TO BE OR MAYBE, LIKE, NOT?

I love the movie "Shakespeare in Love."

Not just because of Joseph Fiennes (although I think he is simply adorable) - not because of the recurring "I don't know - it's a mystery" line by Geoffrey Rush (who I think is hysterical).

Not even Gwyneth Paltrow (who is perfect) and Colin Firth (as the bad guy, for once).

I love that it makes Shakespeare comprehensible to the unwashed, illiterate American masses.

Wait a minute, that wasn't very nice, was it?

Shakespeare intimidates people. Especially high school students with old-lady English teachers who diagrammed irregular past participles sentences on the blackboard and made the class read Richard II instead of Romeo and Juliet.

And reading Shakespeare by yourself can be... well, it can be daunting. And even dull at times.

So movies like "In Love" and "Rosencrantz and Guildestein Are Dead" (another movie I adore - one of the same writers, also - Tom Stoppard - and a very, very young Gary Oldman), can sneak in with the dialogue and the action the wording, the phrasing, that on print scares the crap out of us.

And withOUT cheapening it - I'm thinking Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes here.

I was fortunate to be introduced to serious Shakespearean from (drum roll here) the drama coach at Kansas State University.

While I was pregnant.

Extremely pregnant.

The class was original in that we were looking at Shakespeare from the play director's point of view - how to set up the scene, how the actors delivered their lines, movement on stage....

It was a great deal of fun.

However, 85% of the class was in a panic that somehow, that in the middle of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act V, Scene II, I would go into labor and have the baby right there while we were all on stage.

Think that's why I got an "A" in the class?

INNOCENT BYSTANDER

The expression "don't kill the messenger" originated in 422 B.C. when a runner (the 422 B.C. equivalent of email) informed Sophocles that his wife was, once again, attending a meeting of "If Your Husband Is A Big Fat Philosopher" or IYHIABFP meeting - and Sophocles promptly shot him (this is historically accurate; the Remington rifle was invented in 433 B.C., but since the design did not get through the patent office until 1926 A.D., it was not in use through Biblical ages, the Dark Ages, and the Light Pastel Periods).

The saying was also promoted heavily by Shakespeare in both 'Henry IV, Part II' (1598) and in 'Antony and Cleopatra' (1606-07). Will was also responsible for beginning the alternate phrases, "Don't Shoot The Piano Player, He's Doing The Best He Can" and "Wa Ka Wikki Wikki Wa" (Hawaiian for "Yo, Bro, Ain't My Fault Your Wife Is Screwing Around." - bet you didn't know Shakespeare traveled that much in his lifetime, but the travel rates were incredibly low back then).

Okay, back to "don't kill the messenger."

Some times when a negative event occurs, the, er, negativity gets spread, you know, just a little bit more, and then, sometimes it becomes a large pool and then a raging storm of crushingawfuldefeatacrossallof....

Sorry. Got a little carried away there.

So this evening, 'someone' came home with some sort of bad news. 'Someone' had been in an office, a honest-to-goodness office for the past three years. One with a door, and a ceiling - no cubicle farm. His admin assistant also had a door, which was amazing in this world of government workers and crammed space. It also allowed room for the 43,776 files spread all over the floor, 614 hard-back books stacked in four bookcases, and 916 12-packs of Mt. Dew.

And today, this 'someone' was told he would have to vacant aforementioned office. Soon. Like the end of this week.

I am of the firm opinion that unless getting mad about something helps the situation, getting mad is just a waste of time and energy. However, I live with a certain 'someone' who believes that anger is good, that it is correct, and the more of it, the better.

So I am standing very carefully in a corner in a galaxy far far away to avoid the deluge, inundation and bombardment of pointless yet fervent emotion.

Wish me luck.