Broken Bones

So, just got the word...

My brother's had ANOTHER cycling accident. Something like four years to the date, my brother, once again, cycling down in Florida, goes down on his bike. And he is an excellent cyclist, neither accident was his fault. So, clearly, he should be thinking about avoiding Florida in the future.

Stay in Chicago! That's what we all say, don't we?

Anyway, so he's just gotten out of surgery for a compound fracture of his femur, and while he's doing well, he's now going to have to deal with the stigma of setting off every single metal detecter at every airport from now until forever.

I supposed there are worse things. Like a head injury or a spine injury...or just not having any legs to break in the first place, but still...

How grateful am I today that I have, not only two working legs, but a phone (two in fact) with which I can call my mother and let her know I love her, as well as send my sister-in-law texts with funny phrases and jokes (Monty Python's a favorite) to ease her undoubtedly frazzled disbelieving brain.

And, when the time comes, and my brother's had a sufficient amount of valium, I will call him and listen and love and make fun of him just a little bit for being in Florida. Again.

Round and round we go, where it stops, or crashes, nobody knows.

A

The Malcontent

So, I'm doing this play, and by "doing" I mean acting not writing. I understand there has been confusion before on that front. Anyway, I'm in rehearsals and we're basically just sitting around a table working out what everything means, what's going on in the plot, etc. And these sessions, for those of you that don't know, can take HOURS, especially when trying to dissect a Jacobean piece such as this one. It was confusing back in the day, so 400 years later, one can only imagine...

But I'm sitting listening to the script and to everyone talk about what this and that means, and tossing back and forth ideas about how to make everything clear to the audience, how to best communicate the characters' journeys and arcs, and it occurs to me, there here we all are. Just sitting in a room, talking about a play and its performance, and everyone, and I mean, everyone, has the same goal.

Through all our different perceptions and methods, in the midst of all our different histories and biases, the solution that we're looking for is the same. A story told well. And it occurs to me, that when a gaggle of people are in the middle of that search, they are at their finest. Despite the arguments and challenges and tempers, when seeking a common outcome, a common solution, all our crazy individual silliness suddenly has a purpose.

A group of people, sharing their thoughts, their true selves, in order to make something of beauty...well, it seems to me, that's a situation where you'd have to work really hard to be...a malcontent.

See what I did there? We open early May. Check out the website, www.antaeus.org

More to come...
A

Here We Go Again

So, I'm in between shows. Again. Although, not really. As the last one just closed two Sundays ago, and this next one starts...ugh, tomorrow. Not ugh, just...argh. No. Not argh, just...wow. Seriously. Wow.

When did I get this busy? It seems like I've always been this busy. I remember wishing I had a day planner when I was in 3rd Grade. But it has occurred to me perhaps I LIKE to be this busy. If I did actually find some acceptance of that fact, perhaps I might actually be able to NOT constantly berate myself for "being so busy"!

Because, seriously, I love participating, I love being a part of, I love meeting new people who do what I do. And, seriously, you just never know. What's going to happen when you walk into a new place. When you go from playing Barack Obama's Mother in a one-woman show, to playing Maria, the banished Duke's wife who only appears in Act V of a Jacobean Comedy in a cast of many...

You just never know. And I don't want to. No spoiler alerts for this grateful lady. So, off to the first rehearsal of The Malcontent with Antaeus tomorrow night. And in between that and the dayjob...did I mention I'm finishing up a screenplay? Sigh...