Snowflakes

"Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity."

-- Christopher Morley

--

Stopped by the library on my way home last night. Among other things (I mostly use libraries for their magnificently free DVD rental), I picked up a children's book, My Brother Loved Snowflakes, by Mary Bahr, because it seemed like it would make an interesting children's play. Read it last night and was not disappointed.

It's the biography of Wilson Bentley, the first man to photograph a snowflake, told from the perspective of his older brother, Charlie. The story involves young Wilson asking for and receiving a series of microscopes from his parents, and then going on to do wonderful things in scientific photography and lectures. I believe the comparison of snowflakes to individuals--"no two are the same"--originates with Willie's work. Because many schools are now cutting the arts from their budgets and trying to steer children towards careers in science and technology, creating a play about an artistic scientist could do much to bridge this new and spreading gap.

For my own amusement, I may give a stage adaptation of this storybook a whirl, or perhaps I'll use its predecessor (and Caldecott winner) Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. If all goes well and I can get the rights, maybe I can sell this play to a children's touring company. Like the one I work for.

--

It snowed in Cincinnati not too long ago, not even a week ago, but by this gray Tuesday morning it has all melted and the grass, still green, lies matted on spongy earth. The temperature has risen. My family tells me they got dumped with a lot of early snow around the same time we did, but that it's staying cold in Nebraska. Looks like it'll be a white Christmas for us this year.

--

What amazes me about Wilson Bentley, "the Snowflake Man," is that he always looked at tiny things for inspiration. Little objects, like the veins of a leaf or the symmetrical crystals of snow.

There's one part of the book that contains this beautiful metaphor. The two boys, Willie and Charlie, go fishing for trout in the clear waters of a nearby brook, and they sit there for hours without catching anything. When Charlie finally snags a fish, Willie exclaims that he wants to learn everything about it. But when Charlie looks over at him, his brother is using his microscope to look at a drop of water, not the trout.

The Snowflake Man devised a way to calculate the mass of a raindrops by catching them in a tray of flour. Before he obtained a microscope fitted with a camera, he would catch snowflakes on a piece of black velvet so he could draw them before they melted.

The recurring theme here is one of catching. He catches images as he catches raindrops, abandoning the serious trivialities for the simple pleasures, for mere knowledge, more knowledge. He runs into the storm, eager for it to fall on him.

And it seems fitting that after he had caught all of this, Willie caught pneumonia while walking home through a blizzard.

--

From an aesthetic point of view, theatre is the snowflake art. It is caught by those who come to see it.

No two performances are the same, even as the same shows run for days and weeks with the same actors, just as the cold crystallization of H20 occurs differently in each cloud, in each storm, even if water is water is water; as the flake falls it sheds its shape or clumps with others; and the flakes together bring the stuff of clouds and dreams as a blanket to the ground, soft empires built on temperature and moisture, drifting, piling, shoveled, cleared, and finally melting.

In a time when the theatre is dying its slow and triumphant death, it is important for its fans to consider the words of the late Wilson Bentley, the Snowflake Man:

"A snowflake...is a bit of beauty dropped from the sky...that, if lost at that moment, is lost forever to the world."

Tinged

"She had written these words, to be sure.... And for her, along with the residue of fear and the dubious sense of relief, there was, of course, the guilt-tinged bafflement when she realized that, unlike Lies, she had been spared."

-- Philip Roth, in The Ghost Writer

--

I'm about to eat a personal cheese pizza in the café lobby of the community center I mentioned before. Reading the same Philip Roth book and sipping tea, when that "Summer Girls" song comes on the center's radio. A song I haven't heard since middle school (okay, maybe high school), and yet I recognized the opening drumbeats and repetitive record scratches. Can't remember the names of Kentucky's senators, but I remember that. I used to sing along with it on the schoolbus, pretending to know the words until it got to the parts where I did know the words: "New kids on the block, dah-buh-dum-dee dee, Chinese food makes me sick...something summer..."

The last class went well, considering. I was sure to apologize to the disgruntled parents and thank the sympathetic ones, hoping that they really do understand: Miscommunication led to them paying for a workshop that I couldn't deliver. It's not an excuse, it's a reason. "X equals negative-B plus or minus the square root..."

These workshops have been clouded by a sense of doom for nearly a month. Before Thanksgiving provided me a much-needed escape from these Thursday evening punishments, I was begging my boss to cancel the classes. Refund the money. Take it from my check. Anything so I wouldn't have to do that again. See those parents. Raise my voice. See that infuriating little smile on the face of a child who refuses to hear--or do--what you say.

Thing is, as workshops go, it wasn't bad. It hasn't really merited the bad feeling I've had after each class. I've been more trapped before this, more precisely labeled a Persona non grata. So it's a case of dementia, or exaggeration. On my part, if no one else's.

--

And when, after the class, the center's liaison joked that I must be happy that I would never have to deal with her again, well, I didn't laugh. Not because I think it's true--far from it. She's just doing her job, and I'm trying--pathetically perhaps--to do mine. I don't feel that "dubious sense of relief" you're supposed to feel after you've finished a rough process; on the contrary, I feel "guilt-tinged bafflement."

(Who knew a simple bout of suffering would make me identify with Roth's Jewish heroine?)

At the risk of pressing matter into metaphor, I feel like Oskar Schindler at the end of the film: "One more! One more!"

--

Could I have taught them the songs themselves instead of just some dances? Could they have had more fun with another instructor? Could I have saved everyone a bunch of headaches by cow-towing sooner?

"Could" is a four-letter word tonight; it doesn't coo, it cuts; remove the U and it shows its true self, "cold;" it's a warrior in the kingdom of Might Have Been. I have nothing to say to it. Only doubt, the feeling that I wasn't who I could have been, a cloud of unknowing instead of a light. "Cloud"--another rearranging of the word.

Good thing this was the last workshop for a while. I need time to recoup.

--

In the café, more parents and their children. All around, at circular tables, egalitarian tables. I can hear them discussing their plans for the evening. My pizza is eaten; the box is empty. I haven't gotten any farther in the book. It sits open, the left page (142) dogeared, with huge blocks of italics on the right page.

Michael Bublé is on the radio, singing a Christmas song.

I've been spared.

Screws

"You turn the screws

You tear down the bridge

Flimsy as it is..."

-- Cake, "You Turn the Screws"

--

Went to see Cincy Shakes's production of The Taming of the Shrew on Saturday night. A friend, who is in CSC's young company, got my girlfriend and me free tickets. Many of the shows I catch at CSC are frustrating to me as an audience member and a theatre person, mostly because their concepts (in my opinion) often distract from the plays, but this was not the case this weekend.

Their Shrew is set in 1940s screwball-comedy Hollywood, and it's wonderful. The Marx Brothers and the Stooges make several appearances, and beyond the gadzooks and boingos, the central message of the play comes across just fine, intact. If you're in Cincinnati, see it. It's worth the money I didn't spend.

--

Continuing my trend of discovering convenient technology a few years behind the curve, I have just downloaded a bunch of podcasts, over 200 episodes total. I'm a little scattered in my selections, ranging from things I know I like ("A Prairie Home Companion" and "This American Life") to crapshoots that look good ("The Bear" and "Slate Poetry"). But in another way, I guess I've been actually very narrow, looking mostly to monologues recorded live, literary readings, and the occasional human-interest podcast.

If you have any suggestions, let me know.

--

We've taken Holiday Follies on stage, to great response. It's been called "a gumdrop of holiday love," which is exactly what folks want right now, something devoid of real intellect and cloaked in a swell shell of glitter and sheen. Harmonies are tight. Costumes galore and props to the max, and I suppose that's what you do in children's theatre.

Follies

"Just because you don't have any holiday traditions does not mean you should poo-poo on others', Max."

-- Doris, in Holiday Follies, the holiday show for The Children's Theatre of Cincinnati, 2009

--

We open in two days.

Rehearsal went so well last night that our emergency rehearsal, scheduled for tonight, was canceled during notes. Crisis averted.

--

Today is the penultimate workshop at a local community center. The last few sessions have not gone well--in fact, I would go so far as to say that none of the sessions have gone "well." It's more accurate to say that the last session met basic requirements, though this was at the cost of a lot of things, including my confidence as a workshop leader.

Here's the rundown.

My boss told me that we had offered a workshop that, because of low enrollment, was changed at the last minute. Originally, the workshop was supposed to teach kids how to sing and dance, culminating in a final show for the parents. Only five children were signed up, so we told them that instead we would do a basic acting workshop over the course of five Thursdays. This would have worked just fine, except that the community center did a poor job (in my opinion) of passing on this information to the parents, who had paid X amount of dollars for their kids to have a musical theatre class.

Enter me. For the first two classes, I haggled with a mom who "just wanted to know" if her daughter (a precocious little snot who smiles at you and pretends not to hear the things you say to her) had "what it takes" to be a singer. I told her that because I am not a voice instructor and cannot read music, I did not feel comfortable teaching music, but that I would try to include a warm-up game that involves singing, just to see if the girl took to it. I did, and she didn't. The mother, embarrassed, apparently complained about me after the second workshop.

So, because of pressure from my boss and the community center, I changed my plans for the third class. I came with a CD and a vague intent to teach them a dance (keep in mind, I had at most four hours to prepare for this). As I began the class, I told them the little bit I know about singing and proper breathing technique. And when I asked them, "Do you know what it means to support your breathing?" one of the mothers, sitting in the corner, scoffed and said, "They're six!"

Now, all of the parents were in the room for this class. This made me feel like I was being ganged-up on, and it didn't help to curb my growing frustration. One of them left and got the coordinator of children activities at the center. Because none of the children were participating in the singing or the dancing, this coordinator had to prod them along. At one point, two of the girls--one of them is that precocious little snot I talked about before--decided that their hands were glued together and began running around the room. I asked them three times, politely, to stop, and then looked to the mother for help. And instead of shooting her children warning looks, she was simply watching me: what's he gonna do, how will he handle this, what's he doing wrong this time, etc. So I met her gaze and said, calmy, simply, and quietly, "It's okay. I'll wait."

She was unable to restrain her own children, which says something to me about why she wants them in this workshop. She is a flustered mother who has lost control of her daughters. When her peers tell her that one of them might have "what it takes" to be a performer, she imagines that the secret to controlling her children is to give them a creative outlet. And when they fail to participate, obey simple commands, or socialize with others, the mother projects those feelings of inferiority onto the inept young man who happens to be running the workshop. Me.

Or maybe I'm being unfair. Perhaps it is I who is projecting inferiority onto the mother, I who does not have control of children. I have only been doing this sort of thing for a half a year, after all, and she has been a mother for at least six years. Maybe it's me.

Whatever the problem is, I will no doubt continue to be frustrated by it tonight. 4:30pm, two hours from now. I have to find another song to use.

--

Some silver lining, now...

The new laptop came yesterday, the computer to replace the one that was stolen. It's not exactly the same one--Sony stopped manufacturing mine shortly after I bought it back in March--but it runs pretty well and is much better than the ancient desktop provided me by TCTC. It's black instead of silver, and it runs Windows 7 instead of Vista. The latter is the best, because I've never really liked Vista.

The first thing I downloaded onto it? iTunes. The setup program is running now.

Before I run to that workshop at the community center, I will stop at the nearest Wal-Mart and buy myself an external hard drive. Gotta learn from your mistakes.

--

And maybe that's the sand in the glass, right? Those mistakes are only justified if you learn from them. The previous three workshops were only worth it if this fourth one is an improvement. And getting better replacements takes the sting out of being pilfered.

--

A quick note before I go.

My solo in Holiday Follies was the "Blue Christmas" number, in which I was--oddly--dressed as Scrooge but impersonating Elvis. Long story, and the short of it is: It was cut last night. Not just for time considerations, but because it's a complicated joke that lasts a while. And with an audience filled with little people who haven't heard of Elvis, Paul Newman, or Cher, it's a joke they'd never get.

I'm glad it was cut, mainly because I felt that the Scrooge/Elvis costume, on top of three layers of clothing, made me look like Humpty Dumpty leading an Episcopalian eucharist. I don't even know if the Episcopalians have a eucharist ceremony, but, ah, there it is.

So it's gone. So it goes.

Turkey

"It's a great script. It needs rewrites but basically it's a great script. I know I've told you all this before, but it's just that if I don't keep saying it I'll forget it's the truth."

-- Rita, in George F. Walker's play Beyond Mozambique

--

I think I've always been afraid of things.

The first thing I remember being afraid of was the boom of footsteps I heard in the ceiling above me. I knew that in multi-level buildings, one man's ceiling could be another man's floor, and the thought of who--or what--was walking around up there kept me awake at night. I think this was shortly after watching Jurassic Park in theatres. I imagined that if there was a clear plastic cup half-filled with water on my nightstand, that with each boom from above the water would ripple, shivering, quivering, like me wrapped in my blanket.

Until high school, I was nervous every time I had to speak to a stranger in a public place. I remember being in a McDonald's and wanting more fries. My mom gave me two dollars and told me to go to the counter and order some medium fries. I was terrified because I didn't know what would happen if two dollars wasn't enough. I told her that, and she said it was enough. I shook my head. She gave me a quarter and said that it was for the tax. This ritual repeated itself during several McDonald's meals, and every time, two dollars was enough, and I returned sheepishly with the unused quarter and random change from the two dollars.

These days, I think I'm afraid of my writing.

--

I think that's why I stick to midlength blog posts. Rarely do I have to write things for work; the two-and-a-half plays I've written recently are an exception. Sometimes I wish I was like my journalist buddies, whose blogs consist of teasers for their stories that appear on the websites of the newspapers they work for.

Blogging is self-publishing. Self-fulfilling. Vanity disguised as self-expression. One only expresses oneself because one is presumptuous. That's one way of looking at it. Another way: it is self-expression disguised as vanity. One only appears pretentious because one needs an expressive, written outlet.

--

The play I wrote for TCTC has its dress rehearsal and staff watch tomorrow morning. I'm afraid of 11:00, an hour of reckoning, a litmus test, a group of people who know me but who don't know my play. People who don't read this blog. Co-workers, some with the power to decide whether I ever write for TCTC again.

I hope they laugh, I hope they cry, I hope they lose fifteen pounds.

--

Tomorrow is a big road-trip day. I'm going to a resort south of St. Louis to meet my family for Thanksgiving. Turkey Day.

When he was little, my dad's nickname was Turkey. He never climbed into an oven, no. Apparently the name comes from a game he and I both played when we were little. My mother called it "killing your enemies," and my grandmother called it "running around making funny noises." In my version of the game, I would reenact action sequences from cartoons and movies, leaping onto couches like I was hopping the tops of city buildings, pointing a garden-hose nozzle like it was a laser gun, imagining explosions that shattered my mother's Precious Moments figurines into dust and fritzed out my father's stereo with a shower of blue electric fingers, seeing scorchmarks and bullet holes appear in the white walls of our house while masked combatants sprayed ammunition at me, and on and on.

When my dad did it, I imagine the scenarios were much of the same. The sci-fi noises coming from his throat sounded to my grandmother like the warbling gobble of a turkey. Hence: "Stop running around, you little turkey."

--

I'm not afraid of turkeys.

Puppies

"We talked about literature and I was in heaven--also in a sweat from the spotlight he was giving me to bask in. Every book new to me I was sure he must have annotated with his reading pen long ago, yet his interest was pointedly in hearing my thoughts, not his own... Then there were the great novelists, whose spellbinding names I chanted as I laid my cross-cultural comparisons and brand-new eclectic enthusiasms at his feet--Zuckerman, with Lonoff, discussing Kafka: I couldn't quite get it, let alone get over it."

-- Philip Roth, in The Ghost Writer

--

I killed a lot of puppies today.

UrbanDictionary.com says the phrase, "killing puppies," either refers to smoking marijuana, or to asking a stupid question or giving a repetitive/stupid answer.

What I mean by the phrase is this: in writing, to get rid of something that you think is really good. That's not to say that the process of editing and cutting your own work down is a bad thing; in most cases, it's good. If it hurts you to highlight a section and hit delete, chances are the piece is now better than it was when it had accrued the extra baggage. What many writers consider their own genius, others consider extraneous, dull, and a form of literary masturbation.

A professor or high-school teacher of mine used the phrase, and I thought it was perfect. And I've continued to use it up to the present, when I say to you in the least flowery terms I can muster:

"I killed a lot of puppies today."

--

How?

Well, the play I wrote for ArtReach was running long. I hadn't budgeted enough time for the long songs and dance numbers, and when we timed it last week, it ran 1:06, an hour and six minutes. ArtReach guarantees a one-hour show and Q&A, and in general, that means a fifty-minute play.

Sixteen minutes (0:16) had to go.

And so, down the drain went the puppies. "Away!" I cried, with fingers flying over the keys. "Away with the joke about 'forgetting the forest and seeing the trees'! Away with thin comedic bits! Away with the heartwarming final scene where the moustachioed villain gives back the bags of money! Away, away, and away you go!"

(Or something like that.)

In a creative process of any kind, and especially in theatre, I believe you have to have at least one other person telling you which ideas are full-grown, healthy, Pedigree dogs, and which are diseased, runtish, awkward puppies. Children's stories like Charlotte's Web tell you to save the runts, but with the abstract goal of creating an ideal product, the runts have to die.

(Die, die, DIE! Away and away!)

And in many rehearsals, I think, the person with the most puppies is the director. With no one but a stage manager to kill them, these puppies continue to grow until, like a rash or boil, they are too large to be ignored. In this particular case, it's the opposite. I'm the playwright. I have loaded down my play with written-in puppies. The director is the one who has been asking me if it's okay to kill them.

All of these puppies have met their Maker, who has condemned them to oblivion. Adios, perros. So be it.

--

After all the cuts, we are down to fifty-two minutes. We did it. All's fair in love, war, and the massacre of small, metaphorical mammals.

And now, it's lunchtime.

Trumpet

"When rehearsing a Walker play, it's useful to raise the stakes higher than you imagine they could be and to increase constantly and mercilessly the size of the obstacles to understanding and communication among the actors. The more awesome the barrier, the greater the energy released to smash it and the more complete and desperate the emotional exposure. Intensify the desperation even more by removing cool intellect, by doing everything you can to nourish an instinctive response to the moment; free-fall through the words, do the unexpected, surprise each other, never let the bodies be a safe distance apart; make them too close or too far, but never leave them safe or settled. Discover by attempt, by ceaseless, active, breathless attempt. Do a scene over and over and over and over without pause until you work yourself into a thoughtless, lucid, present-tense fever, so that understanding comes from the gut, from living with the plays where they live, trusting to their extremity, taking a leap of faith across a bottomless emotional canyon, a leap justified by experience on the other side, experience inaccessible by creeping, incremental analysis. Set a punishingly swift pace and make the progress buoyant. Otherwise, the speech becomes considered, the bodies take a nap, the emotions hide away, the bravery is no more."

-- from Stephen Haff's "The Brave Comedy of Big Emotions: An Introduction" to Shared Anxiety, a collection of plays by George F. Walker, who wrote Zastrozzi

--

That description (above) of a rehearsal process sounds like heaven.

Which would mean that the current rehearsal process qualifies as earth, purgatory or hell. Take your pick.

--

Confrontation among co-workers is never pretty. Even uglier in theatre. Because the personal(ities?) and the business intertwine in a kind of Medusa headpiece, all vipers hissing at each other when the pressure is on.

--

I have returned, as I always do, to my refuge of books. A friend from last show's cast dropped by today with his new puppy and some gifts. Among those gifts was a paperback copy of my favorite E. B. White book, The Trumpet of the Swan.

I had to read the thing in sixth grade, right between The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. Loved it. If I get the chance, I may reread it tonight, between The Fantastic Toy Shoppe and Holiday Follies.

--

Back on track as far as the identity theft goes. Got a new driver's license and the other cards followed, and I've reverted to an older, torn wallet. New cards, old wallet. One in, one out.

My cubicle is a mess. Props for the holiday touring show have been my main assignment for the last week or so. There's a narrow trail from the entrance to my chair, and piles everywhere else. There's a pair of scissors on the floor. There are no longer scissors on my floor.

--

Have the third in a five-workshop series this evening at a local community center. Because we originally advertised that it was going to be taught by another TCTC staff teacher, who specializes in (among other things) teaching music and voice, the parents have begun to complain that they aren't getting what they paid for. Little me, in a room with six kids for an hour, and only acting exercises to show for it.

So: Today, I launch my new campaign to teach children how to sing and dance. In the remaining three classes. I feel unqualified despite qualifications--after all, my degree is in Theatre, not Music, and not Musical Theatre. I have three hours, over the next few weeks, to teach six kids at least one song, voicewise, dancewise. Nothing else for it.

Sometimes life is a test. To see how well you achieve goals beyond your grasp. To see how you perform without a script. Or how good you are at faking your own abilities.

Talk the walk.

--

In my little world of books, I can read about experimental theatre, post-apocalyptic survival, mute swans, and jungle doctors performing Frankenstein-esque operations on unsuspecting natives. It's a good little world.

Good little escape, too.

Banking

"Mr. Banker, Mister, please,
How much does money mean?
Won't you reconsider, Mister?
Won't you do this thing for me?"

-- Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Mr. Banker"

--

Opened a new account today at a regional bank. It's step #24 in my list of 3,000 things to do before I can feel secure again in my identity and finances.

My new Kentucky driver's license was a breeze to get. It's highlighter-green, and it won't expire for four years. When I'm carded and the other person can't find the birthdate, I may never again have to explain, "It's under the last A in Nebraska." Now, it's in red. At eye level. Below the other lines of red writing. Which is a harder explanation to give, but they're more used to the KY licenses around here, so it's kind of a moot point. I'm probably the only one who will have to look around the card until I find the information I want.

That's what I'm getting at: It's just a driver's license, not too different from the one I had but different enough, and as a result, it doesn't feel like mine. It feels like someone else's ID. I paid $20 for something that doesn't even belong to me.

Funny how one's self-image is affected by a piece of plastic.

--

Had a meeting about music this morning. Met with the director of the holiday touring show and the musician who wrote the score, and we went through my adapted script cue by cue, song by song, making decisions about what stayed, what had to go. It took about one minute per page, and there are 43 pages. We sat and played tracks that were recorded probably over a decade ago. I noticed a lot of flaws in the script from a structural, nuts-and-bolts point of view: cues unnoted, lyrics miswritten, and even one troubling moment where all four actors were onstage and there was no one backstage to hit Play.

I have fixed said flaws. I think.

Tomorrow is the first read-through and rehearsal, and since I'm once again in charge of finding/making props, I've got a nice little project ahead of me. My biggest and most important task is to find two puppets: a teapot and a jack-in-the-box.

I have no idea where they are.

--

My workshops have been going well. I've done the "Rough-Face Girl" workshop close to twenty times in the last two weeks, and I've got it down to a science. It's my favorite kind of workshop. We take an existing work of art--in this case, the book The Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin--and teach the children to duplicate it through some simple theatre exercises.

Here's how it breaks down. First, I read them the story of the Rough-Face Girl, an Algonquin Cinderella story. While I read, I ask them to act out certain moments while they remain seated. So for example, they pump their arms back and forth to simulate running. Then, we talk about the fairy tale and relate it back to the Cinderella story. (My favorite part about this discussion is when I write the name "Cinderella" on the board, and we dissect the word. The first part, "Cinder," refers to the soot that covered the girl's skin, and the "-ella" denotes beauty; quite literally, the name represents the character's journey from ugly to pretty.)

The second part of the workshop consists of the kids creating their own fairy tale using a madlib. They give three ideas for each category (good character's name, bad character's name, the setting, various verbs, a magical event, etc.) and then they vote. Once we have all the blanks filled, I read their fairy tale while they act it out, this time on their feet.

It's a huge hit (if I may say so myself). I certainly enjoy this one much more than the vague, social-conditioning workshops preferred by parochial schools in very rich or poor neighborhoods, the Bullying workshop, the Manners one, or the Self-Esteem one.

Give them something more concrete, and less vague, I say. Let's take works of art and imbue them with human life, through enacted experience. Theatre is the art that can combine all arts into itself; as such, we should use it whenever possible.

--

Especially at a time when I need the release and escape that only theatre can provide, when I need to appreciate the value of real life through the vitality of fake life, these workshops can be a godsend.

At the bank this morning, the accounts manager sat behind his desk and I saw he had silver cuff links at the ends of his sleeves. They were the size of Superbowl rings.

"Are you employed, Mr. Stewart?" he asked.

"Yes. I work at the Children's Theatre."

"Oh? And what do you do for them?"

I told him. When I had the unsettling feeling that I had talked for too long, I stopped.

"Sounds fun. And interesting." He continued typing, those silver cuff links hovering over the plastic keys (so many letters and numbers and words) like chrome-plated angels sitting silent sentry over a dark city filled with depressing, depressed buildings and towers; and I told him that at the end of a really rough day how nice it is to remember that I get paid to share my talent. He said, "That is pretty cool."

"Yes," I said. "It's pretty cool."

Piece

"Take a look ahead
Take a look ahead
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Woo!

Now everybody's got advice they just keep on giving
Doesn't mean too much to me
Lots of people have to make-believe they're living
Can't decide who they should be

I understand about indecision
But I don't care if I get behind
People living in competition
All I want is to have my piece of mind."

-- Boston, "Peace of Mind"

--

Just got some good news from the Kentucky DMV. The letter reached Nebraska; the DMV in Lincoln faxed over my driving record; I can have a photo ID again no later than 4:30pm, today.

It was a good phone call.

--

Getting a new driver's license is the first step on a long ladder back to Normalcy. Like so many things, you never realize how often you need a photo ID--even if only for your peace of mind--until you no longer have one. The same goes for significant others and food, I guess.

New cards are arriving in the mail every day. I used to sign my credit cards where it says "signature" on the back. Now, instead, I write: PHOTO ID REQUIRED.

The things we do for thieves.

--

Speaking of thieves: Just found out that some of my relatives have been stealing from other relatives for years. Cashing Social Security payments, forging checks, and on, and on. The great irony is that the victim in this story feels guilty for it. I suppose if some stranger steals your identity, you feel that it is a random occurrence, that it was merely a matter of time before it happened to you; but when a loved one does it, you are caught in a tempest of confusion, betrayal, guilt, and specialized, intense, focused anger. You know the person who did it. They know you, too. You are sitting in the same room, at the same table, and they have stolen your plate.

It's like humanity is all around me in a kind of cosmic luau, innocent-faced boogey-boos lined up in a chugging, dancing limbo line. One by one, my perceptions of folks are shot as more and more people demonstrate their baser selves: How low, how low, how low can you go?

--

The Covedale drama program's show this weekend went off without a hitch. I was relieved. When your budding reputation is in the hands of intrepid youngsters telling a story about haunted houses, witches, cheerleaders and magic necklaces, all you can do is dress nicely, make an awkward pre-show speech, and stand by the ghostlight backstage, smiling nervously as children panic at the prop table, tiptoe behind the black curtains, and flip furiously through their scripts to remember their cue lines.

And after, you smile as parents tell you that it was cute, that they were sure their little one had so much fun, and that you have done a good job. Cute, fun, and good job. You take what you can get.

No children ran terrified from the theatre screaming that they would never get in front of a group of people again. So basically, it was a success.

Bottled

"I do the best imitation of myself."

-- Ben Folds

--

Tuesday was my sister's twentieth birthday.

That night, my workplace was robbed--while a rehearsal was going on, while a bunch of kids were singing and dancing downstairs. Robbed: three laptops (including mine), some financial documents from upstairs, my leather coat (with wallet and keys in the pockets), and my briefcase.

In the briefcase: library books, the laptop, my checkbook, my passport.

Life. It happened.

--

So I'm back to square one. I don't want to go into angsty specifics, but let's just say I've been very conscientious about speed limits for the last few days.

Until a very important piece of mail arrives, I am powerless even to obtain temporary papers for this hiatus, these absurd doldrums, in which I find myself stranded: a shipwreck survivor waiting for the message in a bottle to float in on the tide, unable to send one.

Having no form of photo ID, I feel like a no-man, a non-entity making my way through the public places of the world where people don't ask questions and don't care who you are. Sidewalks, parks, parking lots. I feel safe in my apartment, where I can brew tea and watch movies. I feel nervous leaving my car anywhere, knowing Someone has a key, has a keyless entry remote, could be cruising around with their thumb on the unlock button. Listening for that tell-tale honk. Watching for the tell-tale beacon.

Nothing like identity theft to make a person hate bureaucracy, too. My desk is covered with Post-It squares in a loose flow-chart, first This Form, then That One, before I can go to That Office and get This Card, and so on...

--

What's the point of paying for insurance that provides no assurance as well?

The insurance company is trying to weasel out of covering the personal items that were stolen. Including my ID cards. And the cost of basically everything.

I am an actor. I was at rehearsal. I was working, at my workplace. As such, I ought to be covered by my workplace's insurance. Yes?

Fuck that, apparently.

Fuck them, too.