Living hardcore in quaint Pickering

I'm torn about marriage and subsequent counseling, but I'm positively confounded about how the inevitable werewolf can eat a cat and cause trouble without the police catching him. There is joy in the air as I learn that, not only is my play getting performed by the Stanton Thespians, but it is already in production. This means the rewrites have to happen fast, before they perform at the District Thespian Festival on the 15th. Yet my biggest conundrums are ethical, and there are two of them: one, does the werewolf have to vomit into a trash can after he has eaten the cat whose silver collar turns him back to human form, and is that deliciously twisted or just plain gross? two, he eats a bag of organic produce, and the wife has to tell the NYPD something, so can she blame it on hippies? With my often-bare feet and shaggy hair, I'm half-hippie myself, but will my audience understand that? I like hippies, and want to make the joke work, but don't want them seriously associated with not shaving, or werewolf attack, or, for that matter, organic produce.

Yet while there is snow everywhere, like the odd rain in Spain, it cannot usurp the warm homes of Pickering Methodists! We eat with Peter Cross and family, whom I know from 2003 when my youth choir visited his church in Bolsover. The Methodist connection brings us to Margaret and Lorrie, an old missionary couple who put us to work on a jigsaw puzzle and have read Gilead and other of my favorite books. Peter Halsworth puts us to work in his new office making notes about ministry videos for him, and he recognizes, like us and Bishop John Shelby Spong, that Christianity must change die (for irrelevance to our lives is spiritual death for certain). York, also, is cool, as is Avatar, which must be seen on the big screen even when poor in a different country.

We are living with Tony and Ruth Leeming, a wonderfully kind couple who, completely casually, treat us like kings. Apparently, they retired from the Bed and Breakfast trade four months ago, so it's normal to have multiple-course breakfasts with different sets of knives and spoons around the perimeter of the place-mats. Ryan is building a snowman to rival Adam Hunter and the others who posted pictures of their individual snowpeople on facebook, and my thoughts are also sadly away from this quaint, little town, toward "Married and Ravenous in New York" (the new title) getting its world premiere soon, and its special nights from January 28-30 at my old high school of Stanton College Prep, where you will see my mom and Anna at least that I will be living vicariously through. If you see them, love them, for when you love my fam and friends, I feel the love too.