Well folks, tomorrow is the last day of the year. Tonight is my last night in Federal Way - I’m hopping on the greyhound to Bellingham in the morning (if you’ll be in Bellingham tomorrow night let me know - I am in dire need of New Years Eve plans). Since it is the end of the year, it’s time for a Year in Review for 2005.

In The Year Two Thousand… and five:

January:
My second quarter at WWU Begins. Classes: Internet Resource Creation, Human Geography, General Geology (which I dropped later on), Acting Studio I: Scene Study, Musical Theatre II.

Shortly after winter quarter began, I had the first Snow Day since high school. Sweeet.

During the month I continued work on adding some fancy to Kung Fu Space Pirates of the Oberon Galaxy. Captain McGregor is nominated for Poet of the Year, 2005, for his poem “When I Go Into Battle.”

Using my new web skills, I created an exciting Celebrity Calling Service, and redesigned GuyWithTheCoat.com

I visited Bellis Fair Mall for the first time. Bought two Shins CDs, CD player, lunch.

February to mid-March:

All memories of February through mid-March are missing from my brain, and there are no blog posts to remind me of what happened, except that I had classes and was in Die Fledermaus. The only logical conclusion is that I was abducted by aliens, and they took a really long time with the anal probe because of how beautious the region is.

Late March:

Took the train for the first time. I was awed and amazed at the beauty of the trip. I highly recommend taking the trip yourself, even if you don’t have some place in particular to go.

There was a wind storm that knocked the power out for a few hours.

I went to Los Angeles for Spring Break, where I had much fun and saw friends I hadn’t seen in a while, sat in a musical class taught by Jason Robert Brown, and remembered why I left USC.

April:

New Quarter, New Classes: Basic Internet Resources, Intro to Mass Media, Fundamentals of Web Dev, Intro to Lighting. This was my first time having no performance classes since beginning college - don’t let me do that again. It’s no fun.

I created the movie that has brought me most of my fame up at WWU, A Loving Tribute to Nathaniel Jones for the WWU imoviefest.

I became very frustrated with people of the opposite gender, and channeled my frustration into a new mix CD.

I become interested in body painting, and since I had a box of markers that I bought for Halloween, I decided to try out some on myself. Unfortunately it wasn’t until I tried to wash it off that I realized that my memories of childhood face coloring were of WASHABLE markers, which these were not.

May:

Much of my time was consumed with my two web development classes. My new schools resulted in more improvements to guywiththecoat.com and related sites, including such new features as the Instant True Story Generator, and The Most Searched For Story on the Internet.

I rediscovered an old blog that I created once, and only had one post in it. It was a Valentine’s Day post about the value of Love, and the wisdom of me helped me out of my unhappiness. Thank you, me!

Somebody left a table full of potatoes in the theater lounge, and so I took one and used my mad scientist skills, and a pen to create Mr. Poe Tader, who then went on to have many adventures.

I grew weary of frozen, canned, and boxed foods, and so decided to learn how to cook real, from-scratch meals. They were rough at first, but have increased in quality ever since.

June:

I tried out for and got into Theater 360. Woo hoo!

Finals ended, and then it was time for fun. I went to Theater Prom, where I realized that I really didn’t know anybody at all in the theater department, despite having been a part of it for an entire year. I vowed that in the coming year I’d actually get involved.

Before going home for Summer Vacation, I went to Canada with Lisette and Jason and Dan (my first time going to Canada since going to WWU).

Once I got home, it was time to start work selling concessions at Peter Pan. That was fun - I got to wear a pirate costume and run around the audience acting like a pirate and selling concessions and playing with kids. One day it even got hot enough to bring out my favorite: Dunk Your Head in the Bucket of Water!

I started working at a printing factory. Most of my job was taking brochures for sonicare off of a folding machine and putting them in piles, then bringing them over to the shrink wrapper. When I wasn’t at the folder, I was at the shrink wrapper, taking the brochures off of the piles and wrapping them in plastic, and then taking the shrinkwrapped bundles and putting them in boxes. A thrill a minute, I assure you.

After listening to Sarah tell stories of her adventures abroad, I realized that I haven’t done many exciting, worldly things, and I vowed that I would start to live in the world more, as opposed to living on the computer, or in fictional worlds of stories and things.

July:

I went up to Edmonds and had coffee with Annie, my best friend from back in the day (I hadn’t seen her since elementary school), drove through my old neighborhood and went past my old house. The pizza place where I had my first job has become a casino, and my old street is now really frightening. Sigh. After driving around I went to a 4th of July Party at Craig and Katie’s, with a bunch of Mountaineers people.

I got a fancy suit, and took it to Hawaii for an adventurous family reunion. While there I went swimming on the beach at each island we went to, went snorkling, got sunburned, and danced till the wee hours every night at the nightclub place they had on the boat. I also probably had more to drink in that week than I had all of the previous year, as I explored to world of alcohol for the first real time (with a few previous exceptions).

After the cruise I continued summer vacation, and made a few new websites. This resulted in a new fancy Kung Fu Space Pirate Logo, which then became new fancy Kung Fu Space Pirate shirts and underoos.

August:

Created the Hotty McPants website, based on the character I thought up in Hawaii, and bought the domain name nathanieljones.com.

I wrote what has since brought me the most fame online: Harry Potter and the End of the Series, the seventh book of the Harry Potter series.

September:

Wrote the new holiday jingle “Shout Hooray! It’s Patriot Day!,” and later on drew a cartoon for it on my fancy new computer drawing pad.

I had sushi for the first time with my Japanese roomie Hiro.

Started an exciting new year at WWU. What was so fab about it? It’s my SENIOR year! Classes: Principles of Physics, Intro: International Relations, Theatre History I. Hooray for having performance classes again!

Made the cartoon of Harry Potter and the End of the Series that brought further online fame.

I had my first stand-up show since my Ground Zero shows back at USC. It went better than any of those shows, and made me excited for more activities with the Western Jesters Stand-Up Club (although there haven’t been any since then.)

NathanielJones.com became the amazing wonderful site that it is today.

October:

Continuing on with my vow to become involved in the theater department and more socially involved with the world, I went to several shows and many theater parties. Why didn’t I do this before?

In connection with the previous item, I discovered that Rum & Coke is delicious, and leads to me having more fun at said parties than I’d have otherwise.

There were some rainy days that created really beautiful atmospheric effects around campus, and so I took my camera up to photograph it.

When I wasn’t being social, going to class, taking pictures, and watching movies from my Blockbuster Unlimited Rentals, I was further increasing my chef skills. Thanks to allrecipes.com, I was having delicious home-made meals every night of the week. Why didn’t I do this before?

I wrote a play for my theater history class - a Sanskrit version of Hansel and Gretel.

I learned the art of being a woman for 360 - including the art of walking in high heels, wearing a dress, and shaving the hair off all of my visible areas. So, do I want to become a woman full time now after experiencing it? Noooooooo!

I saw the Weiner-mobile.

I was Professor Snape for Halloween; more parties ensued.

November:

The day after Halloween, Haggen and Rite Aid were decorated for Christmas.

I made a webcam with my new mini camera. I think that I’ve actually been on it 3 or 4 times since then. Did YOU see me? Didn’t think so.

More parties, more rum and coke, sleeping in basements, and the first real kiss in quite a while (so it was part of a party game - it still counts).

Preperations began for The Nathaniel Jones Show for the campus TV station. This project has since stalled due to the unhelpfulness of the kid in charge of the station. Professionalism, people! Come on! (that “come on” was said in the voice of Gob from Arrested Development, which I became a big fan of in November thanks to the season 1 and 2 on DVD)

I was introduced to Gunther and the Sunshine Girls, and their Ding Dong Song.

I started a webcomic, “Raising Hell.”

I tried out for Evita, Hedda Gabler, and Naku Tsuru. I got in Evita and Naku Tsuru.

I saw Harvey Danger in concert (along with a few other bands).

There was about a week of fog, which created even more awesome atmospheric effects, and so I took more pictures.

I went home for Thanksgiving.

I turned 22.

December:

I wrote a lovely, deep, artistic play about dead babies and old men trying to see full frontal nudity and strong sexual content on television.

We had some nice snowy days, perfect for frollicking, but not perfect for cancelling school.

My brain shut down shortly before finals began, and as a result they brought my grades down considerably from what they were pre-finals. Dang.

2 of 4 people in my apartment moved out - so when I get back in January, I’ll have two new roommates.

I spent all of my birthday money on a new digital video camera.

I went to the movies more often this month than I have in a long time.

I played the Sims for a ridiculous amount of time while at home, and watched a ridiculous amount of day time television. Make the madness stop!

It was Christmas! Yay!

I’m writing a year-in-review! Yay! And tomorrow I go back to Bellingham! Yay!

And that’s what happened in 2005.

Happy Boxing Day, all!

Yesterday was Christmas, as you may or may not have noticed. Mine was a good one - my brother came up from Olympia Christmas Eve, and we spent the first half of christmas day together (church in the morning - I was the camera man for the REX program christmas play) followed by opening presents (didn’t get as huge a mountain as usual because my grandpa sent my christmas check to Bellingham rather than Federal Way, so it won’t be spent till I get back, and later in the day my mom told me that they were waiting to get my main present till it went on sale). What I did get yesterday: flintstones first season dvd, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story DVD, Stealing Harvard DVD, King Kong Escapes and King Kong vs Godzilla DVDs, a Mississippi Blues CD, a Barenaked Ladies CD, south park PC game, a bucket of little toys from my brother, a keychain bat signal, some nightmare before christmas pajama pants, chai tea, and some other things that aren’t popping into my head at the moment. After presents it was time for a Mighty Christmas Feast. My brother’s girlfriend Anne and her mom joined us for dinner, and after they left we went up to Mountlake Terrace to spend the rest of the evening with the Woltz family.

I had spent about an hour earlier preparing a Year in Review post by taking bits of all my blog posts from the past year and combining them into one story of the year, but then firefox crashed and it disappeared. But you can imagine what it would have been like.

Who has plans for New Years?

The past couple of days I’ve been playing The Sims 2, and due to the excessive amount of time in that game world, I’ve started to see things in real life reflected in game terms. Plus Plus, Minus Minus… word balloon floating over my head, little bars of life satisfaction fluctuating from red to green back to red again…

This has been a rather funky break so far. Time seems to be standing still and going very quickly at the same time. Of course much of this is due to playing too many computer games and watching too much television, but it’s still strange - I’ll wake up at 10:30, sit down on the couch, and then realize that it’s 3am and I really ought to be going to bed. In addition to this, I’m being quite anti-social for no good reason, and while I sit here neither writing, calling, IMing, nor contacting people in any other way, I’m fretting about my lack of social interaction. (But now I’m trying to break that vicious cycle by updating this thing).

There have been a few memorable exceptions to the blur that is my winter break. Saturday I went to see King Kong; it was going to be a Movie Party Night, starting out with the movie, followed by going to a restaurant and spending time with old friends, but due to my poor planning and lack of inviting people, the only old friend that came was Eric, who I hadn’t seen since graduation, and a few other people he brought with him.They couldn’t do anything after the movie, so the party aspect didn’t ever happen, but the movie was awesome - I highly recommend seeing it on the big screen (well worth paying to see it in the theater rather than waiting for the DVD).

Sunday there was more of a party - Stefan had has annual holiday bash, so I went and spent the evening there, with good food (I was able to stay away from most of it by keeping a Protective Celery Buffer between me and all of the mountains of desserts), and good fun, followed by more fun bowling.

Other than those two things, most of my time has been filled with computers, television, sitting, sleeping, eating, doing my christmas shopping (almost finished now) and wondering how the entire day disappeared without me having done a single productive thing.

Tomorrow is my family’s christmas party. I encourage you all to come, either to take part in the festivities, or if it turns out that the only people to show up are my sisters friends, save me from the festivities.

Apologies for my lack of talking to any of you lately - I hope to remedy that situation as quickly as possible.

I’m finding myself frustrated with politics today. It began last night, when I was listening to Conservative Talk Radio, followed this morning by listening to Liberal Talk Radio on Air America this morning. It struck me that on each station, there was only one conversation being held over and over again.

On Conservative Radio:
Caller: “Hi, I think that the war is wrong, and we ought to bring the troops home.”
Host: “We have to stay the course! If we pull out now Iraq will fall apart!”
Caller: “If we stay it’ll cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives!”
Host: “That’s what you said when we went in and it was proven wrong! (insert politician) has repeatedly shown that that’s untrue - we are making great progress, and the Iraqi’s are very happy that we’re there, and things are going great, and it’s hard work, and we’re winning the war on terror!”
Caller: “According to (insert study), all of that has been proven wrong, everything will fall apart no matter how long we stay, we’re not making progress, Iraqi’s want us out, and things are going dreadfully, the work is being bungled by the administration, and our focus on Iraq is causing us to lose the war on terror!”
Host: “Well you obviously are being misinformed, and you don’t know the truth because of the liberal filter in the media. Thanks for your call, next caller….”
And repeat.

Liberal Radio:
Caller: “You liberal media are giving comfort to the enemy when you say we should pull out now - we have to stay the course!”
Host: “This adminstration is giving comfort to the real enemy - Osama bin Laden is the enemy, and George W. Bush has said he doesn’t even care that he’s running free! All this administration cares about is their optional war on Iraq, and it’s time to admit that you were duped and bring the troops home before we lose more lives and billions more dollars!”
Caller: “(Insert politician) has repeatedly shown that we are making great progress, the Iraqi’s are very happy we’re there, and things are going great, and it’s hard work, and we’re winning the war on terror!”
Host: According to (insert study), all of that has been proven wrong, everything will far apart no matter how long we stay, we’re not making progress, Iraqi’s want us out, and things are going dreadfully, the work is being bungled by the administration, and our focus on Iraq is causing us to lose the war on terror!”
Caller: “It’s people like you that are hurting our troops more than anything else!”
Host: “Well you’ve obviously been brainwashed by the right wing noise machine that controlls the media. Thanks for your call, next caller…”
And repeat.

Nothing will happen if we just have this tug-of-war between two sides who see the other as being delusional, brainwashed, stupid, or misinformed. As long as that’s the way this country is set up, all we’ll be doing is continuing our current trend of seeing which party can get the 2% edge on the other in each election and we’re keep going back and forth, rather than moving forward to actually do anything.

What’s the answer? I think the main thing is to find some way to allow candidates that aren’t Clintons and Bushes or other Political Celebrities - the way we have things now, everybody has to vote for the republican or the democrat not because Bush is the best candidate or because Kerry is the best candidate, but because we know that if we don’t, then the other side of the tug-of-war will get that slight edge and then control the entire government. If that doesn’t work, then maybe it’s time to move to some sort of parliamentary system so that the government reflects the multiple views of the country.

I don’t know how to fix it, I just know that right now I’m fed up with the way it is.

This is my last night in Bellingham - as soon as I finish with this post I’ll pack up my things to prepare to take the train back to FW in the morning.

So far my winter break has been quite uneventful - on Wenesday I ordered pizza to celebrate being finished with finals, and I made some real eggnog (real in the sense that it had both egg and nog) (although I didn’t drink it until Thursday because it you had to let it sit in the fridge overnight).

Thursday, before drinking the eggnog, I went out to Red Robin with Katie from Physics and some of her friends, and afterwards I got a TV from the dumpster (it works, but it needs a VCR attatched in order to get high-number channels, because it’s one of the old type that only goes up to 12 - which is unfortunate both because the numbers don’t go high enough to be really useful, and because it goes one too high to make Spinal Tap jokes).

Friday I sat around the house mostly and watched movies and Arrested Development and played ‘Lords of Magic,’ and that night I got my order of pens from UPS, so now I have a great abundance of pens.

Saturday I beat ‘Lords of Magic’ and went to see ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ at the Bellingham Theatre Guild. It was a good show - Crystal was awesome as the Princess, and it was fun to see everyone else I knew in it as well (including Gregory (the WWU theatre chair) as the Queen).

And today I returned my videos to Blockbuster, went to lunch at IHOP, got my train ticket to go back home tomorrow, and tonight I went to see ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ with Hiro, and afterward we went out to The Keg (since I didn’t get to go for my birthday). If you’re interested in Media and/or Politics, I recommend ‘Good Night and Good Luck,’ and if you’re interested in food, I recommend The Keg.

Now it’s time to pack and say farewell to Bellingham until I return up here in January!

Good night, and good luck,
- Nathaniel Jones

Today is my first day of Winter Break!
It’s also the first day that brain activity is returning to my head. My brain has been mush for the past few days - put into a persistent vegitative state by final exams taking it out of my skull and through a meat grinder (metaphorically). Unfortunately it turned to mush before I had the chance to finish my exams, so I’m more frightened of these final grades than I think I have been of any other quarter. Eek.

Yesterday the lack of brain activity led to some excitement - my roomie Taylor moved out yesterday, and so when people called asking for him, that’s what I told them. But apparently a couple of those people that called were actually calling for Greg rather than Taylor, and so this led to his mom and girlfriend becoming upset that Greg had moved out of his apartment without telling them, and so they then called other people up at WWU and started a manhunt to find where he had disappeared to.

Ooops.

But today I’m feeling much more aware of reality, so yay for that. Brains that work are swell.

Who-oah! Livin’ on a prayer!

I’m done now with two of four finals. The next one is at 3:30.
The one I just finished was for physics - this one I didn’t worry too much about, because all of the stuff we’ve been doing the past couple weeks has been coming pretty easily to me. However, unfortunately, the test was cumulative, and so was not only on that which comes easily to me. There were three sections - one huge problem on momentum (the stuff I’ve been good at), 10 multiple choice, and one huge problem on friction. I think I did well on the momentum prob, and on the multiple choice, but oh that friction problem! Argh!

You see, whenever we do a problem in class he always says “ignore friction and air resistence.” The result of this is that I have no experience at all in figuring out problems with friction. And as a result of that, the friction problem whipped my hiney, and that problem is a third of the test, so it looks like I’ll only be getting 2/3rds of the points. Hopefully the curve will come to my rescue again.

In other news, I bought a new toy yesterday. After my midterm I walked downtown to deposit the check I got for my birthday, and then went to what-used-to-be Cellophane Square to spend some of it on CDs. They didn’t have anything that I especially wanted, though, and so I left, planning on going back to my apartment for a rest - but there outside of the CD store was the bus to Bellis Fair, and since I hadn’t gotten any gloves since the last time I went, I hopped on the bus to get some.

I got to the mall, and went to Target for gloves. They didn’t have any good ones. So I walked through the rest of the mall looking for gloves (and CDs and DVDs when I came upon those types of stores), and had a sample of a microwavable thing that you put on your neck to soothe you, and stopped at Lisette’s makeup counter when I went through Macy’s. Nobody had any gloves, or CDs, or DVDs that I wanted, and so I left the mall to go to Value Village to see their glove supply. They didn’t have any good ones either. But just when it looked like my trip to the mall would result in nothing being bought at all, I saw a big banner on the pawn shop saying “$1 CD’s and Movies!” so I went in.

They didn’t have any good CDs either, and I was about to leave, when I thought “I wonder if they have any good video cameras” because I’ve been thinking of getting a digital one (as compared to the non-digital one I had before). I didn’t think they’d have anything good because it’s a rather sketchy place, but I looked anyway. They didn’t have much of a selection, and most of the cameras they had didn’t look like they were in the best of shape, and had signs saying “needs new _____.” But mixed in with those was a nice looking digital8 camcorder. I asked the guy at the counter if I could look at it, and so he took it out. It was in good shape - hardly even looked used, and it didn’t have anything that needed replacing (except for cords to hook it to the TV or computer, and a memory card if I want to use it to take still pictures too). It cost $180 - and for what looked like such a good camera, that seemed like a deal, so I was about to get it (when I was looking at video cameras before in ads, I figured that if I bought one, I’d have to wait for any money I get for christmas, and then spend probably double that on one), but then I realized “hey - this is a sketchy pawn shop” so I told him that I just got $150 for my birthday, and would he give it to me for that, and so he did, and I got the camera for $150, after tax. Yay for bargaining. Then they gave me a carrying case to put it in because I had to wait for them to get their reciept printer to work.

When I got it home I checked on amazon to see what sort of reviews it got: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004U2JZ/ - good reviews, although they’re all from 2000, 2001. And if I had bought it on there used, it would have cost $285. And it came with a tape already in the camera, from the people who owned it before, and so I now have a video of some people opening christmas presents as a bonus! I watched it with roomie Taylor yesterday. The girl on the video was ridiculously bratty. She made Veruca Salt look like Ghandi. After everything she opened, she either yelled “I got one and you didn’t, HA HA!” “I already HAVE THIS ONE!” “This ISN’T the one that I asked for!” “I TOLD you I’d get a ______” and a variety of other bratty things to say.

Now it’s time for lunch and studying international relations for the next final. Joy!

I am now finished with the much dreaded Theatre History Final. You may be thinking to yourself “pshaw - theatre? Theatre is easy! All you need to do is know how to run around like an idiot!” and if you’re thinking that, I say pshaw to YOU, because there’s much more to theatre than running around like an idiot - you also have to know the elaborate history of performance from ancient Greek rituals through Roman, Elizabethan, Eastern and Renaissance time periods with all sorts of differences and cultural influences that combined lead up to the ultimate culmination of running around like an idiot today, and that’s quite a bit to know, thank-you-very-much.

Yesterday was my big study day - I was in study groups from 11am till after 11p, (two theatre history groups, one physics), with only two short snack breaks in between the different groups. Despite the long hours, it was fun times studying (although to be fair, there was probably about as much time spent not-studying as there was time studying in the last one (think history! *poke*)). The group spent more time focused on Life is a Dream, which I hadn’t read, but since that’s what we had discussed, I figured I ought to use it for the main essay in the final. Since I hadn’t read it, I woke up at 5am (originally 4:45, but decided that was too early, so slept for an extra 15 minutes), took a shower, got dressed, and went down to IHOP, where I had a big ol’ breakfast and read Life is a Dream. I stayed at the IHOP from 5:30 am till about 7:10, when I went to catch the bus up to campus.

Jessica got on the bus a couple stops later, and we arranged a time to go to a sleazy bar now that she’s legally able to go to sleazy bars. When we got to campus, she went off to her calculus final, and I went to find a Blue Book to write my essays in. They didn’t have any in the little market that was open, so I continued my quest. Due to the large number of people that needed blue books for 8am finals they opened the bookstore a few minutes early (they weren’t supposed to open till 8 ) so I was able to get the blue book and into the test room about 1 minute after they started doing stretches (allright, come on, it’s a theatre class…) and then it was testing time. Three essays - two short, one long. The two short essays were pretty painless - the study sessions left me well prepared for those. But the long one was pretty killer. We had to take a play (Life is a Dream for me) and pretend how it would have been performed if we took a time machine through time and saw it done in each of the different theatrical ages. I think I got all of the ages in, but my mind was blanking on specifics of staging for each one, especially as far as characters went. Oh well - I think it was an interesting story anyway, even if it was lacking in facts.

Now I’m in the computer lab, glad that the toughest final is over with. Now I only have to get through two finals tomorrow (Physics and International Relations) and the 360 performance final on Wednesday. My plan is to stay through the weekend so I can go see Once upon a Mattress and enjoy Bellingham without having to be stuck doing work the entire time.

Speaking of Work, I got those cartoons finished for the guy that hired me to draw them, and now has a couple up on his website: http://www.brucedalbrack.com/ (so far there are two pictures (actually one picture twice), on the top next to the title, and on the ‘about’ page. He says he’ll add the others, which I spent the most time on, throughout the year.)

And speaking of 360, I finally got an A for an in-class scene! (all of the others have been B-’s). I’m a happy boy about that. And we also got quite a few compliments on our scene. For those of you not in the class, you should have me demonstrate my new Amusing Falling Over Techniques that I learned for it.

In other news, I realized a couple days ago that it was recently the One Year Anniversary of the completion of Kung Fu Space Pirates of the Oberon Galaxy, and I still haven’t finished editing the thing yet. I still do have copies of the original NaNoWriMo version, tho, for those interested in reading it, and it’s also online at www.KungFuSpacePirates.com. In other website news, www.NathanielJones.com is decorated for Christmas.

And that’s all I have to say for now. Good luck on Finals, All.

Guess what I did today? I frollicked in the snow!
It’s been snowing off and on for the past few days - today was by far the most snow. So in the afternoon I took a break from writing my Intention Justification Sheet for my 360 scene (which went quite well), and ran out side and twirled and caught snowflakes on my tongue. Hooray for the snow. I’ll give it even more hoorays if it manages to cancel finals next week.

I’ve been very busy. Today was the 360 comedic fight scene performances, so I’ve been having rehearsal for those, and when I wasn’t working on that, I was working for Bruce, a guy that hired me to draw some cartoons for his website (and I got paid $30 to do it, so I’m rollin’ in the dough), and when I wasn’t working on those pictures, I was working on a play that I was inspired to write after watching the New Playwrites Theatre shows yesterday. Unfortunately I can’t submit it to be an NPT show because those scripts are selected from within playwriting class, but at least you all can read it here:

Anticipation
By Nathaniel Jones

Characters:
Narrator
Man
Woman
Boy
Girl
Lady
Dead Baby
Drunk Girl
Drunk Guy
Other Drunk People
Government Agent

Narrator: WARNING: This play contains Full Frontal Nudity and Strong Sexual Content. Any who do not wish to see such things is now invited to leave the theatre.

Man is sitting on the couch watching The News. Woman walks in.

Man: Do you know what the trouble with the world today is?

Woman: There’s a dead baby on the porch.

Man: No, it’s these damn video games these damn kids play all the damn time. How the hell are kids supposed to grow up right with their damn video games going all day?

Woman: Well that may be true, but there’s still a dead baby on the porch.

Man: Really?

Woman: I think so. Let me go check.

Woman walks out.

Man: Damn liberal media!

Woman walks back in.

Woman: Yes, it’s still there.

Man: I thought it was just an example.

Woman: Well it’s an example of a dead baby.

Man: Well what does it want?

Woman: I don’t know – I’ll go ask it.

Woman walks out.

Woman walks back in.

Man: Well?

Woman: It can’t talk – it’s a dead baby.

Man: Well it must want something. A dead baby doesn’t just appear on a porch for no reason.

Woman: I don’t know – if you were a dead baby, what would YOU want?

Man: Hmm… A hat, I suppose.

SCENE 2

Boy: If you were a dead baby, what would you want?

Girl: I don’t know. Probably to not be a dead baby.

Boy: That’s not one of the options.

Girl: I don’t think dead babies want anything. They’re dead. And I think that if you die when you’re a baby you automatically go straight to heaven. So really dead babies are probably happier than we are.

Boy: That makes sense… yeah, dead babies are damn lucky.

Girl: I wish I was a dead baby.

Boy: Me too.

SCENE 3:

Woman: A hat?

Man: I would imagine so. If you were a dead baby on the porch, wouldn’t you want a hat?

Woman: I suppose… I’ll go give him one of your old hats and see if it goes away.

Man: Not my good hat!

Woman: You say every hat is your good hat.

Man: Can I help it if I own many fine hats?

Woman: Oh you men and your hats.

Woman grabs a hat from the closet and leaves. She comes back in, still with the hat.

Man: He turned down the hat? That damn dead baby thinks he’s too good for my good hat?

Woman: He didn’t turn it down – he’s not there any more.

Man: Oh. Well – more hats for me, then.

Woman: It’s probably just as well. Dead babies go to heaven, right? And I don’t think you can even wear a hat in heaven. I wouldn’t think that a halo would be able to fit over top of it.

Man: Was the baby baptized? If it wasn’t, it didn’t go to heaven. Nope – that dead baby went straight to hell. Just like this country. Oh, for God’s sake – would you look at this warning on the television? “This program contains full frontal nudity and strong sexual content.” Nudity and sexual content, on the television! What if that baby were in here to see this?

Woman: Well, it’s a good thing it left then. And it’s a good thing he’s dead.

SCENE 4

Lady knocks on the door. Woman answers it.

Woman: Hello?

Lady: Hello – have you seen a dead baby?

Woman: Yes, he was here, but he left.

Lady: He left?

Woman: Yes. He was lying on the porch, and I came inside to get him a hat, but when I went back he was gone.

Lady: Did he say where he was going?

Woman: No, he was a dead baby, so he couldn’t really talk.

Lady: Hmm – that makes it difficult, doesn’t it?

Woman: I shouldn’t think a dead baby would be so much trouble to keep in one place.

Lady: I’m no expert in dead babies, so I don’t know if this is rare or commonplace.

Woman: I ought to be an expert, but I am not. I was a dead baby myself once, you know.

Lady: Were you really?

Woman: Wait, no – no I wasn’t. I was an alive baby. Are those two very different?

Lady: One is dead and one is alive.

Woman: Hmm – I suppose that would change things. I do remember having a hat, though, so there must be some similarities.

SCENE 5:

Girl: Why are you turning on the TV?

Boy: I want to see if there’s anything good on.

Girl: Is there?

Boy: Here’s something with full frontal nudity and strong sexual content.

Girl: Don’t put that on – my parents might come in here.

Boy: If they come in we can pretend it’s for homework. Sex Ed.

Girl turns off the TV.

Boy: Hey!

Girl: I don’t want to watch it.

Boy: If you could be a movie star, but in order to get your big break you had to be on TV with full frontal nudity and strong sexual content, would you do it?

Girl: I don’t know – they’d have to pay me a lot.

Boy: How much?

Girl: A lot a lot – like, a thousand dollars.

Boy: Are you serious? Nobody would pay someone that much when they can get a college girl to do it for a keg of bear and string of plastic beads.

Girl: You don’t think I’m worth a thousand dollars?

Boy: It’s not personal against you – nobody’s worth a thousand dollars. That’s just economics – your thousand dollar boobs are being outsourced to drunk college girls who’ll show theirs for free.

Girl: There’s a big difference between lifting up your shirt and full frontal nudity with strong sexual content.

Boy: But still…

Girl: Those economics aren’t very fair to those actors and actresses who make a living with full frontal nudity and strong sexual content. How are these adults going to keep paying their rent if all of the jobs go to drunk people?

Boy: Same way other workers get by when cheap labor takes their jobs – government subsidies.

Girl: I don’t think they have subsidies for porn stars.

Boy: Life is rough for the naked actor.

Scene 7

Man: Would you look at this?

Woman: What?

Man: I’ve been watching this program for a full twenty minutes, and have yet to see any full frontal nudity or strong sexual content.

Woman: Thank heavens for that. We don’t need that filth around here.

Man: No! They put a big warning at the front saying that there would be full frontal nudity and strong sexual content, and now I can’t switch the station until I see it!

Woman: Why don’t you just turn it off?

Man: I am a slave to the promise of full frontal nudity and strong sexual content!

Woman: What’s come over you!

Man: It’s the liberal media! It’s sucked me in with its crazy backwards ways!

Woman: Give me the remote and I’ll turn it off for you.

Man: Back off, woman, I need full frontal nudity and strong sexual content.

Woman: Are you mad that I tried to give one of your hats to that dead baby?

Man: I had forgotten about the dead baby. But now that you mention it, I am rather upset that you would put a dead baby ahead of your husband’s wishes. And I’ll tell you more about that when the TV gives me my Full Frontal Nudity and Strong Sexual Content!

Woman: Oh Dead Baby and Liberal Media, what plague have you brought upon this house!

Scene 8

Girl: Let’s play I Spy.

Boy: Ok. You go first.

Girl: All right… I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with b.

Boy: A boy?

Girl: No.

Boy: A bed?

Girl: No.

Boy: A baby? A dead baby?

Girl: Don’t be silly, there aren’t any dead babies in here.

A Dead Baby flies through the window.

Boy: How about that for timing?

Girl: What’s that dead baby doing here?

Boy: Lying there, it looks like.

Girl: I mean, why is it here?

Boy: Hey dead baby, what do you want?

Dead Baby: All I want is to be loved…

Girl: I can never love a dead baby that is not my own.

Boy: I wonder who this dead baby belongs to? Its mother may be searching.

Girl: Well if that’s the case, don’t touch it – if you touch it, the mother won’t take it back.

Boy: I’ll pick it up with my sleeve and toss it back out the window.

Boy picks up the dead baby with his sleeve and tosses it back out the window.

Boy: Live free, dead baby. Live free.

Girl: Well, maybe not LIVE.

Scene 8:

Lady walks down the street, gets hit in the head with the dead baby.

Lady: Oh, my dead baby! You flew back to me! Thank you, God, for returning my dead baby to me safely! How may I repay you for this blessing?

Man: (screaming from inside the house) I need full frontal nudity and strong sexual content!

Lady: Well – who am I to question God’s will?

Lady begins to unbutton her blouse, and a camera crew arrives to film it. But then a “whoop” is heard nearby and a group of drunk college students come by.

Drunk Girl: Tell it again!

Drunk Guy: I saw a dead baby on some porch, right, and I looked at it and was like “whoa – this dead baby totally looks like a little football” and so I chucked it as far as I could, and it landed right in the window I was aiming at! I was like “woooo! I win! I’m the best football player in the world!”

Drunk crowd says “wooo!”

Camera crew runs over to the drunk crowd, leaving the now naked lady standing naked in the street with her dead baby.

Camera crew: Show us your boobs and we’ll give you beads!

Drunk Girl: Ok!

A man in a suit walks up to the woman and hands her a check.

Man in Suit: Hello, Madame. I’m from the government naked actor subsidies department, and I have a check for one thousand dollars to subsidize the income lost to drunk college kids who are working for beads.

Lady tries to take the check, and drops the dead baby in the process.

Man in suit: My goodness! Is that a dead baby?

Lady: Yes, it is my dead baby.

Man in Suit: As a government official, I cannot allow you to keep this dead baby. I will take it home and raise it as my own, and give it the love that a naked actress never could. Here, dead baby, you can even have this hat. It is my good one.

Dead baby is happy.

Narrator: And so in the end the man, whose window looked out directly at the crowd of drunk people, finally got the full frontal nudity and strong sexual content that the television denied him, the boy and girl, after having met a real dead baby, were once again happy with their status in life, no longer wishing that they could be dead babies, the lady used her government subsidy check to buy a special dumpster specifically so people could throw their dead babies in, and then the lady would look at them, as if it were a zoo. And the Dead Baby finally got the love and hat that it needed, and so lived happily ever after.
…Well, maybe not LIVED.

THE END