Partiers L to R: Toni, Leah, Rob & ScollardWe were up late for Bad Epitaph's CARNIVAL Benefit. I had to drive Heather all the way back to her place in western Lakewood, I was in bed by three and up again by ten to get to the brewery by noon. I was tired. And I was there to help everyone tear down the benefit.
Two and a half hours later I was rushing downtown for what? For the event, the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the end of the Gulf War, of the "liberation of Kuwait." Two weeks earlier John Campbell (I still don't know his rank) also known as "Leah's vet" invited all of us. I knew Leah would be there, she was supposed to get an award or something, or so she had told me though it was supposed to be a secret. I assumed no one else from the show would show up, but who knows?
The Naval Reserve Center, where the event was to be held was on "East Ninth across from the Rock Hall" -- little did I know that was exactly where it was, a completely unnoticeable building down there by the harbor. I had parked way up a Lakeside and though it was unseasonably warm (61 degrees said the billboard on the stadium) it was so windy.
Just across I-90 this guy is on the off-ramp at the light in an I-Roc, he rolls down the window, "Hey!"
"Yeah?" I ask, but miss his question, it's blown away on the wind. I get closer.
"What?"
"Where's the Rock Hall?" he asks.
I swing my arm behind me and point at the extremely odd-looking glass pyramid that stands out against the sky like the world renown building that it is.
"That's the Rock Hall," I shout.
When I walk through the doors of the Naval Center, I am wind-whipped and nervous. A man in cammos waiting at the door doesn't even ask what I am there for, he tells me "downstairs, end of the hall." So that's where I go.
It's a long narrow hall, I have to go through a few doors and it actually gets quieter not louder so I don't know if I have passed it or what. At the end of the hall there are cadets, at least six deep, on either side of the hall.
As I approach the first (perhaps to ask - is this the room?) they all snap to attention and salute. I actually jumped back. The one on the end smirked. I didn't know what to do. At the end of them I see Campbell, waving me forward. He's got a big smile on his face. "Don't be scared," he said.
I walked through, nodding deferentially at the cadets. Freaky.
Leah and her parents are right there, in the front row and they make room for me. I am still freaked. We are the only two of the cast who come.
Campbell apparently organized this chapter of Gulf vets, and they seem to love him a great deal. A lot of awards were handed out, he put together most of them though a few were from others to him, and he was noticeably surprised and choked up. I already knew from Leah's work that he is quite an emotionally connected man.
I finally see him bring up an award that had a copy of "The Gulf" program in it. He talks to these people, this room full of veterans, cadets, parents of soldiers who died in Saudi Arabia, journalists, about our little play. About these teenagers and young adults, who searched their hearts, asked difficult questions, wrote short plays and put on a show about their war. We remembered what they had done.
Then he asked me to join him at the podium. I was very surprised.
I walked up, he thanked me, I cannot remember what he said (he, of course, made a joke about my looking like Dr. Green) and gave me an award, a frame with a black, cloth background -- the program, a U.S. flag patch, a commemorative stamp, a Gulf War medal with the state of Kuwait on it -- and the caduceus, the symbol of medicine, the symbol of healing. I thanked him. I took the plaque. I sat down.
Leah was honored next, she received the plaque and an American flag.
We were the only two people who were not affiliated with the military or politics who were honored that day. And I have conflicted feelings. I am proud, and I feel so strange about where I came to be honored by a veterans group. I protested this war. I set out the produce a play that condemned this war as a cynical exercise. I bristled at plays called "Patriotism" and plays that went out of their way to vilify Saddam Hussein. And yet something honest came through, so honest that even those who might be offended by its candor, by its questioning, by its refusal to accept the line as it has been handed down, saw what was real, and special about this work.
I don' know what to think about it. I didn't know what to say -- others had given speeches and I didn't thank I would have if I had been ready for it. It was all said in the play.
The Wayward AngelThings are hectic, at least they are in my head. But they are more enjoyable than they have been. I thought they might, hoped they might, once the Christmas shows opened. The Santaland benefit has passed, The Wayward Angel has actually come off well, it is December.
Toni is at writers' group. I sit in my bathrobe, writing here, thinking of what to do next. I have all day. I will no doubt clean up a little, maybe make the downstairs a Christmas place, that would be great.
I had double-booked myself yesterday, working Wayward in the afternoon and Santaland at night. I got a sub for myself at the evening show because Toni wanted me at home. She needed to do homework, but she wanted me at home. I wanted to be home, too. So I was home. I made dinner. She couldn't eat, but we sit together.
Me and Nick in a promotional photo for Cloud 9Now that "Cloud 9" has opened and I have a little breathing space, I am trying to be a better househusband. Toni goes off for such long days, I need to make sure more and better food is in her bag. She is ill from time to time (she has a little cold right now -- what does that mean?!) but she is also doing a hellish amount of work. I am very proud of her.
How chilly this morning. Had the heat turned on a week or so ago, but we both smelled what we thought was the faint odor of gas ... but only around the stairwell. In any case the weather has been mild, but no longer.
I have been working overtime on "Cloud 9" and deserve a break, my traditional break. Last year, after Sin opened I think I went to the zoo and got very depressed. I can't decide whether to go to the Rainforest or the art museum.
I also need to rake the leaves.
Last October, as Roger began directing 'Compleat Works', he shared with me some ingiht into his anxiety about the project. We had just opened 'Sin" at Bad Epitaph, and there he was, with me and Nick and Al, Don McBride, and he was panicked - how would we do this show? How could he get everything done? There wasn't time for this!
And then he stepped back and realized he was still in Tech Week from 'Sin.' This show wasn't about to open, we had some five weeks to get it done. Five weeks is a long time to get anything done.
I have been in Tech Week for months now, and I do not know how to get out of it.
I suppose a great deal of this has to do with my actually fulfilling the promises I made to myself years ago. I have my own company, and all the stress that comes with (how do I produce an entire season right now, during Tech Week?) Or that I have a part-time job doing web design for the ACLU (I work five hours a day there, but they can't expect me to charge their entire website during Tech Week!)
And the baby. We are trying to get pregnant. And she's going to have a baby tomorrow. Because it is Tech Week. And the house isn't ready for a baby yet.
Nine months is a long time to accomplish anything. Tech Week isn't.
I am wearing a sweater Toni picked out for me from land's End. It's cozy, warm, a nice, homely cotton sweater. In green. I used to hate green. When the baby comes we will paint one of these rooms green for it.
