Stuck

There are a number of swirling emotions in our home right now, which is normal for the second week of March. "When is it going to stop being wintertime?" Z. asks, again. She had been asking this once a day for a couple of weeks, the past few days representing a freakish respite from snow and whithering cold.

"It will stop being winter next Tuesday," I tell her, "that's the first day of spring." But I also warn her, "it will still be cold."

Seasons hold meaning to all living things, the calendar only belongs to us. And so it is with no amount of real significance to anyone except us (the personal us this time, not the all-inclusive us) that March 20 falls on a Tuesday, for the first time since 2001.

Monday was the routine check-up, Tuesday was his birthday.

Two days ago I spent the afternoon with Number 3. The Boy. The One Who Lived, and continues to do so despite own mutual attempts to smash his head to pieces (not to mention a particularly grisly dream I had the other night which I won't go into here.)

We were in the backyard, he wanted to play with the rakes, so we were scraping up all the leaves from the Magnolia which I missed last fall. We also took up a lot of dead grass.

I have lived in the same house since 1993. I only met the backyard in 2001. We cancelled the lawn service, primarily as a cost-cutting measure, but it put me back there, with a new, manual lawn-mower. Toni worked in the garden, we got a bench, I pulled weeds, it was part of the plan, whatever it took to take control of something, anything.

And though I had this hot little toddler in my hands, helping him put the ball in the basket (over and over and over again) the rich smell of rotten grass, the dust from the garage, the sun on my head, the breeze, it was all 2001, all over again.

"Just another victim ..."

Shame on me. Thoughtless. I try not to post without editing but that was dumb. Obviously it has been sticking with me for months.

We're all victims of something, and I guess it's what you do with your personal hell that defines you. For some actions are very personal, they work on the family-level, the spiritual level. I have a tendency to broadcast and I can't help that. I have been doing it since before I could remember, since I could type or learned to use the cassette recorder.

I recently re-read I, Trissyby Norma Fox Mazer (a startling, eye-opening book from my fifth grade year, just behind Bridge to Terabithiawhich it seems Disney is geared to entirely f*ck up) which exposed me not only to the horrors of divorce, about which I was ignorant. Of course, my two best friends' parents had split a few years earlier, but it took a book to know what they were going through.

It also had the effect of making me feel I had the right to type anything I felt like, any way I felt like, the right to say whatever I felt about anyone, even people I care about. I should have used Harriet the Spyas my bible, I may have learned a tip or two about discretion.

All these books are about intelligent, independent girls. Hmn.

Lately I have fallen in to a sizeable malaise. Blame the weather, everyone's health (but mine) the fact that I am "between projects," what have you. It has gotten me running again, at any rate. Rehearsals for THE TEMPEST begin on Tuesday, we'll see where that takes me.

A great deal of effluvia has been seeping through my brain over actions of the past seven years. A seven-year stink? How odd. But seriously, a rush of images and songs have been coming at me from Year 2000 to the present. And part of that (though not all) tie in to the boy, and where his existence has taken me, has taken us.

I could not sit still and just feel these things, I had to write about them, and having written about them, I had to share them, and having shared them, I needed to broadcast them as far as possible. This used to mean the ends of the living room. Now they go a bit farther.

I have three gigs coming up in the next few months. This spring will take us to a performance here in town, and a week or so later we should be traveling to Louisville, KY. And then ten days in Britain - the schuled is embryonic, but this time in June I may be performing I HATE THIS in London, Cornwall, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Never been to most of those places.

But again, this reflection on the past seven years. It all made me sad. Made me feel old. I have always said I enjoy perfomring this play because it keeps me close to Calvin.

I am beginning to worry that it is keeping me trapped in 2001.

As the present conflicts so harshly with that past, I have begun to rethink the show, and whether or not I should continue presenting it. The mission is still important, and so, frankly, is the money. But I've never really thought of what it has done to me, and whether or not I need to take a break, and permanently.

I had thought all of these things through last week, when I got this email:

Hello David,
(Our mutual friend) mentioned your play to me in our playwrights' group and I listened to the (radio) version. I think it would be great for med students at Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx University or the general support group. I am in the Dept of Bioethics and Humanities at XXU. What would it take to bring you here?
Xxxx Xxxxxx MD

And so I told him what it would take. Because I can't let go.

Notes from the Fringe: Day Two

I got blisters on my feet.

photo: Brian and I outside The Next Stage

Brian and I had a big day planned ... if not an interesting one. We were going to walk all over the West Village and drop postcards and put up posters, and in fact, that's just what we did.

First, however, we had breakfast with Harris and Liz closer to home base. Man. I like New York City diners, but EJ's is just way too cramped and far too air conditioned. I could barely stir my coffee.

Now ... when I am usually in NYC, Toni is my brain. It's her city, I began visiting this place to be with her, and we have returned many times since she moved to Cleveland. So I would just follow - I always knew where I was going, because a was with her.

So as we started, I was treating Brian like Toni. Where are we headed? Which way are we going? Where the hell are we? I don't know if it was bothering him, but it was frustrating the hell out of me.

But we did get an awful lot of area covered. And I heard this evening one other fringe artist compliment our work getting the word out. This is good.

However, Brian left me to have a cookout in Queens with some people he had only met through an online chat room, and not in real life. Yes, I told him that sounded kind of creepy. But it left me all alone, beginning at around 2 in the afternoon.

And the moment he headed up the street, I felt a sensation I had not felt in a very long time. I was alone. And I had nothing to do.

I have spent about three months of my life living alone. And my days are usually dictated by work, theater, or family. I know what I need to do, and I know where I am supposed to be.

And now I ... I was supposed to ... uh ... postcards. Posters. West Village. Where the hell am I? Which way am I going? What am I doing?

I did cover more ground. But I was going in circles, constantly surprised by what was around the corner. Wait - Bleeker is parallel to West 3rd ... right? And so is Sullivan. No, it's not, damn.

I could always keep an eye out for Washington Square Park - where I caught (part of) my first show of the day, something after my own heart. AMERICAN OLIGOPOLY is old fashioned, broad, unapologetic, agit-prop street theater. A semi-improvised, jumbo-sized Monopoly board (Guerrilla Theater Co. die-hards take note) where there is a "Liberal" team and a "Conservative" team, and audience volunteers and they roll huge dice - and I will leave it to you who wins and who loses this game. Played in THE VILLAGE.

This did little, inspite of everything, to change my mood, and so, on my next past through Houston and up, uh, Sullivan (I think) I promosed myself sushi at the next available stop.

I ate raw fish, I studied a map, I drank a beer. I emerged a changed man.

And then I saw another play. And what a play.

THE ADAMS CONGLOMERATE HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA CLUB PRESENTS: TALES OF THE EIGHTH GRADE!! is pretty damn funny. It claims to be based on an actual book written by an actual eighth grader in the year 1987. Having read countless middle school and high school plays for the kids' fest at Dobama, I don't believe it's a hoax. The four girls in the show get into ridiculous, life-threatening situtations that involve rape and cigarettes and kidnapping and everyone is okay at the end.

The actors are all incredible, they really go all the way with their "bad" acting. If anything it, like Queer Theory suffer from lack of editing, but it was a hoot.

As someone who was a teenager in the 80s (these actors were not) I was amused by some of the costume choices. I mean, by 1987 no one was doing to off-the-shoulder Jennifer Beals thing, or wearing a Pat Benetar headband. Puh-leez.

Stepping out of the theater, I had a real emotional treat. I ran into this guy (I am not at liberty to share his name, for reasons that will become apparent) who was doing an awesome job of pushing his show on people, he had a really great, loud patter.

I took his card, and gave him one of my cards.

"Oh," he said, "ah, yes - I have seen, uh ... I shouldn't be telling you this. Yes." He was awfully flustered. "I have seen your show."

"What?"

"I saw the video," he said.

"What? How? It's a really crappy video."

"I shouldn't tell you ... I am on the screening committee for the Fringe - I am not on the selection committee, I am not saying that, but I am one of the first screeners, and it's a great show."

"Oh! Wow. Hey, thank you!"

"Yes," he said, "it made me cry."

Amazing.

But I was still on my own. Brian wouldn't be back for some time and I hadn't heard from Kelly. And so I headed east, not knowing where I was going, but knowing I had had enough of the West Village for the afternoon.

And I continued east, dropping of cards and posters. And further east, and into the East Village. And I knew where I was going. I was going to find the Present Theatorium.

When Toni's play, ANGST:84 was presented here three years ago, the Fringe was concentrated in the East Village. And her play was produced in the home of the producing company, the Present Company. I was unaware of the fact that they had left that space on Stanton Street.

And I walked, for over a half-hour. And I did not use a map. I knew just where I was going. And I found it, all gated up, unused for what they tell me is several years. I peeked through the garage doors into what used to be Fringe Central, which was an open courtyard. It was wildly overgrown with weeds.

I am a creature of nostalgia. It was a difficult year that year, but I have a great deal of fond memories of the '01 Fringe. And this time it's very different, it would have to be. It's just me on stage. The subject matter is very, very different. No teenagers, or Dan Kilbane, to chaperone. And no Toni.

I guess I just needed to return to the scene of the crime. To see the body.

Just then Kelly called - and that was that for the East Village. She and her friend Sam, who she is staying with, were going to try and see HARVEY FINKLESTEIN'S SOCK PUPPET 'SHOWGRILS' and would I like to join them? I jumped a bus, walked lots of blocks and found that the show was oversold, so instead we went to Chumley's and enjoyed possible the best fish and chips I have ever eaten, ever. And, yes, a martini. And for the first time since I arrived, I was feeling relaxed.

Sam told a good story, too. Apparently she was a student at the All-Ohio Thespian Conference in 1994 when Guerrilla Theater Co. conducted a class there. And you know, she was looking for proof then that theater could be relevant and important and actually say something ... and apparrently that's something we accomplished. It was a big surprise to hear that - my memories of that period in my life are pretty dark. I was grateful to know my life wasn't as worthless then as I thought it was.

photo: Chicks with Vespas in the East Village

The evening concluded with GORK! THE RETARD ALWAYS WINS back at The Next Stage. Wow. Autumn Terrill is my new hero. I have been largely enjoying the shows I have been seeing here, but she revived my faith that Fringe can be truly astonishing and transcendent. And just ... well, gee whiz, she's just a powerhouse.

She tells the story of the her life with her ...well ... retarded brother. With humor, with love, and with a really big voice. It's the first solo show I have seen this time out, and it's a challenge I hope I can live up to.