10:54 pm - Fri 11.07.2008
Picking Up

So much to write about these days, and so little writing actually being done...

(Odd that something I don't actually have to do at all has become something I've been avoiding doing, and something I've felt guilty about avoiding.)

But I don't want this to be an entry on why I haven't been writing, so I'm going to "get on with it".

In the days since the election, I've been reading a lot online, a lot of commentary and editorializing and the like - From postmortems on the McCain campaign, to Sarah Palin's future (Or lack of same) in the Republican party, to what the election did or didn't tell us about race relations in America, to debates on what the President-Elect needs to do first to try to get the country back on course.

Apparently, I've found it all quite interesting - I wouldn't have clicked on the links otherwise - but more than any of that, what's really struck me, what's really effected me emotionally, is reading about other people who are feeling the way I've been feeling the past couple days.

In a nutshell, it's been a difficult eight years for a lot of people who love their country, or who want to love their country - As we've watched the ruling party, who have always laid claim to the moral high ground, run America into the ground, morally and otherwise, turning it into something barely recognizable, and making a mockery of what it stands for.

So while I know the new President is just one man, and can't effect change all by himself (And, even though I'm a Democrat, I realize that government can't do everything for everyone), it feels wonderful to be able to hope again, to feel good about my government again, to have a Leader whose heart seems to be in the right place, who projects strength and character and intelligence, and can inspire us to do better, instead of just appealing to our greed and anger and fear (And a Leader who can get from the beginning of a sentence to the end without stumbling over himself).

As for the Democratic party taking control of the White House and Congress, I feel guardedly optimistic (I'll say what I said years ago, when the situations were reversed - "Okay, you got what you wanted - Don't screw it up!").

Turned out, this wasn't the "Gregg Hoffmaster" - who for a time was married to my biological mother (but who was not my biological father) - but instead was Gregg Hoffmaster Jr., the 40-year-old son of Gregg Sr.

He'd run across my journal while looking for info on his Dad (Who left when he was a toddler), and thought I might have info that would help him "fill in the blanks".

I didn't - not really (I know next to nothing about Gregg Hoffmaster Sr.) - but it was still interesting to talk to Gregg Jr. (And he seemed to feel likewise), because while we're not technically related, with our shared history (A shared last name, a shared deceased half-brother - the son of my mother and his father - and even a shared weight problem), it kind of felt like we were related.

(At the end of our conversation, we joked about it, referring to ourselves as "the brothers that might have been...")

Gregg Sr., to put it bluntly, really seems like he wasn't much earthly good to anyone; a drunk, a barroom brawler (And likely spouse-abuser), who apparently abandoned his families at the drop of a hat.

A major-league loser.

(Gregg Sr. died some years back.)

Anyway, it wasn't the conversation I'd thought I was going to have (When first contacted by "Gregg Hoffmaster"), but I was very happy to have had it.

I thought they were doing "pick-ups" (meaning they needed some shots that they somehow didn't get the first time around), but it's actually quite a bit more involved than just "picking up" a shot here and there; they came up five minutes short, so had to write pages of new material.

So they're bringing back four or five of us to "pad the script" (by trying to persuade you not to buy The Book Of Inside Information).

So I actually have quite a bit more to say tomorrow than I did last time (I just got the script earlier today, but they're going to put it on a teleprompter, like they did with Mr Cleese last time).

This time, we're shooting at the Director's house in Beverly Hills.

And there's more to be said about all this - and more to be written about in general - but I'm out of time (I don't have a super-early call - 10 a.m. - but I want to give myself a lot of time to get there).

(I really do have to get "back in the swing" of writing in here...)

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