Vince Guaraldi might be the only music artist who so very consistently breaks my heart.

I sliced my thumb open with an x-acto knife Tuesday afternoon while I was building a tiny set model for Medea. I don't recall so much blood ever coming out of me at once (Oh, blood! Mother, blood!"). I bandaged it up with university theater's stage combat first aid kit, and it looked fine to me until our managing director pointed out that I might need stitches, depending on the deepness of the cut. So I went to the ER at the UofC Hospitals. Three hours later, the doctor finally comes to see me and says, "That's just a bad papercut!" and sends me home without even a new band-aid.

The Pillowman at Steppenwolf ripped open my chest cavity and stirred a dirty stick all kinds of ways in there. It was one of those shows that permanently raised my expectations for what I can experience in a theater. What was the word I used to describe it? Oh yeah. "Perfect."

So much for fall. It snowed this morning.