Ahead

"People don't do such things!"

-- the final line of Heinrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler

--

Smooth and cool, loaded and sweet and sneering, the show was. Lusty, fiery, tense: a flame on a high wire. Weird, seeing scenes from English and acting classes ("How could I have missed that?" I asked myself a dozen times) enacted in Markel, in front of discerning eyes, spoken by familiar voices in unfamiliar tones. Like watching some haunting parody of yourself. I liked it.

I wish I could have seen both casts, though, to join the ax-grinding. What a show to double-cast. My feelings mix as I envy and pity the cast--envy, for graduating a year too early, it seems; and pity, to see friends shift in their seats and stifle laughter for fear of sounding callous, or stifle tears for fear of losing pride. Pity, for them to have to stifle themselves at all, really. I suppose they didn't have to watch the other cast. Fair enough. But you can't help but watch the other couple at work on the manuscript, you can't help but rubberneck on the highway, and you can't help but go to see the same show done differently.

Hm. You can't help. A grappling double-bind, fit for this show, in a way, but...well, fuck it. I don't know for a fact that I would have handled anything differently, for better or worse. Let me just say that the shows I saw were terrific, it was magnificent to see friends again, and it was just plain good to be in my element again.

--

About that last: Yes, to be in the cold college town again. Wonderful. It's good that I know, for sure, that at certain times in the year, I can drive for four hours on three highways and find myself in a good place. Friends, theatre, happy people. The people I work with don't know about this place, not really; sure, they have heard it mentioned, but they do not know the place I know. I like coming back. I like being known--not just name and number, but flaw and failure. I can unbuckle my belt in this place. I can look into eyes that see and have seen me. I can have swagger, or I can not have swagger, but either way, I can feel cool.

Coolness. That's not as important as it is. The nice thing about feeling cool is that you don't feel like you're overheating any more. The engine clicks as it cools, and you can click, too.

--

And now: dress rehearsal for A Christmas Carol tomorrow, then lots of space and time to sway and fill. Poker tomorrow night. Maybe a movie before the break, and then back north to Chicago.

I've got a stack of library things to experience before I return them. I have laundry to do--wow. Seriously, I need to do laundry. And miles to go, and miles to go...

Oh, wait. No I don't. I just went miles and miles. I can sleep now. (Small joys.)