From the Files

One of the joys of finally having my mind on something other than writing essays for future schools is that I finally have a chance to catch up on the blogs that I've ignored for a while. Blogs of people I don't know, like Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Carroll. Blogs of people I do know, like Mr. B and Ian (who mercifully updates with even less frequency than I do, making catching up fairly easy). I've been amazed to realize how many of them update daily and how good so many of the daily updates are. I tend to take a stance that I only blog when I feel like I have something to say, because I know that if I updated daily, this blog would become a daily weather report (it's cold today, snowing, chance that the temperature will dip down into the negative digits). So I'm impressed when people set themselves to write every day and then still fill their blogs with substance and intellect and wit. It goes to show you, worrying about every word might make a great sentence, but it doesn't get the novel written.

Anyway, it made me realize there's a great deal I could have written about, but haven't for whatever reason. So here they are. A few from the files.

Tantalus
Since November, I've been working with Tantalus, first in workshop and now in rehearsal, for our new show, Toy Chest. Initially, I wasn't going to try to be involved with the show on the creative end, but as the concept for the show began to develop, it drew me in.

It's probably the tightest show Tantalus has developed to date--we had a fully realized script in hand before auditions--and I think it's going to show. As with all Tantalus shows, there's an element of chaos in it that makes it impossible to completely prepare, but we at least have those parts of the show we can control. Which gives us time to experiment with the parts we can't.

The rehearsals have posed an interesting challenge to me. My character is a hobby horse, which means that I'm basically a giant horse head puppet. My costume engulfs my arms, and a mask hides my face, leaving me with only my legs and torso to articulate the character (since I'm a horse, I can't talk much...no one can talk to a horse, of course). To top it, with this horse head, I have a really complicated and nuanced emotion that I have to convey. It's Tantalus and no emotion is simple with Tantalus. Everything has to have layers. So, at times, I feel like I've been asked to work a boulder into a finely engraved relief of Romeo and Juliet with only a sledgehammer as my tool. It's been a genuine challenge, more intrigue than frustration, and I've been thankful for the opportunity.

Like My Literary Forefathers

"I cried like a fool. Those deep, convulsive, wracking cries. Just horrible. But as bad as that was, it really helped me to work out some of this. And like throwing up, as soon as it was done, I felt better."

That above quote is from a friend's blog. I include it because it pretty well describes what happened to me a couple of weekends ago.

I've been drinking a lot lately. A lot. Beyond where I simply wake up a bit groggy and take two Advil and call it a morning. Beyond where I just make an ass of myself in public. I've been drinking to the point where, weekend after weekend, I stumble home and climb into the bathtub, because I know with certainty that I'm going to pass out cold and if I do, I'll probably die from drowning in my vomit. I don't know why it's been. I have speculations that it's just because I've been stressed or that I have been just not exhibiting the self control I ought. But for a month and a half or so, from before New Year's until just recently, I spent at least one day each weekend hanging over the toilet.

Not healthy.

Then a couple of weekends ago, I did something at a party that I thought would hurt a friend of mine. I didn't do it maliciously, but I did it with the conscious thought that it would hurt my friend's feelings if she knew. I just didn't care, because I was drunk enough to not care. The next morning I woke up, feeling like someone had used me as a punching bag the night before and feeling guilty about what I had done. I slid over to my computer, put my headphones on, turned on Johnny Cash's "Hurt" and listened to it in a loop for an hour.

And I cried. Big, hot, loud cry that, if you'd heard it, you'd think my mother had died. You'd think I was tearing out hair and cutting flesh that's how loud and agonized I cried. Everything, every whatever it's been sitting on my heart dragging me down with it for longest time, came up in those tears for the next hour. When they stopped on their own, I played Johnny again. And again and again and again. Like I was wringing out a sopping rag. Until it was all gone and I felt better and I called my friend and she told me it was OK. I hadn't done anything. And she was wrong--I had done something, even if it didn't hurt her--but I was thankful to be forgiven.

And then I went to rehearsal and set my feet toward something healthier.

Chapters
Lately, chapters have been ending in my life, loose ends folding up as though life knew damn good and well it was time to move on. Relationships, both long standing and new have ended, clearing me of ties here and elsewhere, no longer making me choose between one life and another. Opportunities have opened up for me as a writer, and new connections with people have developed that will make that path easier.

My past is folding up behind me. It makes it easier for me to see the now.