Category: Angst

Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.

March 6, 2003 /

I kind of forgot to mention this, but I’m in Virginia. SETC again, and the 24-Hour Playfest again, and I’ve just finished the third draft of my play, which is pretty close to final. I’m an hour early, which may mean that (end-of-the-world joke of your choice).

I’ve got enough caffeine in me to power a small country for a week, so I need to be doing something or I’ll be fidgeting and bothering the senior playwright who’s going over my piece right now: thus the entry. I’m as nervous as I was last year, because there’s no safety net. Doing comedy is hard, but writing tragedy is harder, and I think I wrote a tragedy. Or at least something that hurts.

Tony called me out last year for only writing comedy; he said he thought I had it in me to write deeper, darker stuff. I don’t believe my comedies have any less depth just because their tone is different, but the challenge irked me anyway. They do that. So this year I wrote something with a bite to it. It’s the play I couldn’t write fall term, and if you were around you know what that means, and if you read the play you might figure it out.

Or you might not. I have to edit now, I think. I don’t want the ending to feel tagged on, especially because it wasn’t.

February 24, 2003 /

Louisville: Hands cuffed behind his back, fifty years old, two white cops, one black man, twelve bullets, and you know, I can’t stand it when people get uppity over every little thing, honestly, but what? What?

February 14, 2003 /

I’m so tired it should be visible: there should be waves of it rising off me, distorting the air like our old wood-burning stove.

Last night was the second and last public performance of The Laramie Project. The Fellowship of One, the group of (mostly, and oddly, black) local pastors who have been trying to stop us from doing the play at the high school, were in attendance. They’ve never been uncivil, but their arguments at such venues as the DHS parents’ meeting have consisted mostly of things like

Pastor: The play promotes a homosexual lifestyle.
Teacher: The play doesn’t promote any such thing. It shows viewpoints from all sides, including Christian values like mercy and forgiveness, and it shows what happens to people when a crime forces them to confront the issue of prejudice in their community. This is why we’re teaching it as part of our curriculum during Black History Month.
Pastor: The play promotes a homosexual lifestyle!

Last night, they left after the second act. Jeff, our director, ran out after them and asked what they’d thought of the show. Only one of them would speak to him, but what he said was

“This is a play about not hating people. You’ve made your point.”

We did it. We did it right.

Exhaustion, and triumph, and a ring around the moon.

February 12, 2003 /

Collective effervescence.

We’ve started the play, and it’s perfect, raw, gorgeous, exactly everything we wanted it to be.

Afterwards, I walked to the gas station to buy more caffeine (the presentation has yet to be done). I had a flower in my backpack from Deb, and was listening to a Duncan Sheik song, of all things, and I could see the whole scope of it: how last year was home, and this year is setting out away from it. How and why I’ve done what I’ve done, here. How this is the biggest year I’ve ever lived.

January 8, 2003 /

I’m living in a small apartment with some of my best friends, apprenticed in a trade I find fascinating, dating an amazing girl, working with a dream cast on a play that really excites me and playing in one of my favorite bands. It occurs to me that these are probably the best days of my life.

December 24, 2002 /

I wimped out on the Christmas lights this year–I got them on the tree, on the front hedge, and onthe giant mutant tree next to the driveway, but there they stop. Nothing like the usual electricity ‘n’ frustricity extravaganza, which involves between eight and twelve trees, lots of long extension cords and lots of short tempers. I don’t miss the aggravation, even if I do miss the look of the place.

But the lights are up, the oyster stew is downed, the comic is done and it’s only an hour and a half until midnight Mass. Christmas snuck up on me this year; I did all my shopping in two days, but that actually worked out pretty well. I’ve even conditioned myself well enough so that spending as much money as I did, even on other people, made me vaguely sick. Three cheers for my misguided conscience! If all goes well (and by “well” I mean “to grad school“), this time next year I won’t have a penny to my name, so I guess I should enjoy it now.

Audrey made me a quilt. Like a real quilt, and it’s incredibly warm and comfy. For the record, I’m in love.

November 20, 2002 /

I put a lot of my daily recorded life into correspondence with Audrey now, which means that I don’t write as much of it in here–partly because the urge to journal is satisfied, and partly because I’d feel guilty just writing the same things twice. I’ll try to make up for that soon; I think it’ll help once I (finally) write a backend interface for this thing so I don’t have to upload and update the SQL manually.

As seen camwise, I got Drew’s (old new) CD today, and what I’ve heard so far is shockingly good. I’ve mentioned his music in here before, and I always liked the cheesy low-quality mp3s from his old site, but the CD is high-res, listenable indie pop music. It’s kind of like a combination of the Flaming Lips and Rhythm Method. (What you say? You haven’t heard of Rhythm Method? Of course you haven’t! That’s part of the PLAN!)

Working backwards in time, the play is over and I have my evenings to myself again, which is as always a strange feeling. I’ll get back to my lazy habits soon enough, I’m sure, but right now I feel obligated to work from 7-10:00 out of sheer habit.

The final two shows were much better than Thursday and at least as good as Wednesday, and I came away from the end of the play so satisfied with what we’d done that I decided not to try out for the spring play. It’s going to be amazing, I know–it’s Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and it’s Patrick at the helm, so it’d be excitingly mad even if he weren’t adding enormous puppets and masks. Part of me regrets that Iwon’t be able to work under Patrick as an actor–it’s a hell of an experience–but I won’t act on that stage again. I had my time in the spot and I’m out. I’m really just looking forward to watching the show.

That pretty much brings us up to date. Anybody want a Swiss Cake Roll?

November 4, 2002 /

Emily R kind of got lost and I was worried she’d be the second Fifth Street shooting victim, but allturned out well even though I didn’t get to see her. I didn’t have to build a set, but I did spend an awful lot of time taking clothes off and putting them on in different configurations.

And the dance was in the dining hall, of course, and the punch was bad, and the band was awful, and it was the most fun ever. This would have been about the best weekend ever, actually, if it hadn’t been for the Emily panic (which was not her fault) and another situation that came up with some mutual friends and a mutual not-so-friend (which is his fault) and made Sunday night suck a little.

But, y’know. Audrey.

Speaking of which, cam = best mullet yet!

Today I have spent a lot of time investigating and applying and not doing my homework. In this, it seems, I have something in common with ETS:

  • “Complete the Authorization Voucher Request Form found in the Bulletin.
  • Mail the fee and voucher request form in the CBT envelope to the address printed on thevoucher.”

A curious proposition, to say the least, as I’m filling out the voucher request to get a voucher. These are the people who wrote the tests that will determine whether I’m allowed into gradschool! Trust!

(I can’t believe I’m linking to “Wonderwall”)