Hey, nonny, nonny

I am in a mood today and nothing would do but to put on Much Ado About Nothing wherein Ken Brannagh, his wife, Emma Thompson, and Emma's mother, Phyllida Law, take on some of Shakespeare's characters. For all of you seekers of nudity, you won't wait long for tantalizing buttocks and glimpses of all parts male and female at the beginning. My personal favorites have nothing to do with titillation but with the dialogue, especially the verbal jousting between Benedick and Beatrice. The plot is thin but there is much to like and laugh about and that's why I feel the need to restore myself by watching and reciting the dialogue (yes, I've seen it enough to know almost the entire play).

I needed the fun and silliness of Shakespeare today since I received a list of members of my graduating class who have died. It's sad to see that so many people I shared three years (and sometimes more) of school with people who have died. It's sad. Cancer, murder, burst aneurysm, fatal car accidents, drugs, etc. Some I knew died shortly after graduation and some within the past five years. It's inevitable, but I don't have to like it. I've lost too many friends to the grim reaper.

This weekend, we nearly lost my niece from septic shock. Shanna is is not yet 31 and she spent the first part of the weekend in ICU near death. She's better now, but not out of the woods. It is at times like this I wish I could be with my family. They keep me posted but it doesn't help. I've lost so many family members in the past two years and I'm not dealing well with it. I'd be easier with my own death than the death of those I love. It's a selfish feeling, wanting to know those I love and who are part of my life are happy and well, but not a feeling for which I will apologize.

And so I turn to the skirmishes of wit between Benedick and Beatrice.

When told she may end with a husband who has no beard she replies:

What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel
and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a
beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no
beard is less than a man: and he that is more than
a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a
man, I am not for him.

I feel the same. A man with a beard would indeed be like lying in the woolens.

That is all. Disperse.