Giving Men A Good Name

I spent yesterday afternoon watching my castmate and new friend, Ryan Anderson, being a daddy. Unlikely stay-at-home dad, Ryan and Bryn (age 2) make a stellar team. Since Ryan is a theatre guy, he stays with his amazingly cute daughter during the day while his wife works her 9-5 day job. Then she comes home and he goes to work, making hundreds of people a night pee their pants. I am sure his life is far from perfect, but it seemed pretty great to me. Thing that stuck out was how good he was at the dad thing. At one point, as he was talking to me, he laid her down, changed her diaper and had her back up standing in a matter of nano seconds. It was miraculous. Even with a uterus, I am not sure I could do it half as well. Maybe I will just have to find a Ryan-type who will get as much pleasure as Ry does from the diaper-changing-feeding-napping-bathing-reading-picture-books craziness. Good to know it exists!

Ryan makes me laugh, too, when he says that women find him so much more attractive now that he is 'off the market'. I think it is just that women are picking up on his paternal energy. It is freaking sexy.

Then I went to the theatre and Jimmy, bar manager and soon-to-be fiance of castmast Anglea (aka Wink), runs up to me all excited. "Ya want to see something?" he asks me. "Sure," I venture and watch him as he pulls out a ring box from his pocket. He has designed a ring for Wink (she already knows about it so don't worry I am not ruining the surprise by blogging about it!) and intends on asking her sometime soon. The point is how happy it is making him. He is in love and he knows what he wants and he is as, or more, excited at the prospect of being this woman's husband and she is about being his wife. I love it! Men that like being hands-on fathers and are desirous of marriage...it is calming and assuring to me.

I will miss Ryan and Jimmy and a few others quite a bit when it all ends in 3 days. It has been a good run here - perhaps not for its artistic merit, but definitely for the kind souls that I have had a chance to play with - if even for awhile...

Just another reason that 2006 has ended up being a pretty great year.

Thanks guys.