I Hate This Blog

Julie

For two years, I have feared Julie.

As a subject in my play, Julie’s reaction has always been the one I have been most concerned about – more than I was of Henrik’s. This is because there is more of Julie than Henrik in I HATE THIS … but that, it would appear upon further reflection, probably has something to do with it. But I digress.

When I originally wrote the play, in mid-2002, I knew I would need to let her know she would be included, and by name, and perhaps in a not-too flattering manner.

When did I let her know? On August 26, 2002, the day of the very first staged reading.

It should be noted, more to my shame, that I was so concerned about how she would react to this news that I was blithely ignorant of the fact that the day before her daughter Alexandra had had her first birthday. And I plainly state the date of her birth in the play.

Julie took it in stride. She is used to being the subject of my writing. I neglected, however, to actually share the script with her.

Now, as a matter of great coincidence, Nick was at a New Year’s party thrown by a mutual friend of theirs – Nick and Julie’s. When they met, and he figured out who she was, in typical Nick fashion, his head exploded. Nick now has the unique experience of having met pretty much everyone in the play. After meeting Julie, Nick admonished me for not having shown her the play yet, and instructing me to do as soon as possible.

I waited until May.

And now she has read the script. I phoned her a short while ago. She praised the play, and was not offended. When I said I was performing it in Cleveland in August, she immediately started thinking of how she could bring the kids and manage to see it.

In college I wrote a comic strip. Julie says that while we were dating, she learned more about our relationship through that than from talking to me.

Along those lines, she was flattered at how much attention I had given her in what is such an important story to me.