I spent the weekend at my parents' since my father celebrated his 60^th birthday on Saturday. Well, actually his birthday isn't until August, but the date a month earlier coincided beautifully with the Wallenstein festival. Wallenstein, a famous military leader in the Thirty Years' War, supposedly went to university in my parents' hometown, and so, every third year, the greater part of the town dons costumes and transforms the marketplace into a picture of the past, with roasted pig, torches, warriors on horseback, gypsies, sutlers, drummers and, of course, Wallenstein and his officers and the (most likely fictional) love of his youth that led him to spare the town from pillage and burning in the war.

Anyway, history lesson aside, my point was a different one: When I drove home yesterday, still mellowed from a quiet and relaxing weekend (not counting a bout of migraine on Saturday that I still blame on the bloody heat), I got thinking about "Miracles".

And when I paid closer attention to a song by Clay Crosse on the tape in the cassette player ("When in Rome"), I was seized by the sudden idea that perhaps Paul Callan's name isn't totally incidental. Why 'Paul', of all things? Might it just be possible that Paul was meant to undergo the same transformation Saul did in the New Testament (see The King James Bible, Acts 9: 1-43) -- just in the reverse? Was he destined to change from a believer in Christ to a man set on destroying Christ's followers?

Damn, I wish this series had been continued.

And I want more Alva, just because.

Speaking of slobbering, seeing my favorite actor in the Wallenstein play on Saturday didn't help matters; he may have been but a schoolgirl crush, but heck, he's still damned handsome. Yum.

By the way, young love is icky. My younger brother and his girlfriend are so cute together it's hard to stand. She bribed him with kisses to take some medicine against his cold. Argh.