came to the throne, after his brother Edward abdicated. George VI had a stammer, which I had not known, and the movie follows his attempts to rid himself of the speech defect. It does not sound like much for a movie, but it was riveting. I highly recommend the film, and I would be very pleased if it won Best Picture and if Colin Firth won Best Actor.

Last night, Mer took me to Weathervane Community Playhouse to see the musical Quilters. We joined several of our colleagues that are in Mer’s Bible study at work, so there were six of us in all (me and five ladies!). Quilters is a play about the history of an entire family for four or five generations, as told though the making of a giant quilt. The play is an all-women cast of six, but they do occasionally play men for brief times as the play requires.

I had seen Quilters at Actors’ Summit Theater a few years ago, and although I though it was well done, I had come away feeling rather flat about the play – it did not grab me. I was originally going to pass on going this time, but my friend Brandon designed the lights and told me he thought it was excellent. So, I decided to give it another try.

Weathervane’s production was very impressive – they played up both the humor and the sorrow more than I had remembered at Actors’ Summit. The pit orchestra was excellent, and the acting was very good as well. The simple harmonies the women sang were beautiful. I’m really not sure what more the theater could have done to produce the play better. Still, while I enjoyed parts of the play very much, the overall experience left me feeling flat again. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not into the play, as has happened on occasion with other plays (most notably, Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona). Still, I am glad I gave the play another chance, and it was fun being with our colleagues.

So, Mer and I are over halfway done with our February diet. It has been an interesting trip. As of today (Thursday), I weighed in at 162 pounds, which means I have lost 12.5 pounds in 16 days. That is very impressive to me, and I feel pretty good.

I also very often used to get very sleepy between 1:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon. That “dip” in my energy seems to have gone away, even though I have been getting up around 4:15 a.m. in order to cook our meals for the day.

On the downside, the cravings for my favorite foods have not subsided; I still look longingly at various foods I see on TV or see other people eating. Also, although I am not hungry very often, when I am hungry I am very, very hungry. The hunger issue tends to go away as soon as I drink my breakfast smoothie or eat my lunch.

The weekends have been very difficult, especially Saturdays. Prior to this month, we’d almost always go out for at least one meal on Saturday, so being strict on our eating on Saturday makes us both edgy. It would seem we are borderline food addicts, especially for desserts.

We have another twelve days to go. I am probably going to change around the one big meal for the weekend – we’ll eat the one big meal for supper and have the supper smoothie for lunch. I’m hoping that will make it a little easier to deny ourselves the joy of pizza and ice cream.

The weekend was pretty mellow, but that was in large part because Mer had done something to her hip that caused her a fair amount of pain if she moved too much. Since it was “her” Saturday, she decided a homebody day was in order. It was quite an ambitious homebody day, though – she wanted to watch all four hours of Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, which is the only full-text version of the play available on film. It is not for the faint of heart!

I enjoyed it; the film-making was amazing, with a literal cast of thousands. There were famous actors everywhere, even in bit roles: Judy Dench appeared in a scene with no lines, Billy Crystal was a gravedigger, Robin Williams was a minor courtier, Charlton Heston was an actor in the players’ troupe, and so on. It was also good to see the scenes that no one ever does – it gave the play a fresh feel for me. Kenneth Branagh was excellent as Hamlet. The ending had some “oh, come on” kinds of moments, but the film overall is quite excellent.

On Monday, we headed down to Aunt Mary’s. It was Valentine’s Day, so we did what any loving couple would do – we played Wii Family Feud and Jeopardy with Aunt Mary. We also watched round one of the real show Jeopardy where the two best players of Jeopardy played against IBM’s “Watson” computer. That was interesting to see. “Watson” won the first day handily (and he actually won the tournament with over three times as much money as Ken Jennings, the second-place finisher). It was good to see Aunt Mary – it had been a few weeks. Sadly, we again had to avoid having supper out on the town. It made the evening slightly less festive, but Aunt Mary was a game soul and supported us by eating before we got there. We headed home around 8:30.

Friday, Mer and I headed down to Akron to the new home of Actors’ Summit Theater, to see a play we had never heard of before, Becky’s New Car. The interesting thing about the play is that it was the sixtieth birthday present of a woman in Seattle, given to her by her husband. He walked into a theater and asked them to write a comedy, and eighteen months later, Becky’s New Car debuted. The Actors’ Summit version was the thirteenth production of the play, and as is their tradition, the couple who commissioned the play was on hand to see the opening. That was pretty cool.

We met up with our friend Nate for the play. Nate’s wife Rachel was supposed to join us, but sadly, she was ill with the flu. We chatted with Nate until the show started, which was a pleasant (and, with Nate, always amusing) way to spend thirty minutes.

The set for Becky’s was interesting – the front of the stage was divided in half, with the left part of the stage being taken up by a desk, and the right part of the stage with a couch and small table. The back of the stage was an elevated platform that looked like a deck. So, for the play, the left part of the stage was Becky’s office, the right part of the stage was Becky’s home, and the back of the stage was a beach house.

The play was very funny, for the most part (the end got a bit serious). It was interesting in that Becky broke out of the theater mold from time to time to talk to us, the audience, or to talk to her lighting technician. She had audience members help her with her paperwork at the office, and asked for the light tech to light up the “home” part of the stage when she was tired of being at work. It took a minute or two to get used to it, but then it worked well and was quite funny.

The actors did a fine job, with most of them being new to Actors’ Summit (or they had not been on stage there for a while). The actors playing Becky and the man who wants to date her were especially good.

The basic plot line revolves around a rich widower who buys some cars from Becky’s dealership. He is fond of Becky and becomes accidentally convinced that she is a widow. The play follows the developments of the entire family as Becky tries to figure out what to do. It makes for some pretty good theater.

Mer and I are on this very strict diet, so that meant not going out before or after the show, which is pretty rare for us. Then, to top it off, this was the opening night of Actors’ Summit’s one hundredth production, so they had cake after the play. Nate quite enjoyed it. Mer and I were left with just enjoying the play.

Last Tuesday, I started my first-ever real actually-mapped-out diet. A couple of weeks ago, I was waiting in my chiropractor’s office. I had some time, so I started reading Outdoor magazine. They had several articles on how to live more healthily (it was the January issue, so I suspect New Year’s resolutions played into the articles). One article was on getting more sleep, one on reducing stress, and such. One article was about a book called Clean. Clean was supposed to show you how to eat for four weeks, with the aim of flushing toxins such as pesticides from the body. The author of the article was an editor, and very skeptical. He tried it, and found it difficult for the first ten days or so, but he achieved dramatic results. Even though he was in shape and only 145 pounds, he lost about ten pounds and lowered his metabolic age from twenty-two to 1seventeen (he is thirty-five years old). He also said he felt much better, and really endorsed the diet. I was also skeptical, but I liked his results, and I liked the fact that the diet only lasts four weeks. So, I decided to give it a try.

I started at 174.0 pounds. I lost weight during the first week at a stunning rate; it was hard to believe the scale some mornings. After one week, I weighed in at 168.5, so I lost six pounds in one week (and my low weight during the week had dipped down to 167.5). I can’t claim any results yet as to feeling younger or seeing my skin look healthier, but it has only been one week. Some of the food cravings are subsiding – I am not feeling desperate for dessert now. That may change come next weekend (weekends are when Mer and I like to go out to eat, which is not really a great option on the Clean diet), but for now, everything is okay. Mer has joined me on the diet – she is a game sport.

The diet had me examine our environment, and since the book calls for drinking clean water, I had a top-of-the-line water filter installed for our drinking water, as well as a charcoal whole-house filter for our shower. Since Mer and I pretty much drink just water even when not on a diet, it seemed like a good investment. As usual, when I launch on a new thing, it costs us money. In addition to the water filter, I have been buying organic everything, which is really expensive. I plan on going back to “normal” food after February, so I think our budget can handle things for one month.

I’ll try to update on how things are going every week.

Last Saturday saw my acting debut, at the tender age of forty. I was given one of four lead parts in our church play, “Go East, Old Men,” a modern retelling of the story of the wise men who visited Jesus and his family sometime after Jesus’ birth. We did one performance on Saturday, and two during the normal service times on Sunday.

The basic storyline is that four Berkley professors are given a sign in that all of their GPS devices tell them to “Go East.” The four men (four in our story instead of the traditional three) gather up some gifts for the Messiah, and head out from Berkley with no idea of where they are going; they simply follow the GPS. Along the way they meet some heavily-adapted Biblical figures, from a rich woman who is too concerned about her upcoming horse race to go see the Messiah, to the mayor of New York City, Mayor Harold (Herod). The play was meant to be light-hearted, and it was very funny for much of the play. The play ends when the professors find the holy family in Bethlehem Trailer Park, and they leave their gifts for the family.

The play was meant to stress how easy it is for people to come up with excuses not to go and see Jesus, and I think it did that in a fun way. Several of the actors improvised lines (they were given permission to) that brought the house down. The play was followed by a short talk by one of the actors about why he follows Jesus, and it was heartfelt and open. All in all, I thought the play went very well, which was by the grace of God, especially since we did not have any really good practices before Saturday (it is very hard to coordinate so many schedules, so often people were not able to make rehearsals).

I got to play the part of Thurston, whom I took to be the department chair of the Ancient History Department. He is the one who hosts the party that welcomes a new professor, and he always drives the vehicle, even though it was not his car. So, I took him to be the elder statesman (and I was the oldest of the professors). I had some liberty in crafting the character, so I based him to a large extent on Mer’s father, Dale. Dale loves words, and very naturally uses large words in normal conversation, so I went through my lines and edited them. I kept the meaning the same, but inserted large words wherever I could. It gave me focus for the part, and it worked pretty well.

Although I have been doing improvisational comedy on stage for the last eight years, I have never actually tried acting (at least not since I was in kindergarten). I was pleased to be given a chance to act in such a welcoming and low-stress environment. The play was about forty-five or fifty minutes long, and my lines totaled about seven minutes of the dialogue. I learned my lines by recording them and then playing them over and over on my iPod while I went running or while I was doing housework. It worked quite well.

It was a moderate amount of work for me to be in the play: it involved staying late at church on Sunday for about two months, with two additional practices thrown in. Altogether, I probably made seven or eight rehearsals – I know I missed one for going to London. I felt for Janet most of all. She is the pastor’s wife, and she wrote and directed (and had a small part in) the play. She had to coordinate everything, and it is not always easy to work with volunteers. She did well, and got a good performance out of us. I am pleased with how the play went, and am also pleased I can go back to the early service now that rehearsals are over!