RACHEL

She's a fresh-faced new face, who talks straight for an hour every night.

I could Google Rachel M and find out age, personal gossipy things maybe, but I don't want to. I like getting to know her on a nightly basis. I'm not sure about her captions, (her holy mackerel stuff), her musicalized categories -- but she's a joy to hear, as well as see. I'll bet if they begin to get tiresome, she'll change them, not get stuck in the rut of her own creation.

Quietly herself, laughingly herself, amazingly knowledgeable without hitting us over the head with her educated brilliance, she is her own creation. Strong, smart, woman-girl of today, of right now, speaking on the subjects every day, that concern us every day.

When her show comes on, I don't deliberately tune her in -- we keep looking for diversions. Not sitcoms -- the sound of canned, dubbed-in laughter, the talented actors acting in the TV style that telegraphs a beat ahead, when to laugh, or shudder or be moved -- it's unacceptable to us, since we know it, we've heard it, been there too often in our various professional capacities.

The fact is, since the presidential campaign began more than two years ago, and the news channels became our newspapers (keeping score, tallying wins, losses, bloopers, troubles, inconsistencies), we may drift away briefly, occasionally for an old movie, but very rarely.

We're not back to normal.

Dems, Repubs have turned us into political thermometers. We glance at the trivial trivality shows ... oh, maybe peep at the lady who does autopsies, spend five minutes, maybe with prison inmates, then back we go to the White House, Congress, Senate, liberals, conservatives scrapping, picking on each other's commentary.

I think our president has done this to us. Given us hope -- we're back to almost believing in man's innate goodness. Quietly, secretly crossing our fingers, praying he'll survive and go on and on fixing things.

And we've got Rachel, the fresh-faced, sharp, seemingly fearless young female commentator, not by any means unwaveringly applauding the liberating liberal things, but her good mind, observing.

Yes, at the kitchen table we're hooked on news these days.

That two character play is out. JD (with auditions coming up) is fixing a storage shelf for Shareen, downstairs in Shareen Vintage NY. JC is talking with the playwright, telling him clearly, constructively, why the project is out. Going, doing -- that's JC on his way in a few minutes to theater to perform at the Music Box. I'm blogging, checking e-mail for queries that need to be answered, then into the studio for the end of the day.

My barre and the booming music of Vaughn Williams that's my nightly thing -- not a prayer, but an affirming ritual that brings me joy.

... oops , used that word twice in this post ...

Well why not? Rachel and barre both make me feel good.