Cleveland Public Theatre Announces 10-11 Season

I Hate This and And Then You Die in repertory by David Hansen
Directed by Alison Garrigan
Storefront Studio
April 7 - 23

David Hansen performs his two award winning solo shows in rep. One is an exploration of personal loss and recovery, while the other is about obsession and victory. Both shows were developed in CPT's Big [Box] and have gone on to successful runs at the New York Fringe.

CPT's Entire 2010-11 Season

Spring 2011

"Applause" (2006)

The Final Performance

... and you missed it. My last live performance of I HATE THIS was Friday, June 22, 2007 in Plymouth, England. A large hall, an intimate crowd, an anti-climactic end to this important work.

I have been in negotiations with certain people about presenting it one more time in Cleveland Heights. This would have been nice if only because there has not been a public performance of the show in four years. And oddly enough, in the last week two different individuals have asked if there are any upcoming performances, or if the show is available on video (it's not, it won't be.)

But when I think of putting it all together one more time, I can't imagine it. It makes me tired. It fills me with dread. I don't want Calvin's play to fill me with dread. It's not the fear of plunging back into these feelings, of ripping open scabs, but rather the horror of playing, of impersonating, of not keeping it real. I have never done that before, and I don't want to risk it ever happening, ever.

I'm done. It took a year to make that decision, but it's made. The show still exists as a radio drama. The WCPN link is down, but WBEZ still has it archived here. And you can buy the script from SANDS UK.

I'm leaving the blog up, there's too much history here, but I won't be posting on it anymore. If you must must must know what's going on in Dave's head, you'll just have to check out my running blog and my cartoon blog.

Thank you. For everything.

P.S. Happy Father's Day.

Boxes

For a little over five years, I have been collecting things that have to do with this show I wrote called I Hate This. I just dropped them into a box in my office, "to be filed later."

It's "later".

There are, or were, two boxes, overflowing with script drafts, programs, posters, postcards, letters, articles, newsletters, photographs, and more. The first box was filled after the New York Fringe in 2004, the other this past year.


invitation to the staged reading, 2002

There's another box, too, set high on a shelf in our hallway, the one we bought in 2001 at the art museum. That one was for all the things we had collected of Calvin's. They needed a place to go once we were through having them sit around what was to be his nursery. Zelda has expressed interest in it in the past, and we had no time to go through it last March 20, much to Toni's chagrin. I want to make sure we can open it and look inside next week.


much too late "apology" from Gerber, 2003
(click on to enlarge)

As for the FIle box I am putting together now, it is breathtaking. I had forgotten some of these items. It brought a sense of nostalgia to touch the small, ticket-sized flyers we used in Minneapolis and NYC. The most startling thing was how neatly the two boxes were divided. The 2002-2004 box has been in the attic, out of the way. The 2005-2007 box has been in my office where I glance at it all the time.


letter from Sherrod Brown following Writers & Their Friends reading, 2004
(click on to enlarge)

The newer box is about SANDS UK, medical conferences, perinatal bereavement organizations. The older one is about theater festivals. That box is about crafting, presenting, promoting a theater piece. The newer box is about using what I had made to help others.

I think I can condense both boxes into one. I don't need 100 extra flyers from each performance, or all the posters and programs. Maybe a dozen or two. I can save pages from newspapers, not entire papers. What I don't know is where I will put the whole thing when I am through with it.

Am I through with it?

Chalk

We received an unsigned package today, addressed to "Calvin Thayer Hansen." Inside? 12 sticks of colored chalk.









Thank you, whoever you are.

Seven? * Sigh *

Viktor Schreckengost

Thanks for adding so much beauty to our part of the world.

The World Without Us (book)

From The World Without Us by Alan Weisman:

Les Knight is the founder of VHMET - the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement - is thoughtful, soft-spoken, and quite serious.

"Suppose ... that one virus that would truly be effective strikes, and all human sperm loses viability. The first to notice would be crisis-pregnancy centers, because no one would be coming in. Happily, in a few months abortion providers would be out of business. It would be tragic for people who kept trying to conceive. But in five years, there would be no more children under five dying horribly."

The lot of all living children would improve, he says, as they became more valuable rather than more disposable. No orphan would go unadopted.

"In 21 years, there would be, by definition, no juvenile delinquency." By then, as resignation sinks in, Knight predicts that spiritual awakening would replace panic, because of a dawning realization that as human life drew toward a close, it was improving. There would be more than enough to eat, resources would be plentiful, including water, The seas would replenish. Because new housing wouldn't be necessary, so would forests and wetlands.

"With no more resource conflicts, I doubt we'd be wasting each other's lives in combat. Like retired business executives who suddenly find serenity by tending a garden, Knight envisions us spending our remaining time helping rid an increasingly natural world of unsightly and now useless clutter, in pursuit of which we'd once swapped something alive and lovely.

"The last humans could enjoy their final sunsets peacefully, knowing they have returned the planet as close as possible to the Garden of Eden."

"Children of Men" (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón, director

Now, I know that's a lot to dump here out of context. The book I took that from is one I am enjoying, if you can call it that, one which postulates in a number of ways how the planet would respond if humans suddenly, one day and for no particular reason, either ceased to exist or simply dropped dead. So it is a book filled with all types of extreme theories about how resilient, or not, nature truly is to our overwhelming effect on it.

And yet, in spite of spectacular descriptions of New York City reverting to a wildness or my house disintegrating (in detail) I found the previous passage to be the most disturbingly shocking idea in the entire book, and the stupidest, least intuitive or well-reasoned concept I have been exposed to in some time.

"It would be tragic for people who kept trying to conceive."

You think? And by "people" Knight seems to suggest there would only be a few of them, people who can't see reason, and keep trying.

"But in five years, there would be no more children under five dying horribly."

 Oh well, I can certainly understand — buh,what?! That's like the joke about the guy who dies and his doctor tells the family that at least his condition has stabilized.

But of course, Knight's point is that humans are nothing special. I'm an open-minded guy. Maybe we aren't. But his theory, like a lot of collective society theories, assume everyone thinks the exact same way, and want the exact same things. 

When would resignation sink in, exactly? Ever? Those people who can't accept human extinction, which is to say most of them, won't go away, leaving behind those few who are okay with it. And wars aren't always started for "good" reasons (like resources) but sometimes for hateful and murderous reasons.

Maybe it's because I'm such a fan of the movie Children of Men which suggests a human race on the brink would be morose, helpless and vicious, and nothing like peaceful "retired business executives."

I mean, wasn't everyone who started the Iraq War a retired business executive? Honestly.

(Oh, Happy Thanksgiving.)

UPDATE: Playhouse Square presents the premiere of the video adaptation of "I Hate This (A Play Without the Baby)" by David Hansen, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and performed by James Alexander Rankin, in the Westfield Studio Theatre on Saturday, October 15, 2022. 

Coping with pregnancy loss

Cleveland Jewish News, September 27, 2007

Ernest Hemingway once boasted he could write a novel that was only six words long. Asked to prove it, he took a napkin and wrote, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

The anecdote may be apocryphal, but the sentiment speaks volumes about pregnancy loss, an emotionally devastating phenomenon that afflicts hundreds of thousands of American women yearly.

These are Clevelanders’ stories ... (more)

Everything for his boys.

While at college (ironically enough, I am spending the weekend in Athens) I took a seminar my junior year on Arthur Miller. It's where I learned to dislike him. A few gems notwithstanding, by being forced to read most of his plays, I discovered (at the age of 20) a man of marginal talent with a penchant for unrealistic dialogue who said the same thing over and over again.

Then there's that thing about self-flagellation.

In addition, I was exposed to reams and reams of paper spent - by the playwright - defending whatever it was he intended to say in his works that most of the public hadn't understood.

For the past six years, my time as an actor-teacher for Great Lakes has included dedicated study to two of Miller's works, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. In that time I have decided that his "greatest" work - Salesman - is about as unwatchable as I ever thought it was, and that Crucible will not only stand the test of time, but is possibly one of the best American works ever produced. Salesman is lucky to have made it sixty years, Crucible will still be performed in five hundred.

In preparartion for this season's production of Crucible at GLTF, I read Miller's autobiography Timebends which my boss, Daniel, gave me last Christmas. And I enjoyed it. Walking around in his shoes, understanding the entire expanse of his life, I had a better understanding for the worlds of his plays, the worlds of his essays, the world of him.

Because I believe it is inevitable, if you have the facts, when you know what a person has lived through, you can so much better understand the decisions they make and their personal philosophy - even if you do not agree with it. Understanding is key.

Unless they lie.

On Thursday I read this in the New York Times:

"Arthur Miller, who died in February 2005, and his third wife, the photographer Inge Morath, had a son born with Down syndrome in 1966. Soon after, they made the painful decision to put the child, Miller’s youngest, in an institution for the mentally retarded before Miller essentially cut him out of his life.

"... Miller rarely, if ever, accompanied his wife on weekly visits to see (his son), almost never mentioned him to shocked friends and didn’t mention him in his memoir, “Timebends.”

Now, see, I don't know what to do with that information. It is not merely that I find that appalling, but it means that once again I need to reverse-engineer what I think of Arthur Miller.

Daniel and I were having a conversation in the lobby last spring about Crucible and he was sharing how a professor his his was just so frustrated with Miller in the work. The argument was that if only there was no adultery in it, this piece would be universally accepted as a masterpiece. But Miller ruins it, and all of his work, by making his heroes so deeply flawed.

Maybe Miller just couldn't see how anyone could be any different.

The machine starts ...

So this radio version of Eric Coble's adaptation of E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops has been gestating for almost two years.

Eric had written the script as a stage play several years ago - and I said damn! I wanted to do that! But I hadn't not in the almost twenty years since I first read it, so it's just as well that he did. And that he did it better than I could have, which goes without saying.

The radio version of IHT wasn't in the can for a day when DeOreo asks me, so what do we do next? And instead of volunteering some new work of mine, because I didn't have one, I suggested TMS because, when I'd read it, with all the voices coming through The Machine, I thought it would make a great audio piece.

But why performed live in front of an audience, instead of in the safety of the booth? I have no idea. Because it sounded cool.

Last year they got a benefactor in the Hiram College Center for Literature, Medicine and the Biomedical Humanities - who had originally produced two staged readings of the piece - things started to move ... slowly. I spoke to Martin K. at Hiram last fall. There were a few production meetings. A cast was assembled. We had a read-through in May. Two rehearsals during the last two weeks. Today we set up the tech in the Westfield Insurance Studio at Idea Center ... and tomorrow we record in front of a crowd of about fifty.

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
How did I get here?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? Am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god! What have I done?

Since 1997 there has been a special moment when it all makes sense, and it all becomes real, and I know everything will be all right with the world. It's not first read-through. And it's not the first curtain.

It's when Dennis shows up with the music.

The Vampyres, Sin, Lysistrata, Cloud 9, I Hate This ... it's always the music. I love the stuff he's come up with for this piece. Very ... mechanical.

Fringed Off

Following a few fringe-heavy years I have been sitting on the sidelines, "lurking" the sites for the MN and NY fringes, and paying a little attention to the feedback and fallout. I'd like to get back to one of those eventually, but you need to have a show first.

Actually, that's not true, a great deal of shows accepted by the MN Fringe during the lottery in February share the title TBA.

Because I was a PR Director for a local theater, once upon a time, I am more interested than most in what kind of free attention theater organizations can squeeze out of the media. Non-critical articles, as well as the reviews that may (or may not) come later on. As we have a daily subscription to the NY Times, every year at this time I use that to clock what's going on at the NY Fringe.

When Toni's show Angst:84 went in 2001, I noticed about a dozen reviews over the course of the festival's two week run. Of these, only one was scathingly negative. Then Urinetown opened that fall, a show which had its originas at the NY Fringe, and in 2002 there were maybe twenty Fringe reviews. That year they were almost universally negative.

In 2003 there were no individual reviews, only longer, week-end articles which pointed out some of the more interesting, "worth your while" productions. So I began to get the impression that the NY Times doles out attention to this famously hit-and-miss, yet difficult-to-ignore-based-on-its-size festival based on how good last year's festival was.

Lucky me, 2003 must have been a good year, because I got a write-up in 2004. If my theory is correct, however, 2006 must have sucked big yahoodies. The festival is half over, and the only mention the largest fringes festival in America has garnered in the nation's largest newspaper (it is still the biggest, isn't it?) was an advance piece in last Sunday's paper, which was mostly about Elena K. Holy, executive director and extremely nervous person.

In fact, as if to add insult to insult, the Times has written not one, but two long pieces about how things are going - and going so much bigger and better - at the Edinburg Fringe this month. In fact, it's the guy who wrote the IHT review - Jason Zinoman - who is cabling these reports back from Scotland.

Compared to Edinburgh, he says the NY Fringe is a lemonade stand. Ouch. Sour.

The frozen chosen

Finished reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union a few mornings ago. Love to say I polihed the entire thing off on my Chicag trip, but I didn't. That's two novels in less than a month. Way too much fiction for me, Krakauer needs to write another epic about stupid people doing stupid things in nature.

I don't know what to say about Chabon's novel without giving too much away, so stop reading if you plan on reading that any time soon. Or ever. I was looking forward to getting into this book - some are surprised I've never read Kavalier and Clay because of my reputation as some kind of comic book geek, I guess, thought I haven't been one for a long time now, but anyway.

The New Play is, in it's way, historical fiction, and so is this. What if a) a zone was established around Sitka, Alaska in the late 30s as a refuge for displaced Jews and b) the war that established Israel in 1948 was lost? That's the premise for what is otherwise a detective novel, which takes place in 2007 in the "District of Sitka." The New Play is about improv comedy in the 1950s, and that's all I'll say about that. But reading someone else play fast and loose with reality as we know it was awfully liberating.

{{{ SPOILER }}}

Our main character, Meyer Landsman, divorced, living in a flophouse, and a detective for the District Police. He and his ex-wife, a police administrator, were expecting their first child, a boy named Django (and that was on our list) who was tested to possibly have an additional chromosone. Possibly an "unviable pregnancy." They chose to terminate the pregnancy, and it has tormented Landsman ever since.

It was impossible to read this without recalling the tests, all the confusing tests, about Calvin, whether he had spina bifida, why he was smaller than he should have been for his age, and my wondering what the point of no return was - not legally, but emotionally, morally, ethically, practically, humanely, you get the picture.

After the abortion, he approaches a doctor who bluntly tells him there didn't appear to be anything abnormal about the fetus. "Not that there wasn't anything wrong with it," he added.

I am not what some choose to call "Pro-Life." But I am a strong believer in potential and how life is imbued by hope, and promise. At first I thought the novel was just kind of cheeky - it's hard to take this northern refuge district seriosuly, it's like a two million person Cicely, and everyone is Joel. Nu? And yet there was a deep sadness, this fragility, everything about to crack and collapse - leavened by irreverent humor.

Which, I guess, from what I have witnessed in my life, must be what it's like to be Jewish.

Is gross.

The first time I saw The Pajama Men (formerly their act was called "Sabotage") was at the MN Fringe in 2003. Hey. Four years is a lot of time. Anyway, they were just hysterical. Caught them last night at the Second City Storefront space in the Loop. Thought that was very, very funny, too.

Shame there were only 10 people in the audience. Hate it when that happens. Not conducive to comedy. And I really hoped, hoped it wouldn't affect their act. I don't think it did, but you know, laughter is infectious. I think Ben and I were laughing harder than most. God, they're weird.

They do this stream-of-consciousness thing - two guys, Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez, who actually do their entire act in pajamas - that kind of tells a story. They introduce several characters, with interesting relationships (father/daughter, two cowboys, woman/amorous space alien) jumping swiftly from one nonsensical scenario to another, though they eventually dovetail and things that didn't make sense near the beginning have an explanation near the end. Or not. It doesn't matter. They crack me up.

Four years ago the main thread was about a horse that conspired to kill his rider.

Horse snorkel. Sorry. Had to say that. Horse snorkel.

Images from that show four years ago still stick with me and make me laugh. So will moments from last night's show. I can't remember much from the Second City show I saw on Friday night. But then, I was half in the bag.

Lovely day yesterday, absolutely lovely. Christine and I met up at the Fountain Towers With the Faces In Them (I asked Ben if that has a nickname yet, that the locals call it, he said yeah, we call it the fountain towers with the faces in them) and after a leisurely catching-up lunch on Michigan Avenue (on the sidewalk, not in the street) she gave me a tour of the Fine Arts Building where the company she has been working with, Moving Dock, do their work.

What a fascinating old structure. What a great place to rehearse, perform, buy antiquarian books, whatever.

By the time we reached the Art Institute (Roger called it "The Toot," not sure if that's a common nickname or just his) we realized we only had two hours before closing, but that was more than enough to take a "Greatest Hits" tour. She was pleased to find that The Gates of Paradise are on display. For a heathen I know quite a bit, but I didn't know about that.

After that whirlwind tour, we just sat by the big towers with faces on them, listening to children cry in delight and knock heads together while hydroplaning across its obsidian surface, while we drank coffee and I tried to get my scalp to stop from sweating. It was a hot, bright weekend. In spite of having sunglasses on most of the time I was out doors, I got this nasty red crease in my brow, which was only intensified by watching a show each night. I had migraine meds Friday night, but I did all right without them last night.

I met Roger and Ben for dinner, Roger knows I prefer local spots, but he said Big Bowl has his favorite Pad Thai in town, so I was like, I'm there! I don't get to have pad thai much, due to Z.'s peanut allergy. Roger got to tell us of his adventures in NYC a few weeks ago, checking out Eric C.'s latest piece, and he and I gave Ben a basic education in what effing crazily obsessed people marathon runners are, going on and on at length with anecdotes and tales of great athletic accomplishment. Or maybe it was just me going on too long, that happens.

On our way there we had to take a detour around a film shoot. Must have been a couple dozen police vehicles with their lights flashing, lots of gawkers and crowds. All the temporary signs guiding people around the site were for some feature called Rory's First Kiss, but, well, IMDB that title and you'll find out what they were really shooting. We failed to spot Heath.

Another run this morning, and then I met up with Donna, who I haven't since since, no kidding 1995. Jesus, these women I was so close to in college, they have got to start showing some age, I feel like I am the portrait of Dorian F*cking Gray looking at them (caught that one at the Toot, by the way.)

She's a talent agent. Great conversation, not just catching up stuff, but about the shows I'd seen (her firm represents members of both show I caught) how good, or not, most improv sketch comedy is, then I had to catch a taxi to O'Hare.

Playtime for Dad

Last December, Toni asked if she could take a weekend on her own, to visit friends in New York, and I said, of course.

Then in January she said, oh! Some folks are getting together in Indiana, could I go to that, too? And I said, uh ... yeah.

By the middle of this summer I realized if I didn't cash in soon, the new school year would be upon us and I'd never get a chance to get away. So I asked about this weekend - a week after camp ended, a couple before rehearsals begin - and she agreed. Good for me to get away. Spend some time alone.

Only ... where should I go? I didn't have a clue.

So I came to Chicago. That's where I am now. In the Chicago Public Library, blogging this in air conditioned comfort instead of spending time in the 90 degree heat.

Just a few notes:

Ran into Tony S. walking the other way down the concourse at Hopkins. I said, "Hey! I'm leaving, you're coming home!" and he said, "Actually, I am going home - to Mississippi!"

Spending the weekend in a basement B&B in Old Town. It's great, a whole apartment to myself, in a real neighborhood. Discovered that Second City is right around the corner - so I went there. Never actually seen a show at Second City before. No surprises. Funny. Sketch comedy is like Chinese food ... I'll stop there.

Walking up North Ave., checking out my surroundings, I saw this guy who looked exactly like Leilani step out a Walgreen's. I thought, weird, that guy looks exactly like Leilani, only Leilani's taller. An hour later, after a plate of the most decadent sushi I have ever had in my life, I'm walking past the same intersection and I hear this rich basso profundo call out, "David Hansen!"

Yeah, it was him. Only shorter than I remembered.

This morning I took a run then double-checked plans with Ben and Roger for tonight, and even got a call from Donna, who I haven't seen in twelve years. We're meeting tomorrow for coffee.

Gotta run, I'm meeting Christine by the fountain in Millennium Park and heading off to the Art Institute. Never seen Sunday in the Park before. They say it's big - and if you cross your eyes and squint, you can see a puppy.

Okay, I stole that joke from the show I saw last night.

Watergate Sue

Anyone following this?

Couple years back the NY Times Sunday Magazine began running serialized comix. Since April it's been Watergate Sue by Megan Kelso. It's the story of a woman in 2006 having her first baby, trying to get the true story of her own birth (during the Watergate summer of 1974) out of her mom, who doesn't want to talk about it.

In last week's episode (in 1974) Sue's Dad asks how it went at the doctor's and her mom says, "My blood pressure is a little high and I better take it easy."

We know Sue survived, it's her story. But the week before that, 2006 Sue was talking to her sister Josie over the phone and said rather casually, "I'm sooo not having a C-section like mom." Last week 2006 Mom is talking to Josie over the phone, saying, "I'm worried about Sue, she hasn't called or returned any of my messages.

Today ... well, no news on Sue's baby today.

Twin Cities

From my sister-in-law ...

It's Wednesday evening around 9:30 MN time.  You may have heard of the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis.  Denny and I were home safe in St. Paul.  My parents and R. and H. were in Circle Pines.  A. and M. were in Minneapolis.  They had driven over the bridge an hour before, but are now home safe and sound.

Denny was called into work.  As we speak he is out on a remote at city hall to interview the mayor of Minneapolis.

Julie

My brother works for NPR.

It's a truly horrifying event. I was in the Twin Cities four years ago for the MN Fringe. I-34 is a heavily traveled road, one we used frequently getting back and forth.

The Minnesota Fringe opens tonight. This, from their website:

Greetings from Fringeland.

All of us are shocked by yesterday's bridge collapse on 35W. But the Minnesota Fringe Festival will open tonight at 5:30 p.m. as scheduled. The engine of Fringe is unstoppable, and the creation of art and community is essential.

As soon as we know if there are any changes to Fringe shows and schedules, we'll post it here on the web site, as well as information on alternate travel routes. In the meantime, we encourage everyone to help alleviate traffic tie-ups by using MetroTransit for their Fringing.

Otherwise, the Twin Cities chapter of the American Red Cross gets our nod for being the hippest nonprofit in town - it's the best way to help.

Stay tuned for updates and changes.

Take care,
Robin Gillette
Executive Director (on behalf of everyone at the Fringe)

Wish I could be there. For a number of reasons.

All Good Things ...

Finished it. Loved the ending, where Ron and Hermione are riding off on one broomstick, and Harry was spelled out the word GOOD-BYE in bedpans.

No, I won't say anything about how it ends. Just about how the whole Harry Potter thing relates to ME, because that's what this entire blog is about.

I was aware of the books prior to 2000, but they were just popular kids books, like, what was that, Goosebumps or something like that. I was almost 32, not my scene.

We were taking a three-week road trip through the South, or at least in a southerly direction. We were taking three weeks, because (according to the plan) this would be our last major road trip before Toni was pregnant. We planned that, see, our having a baby in early or mid-2001. That was the plan.

We'd stopped in Cave City to stay in a cement teepee and check out Mammoth Cave. The cable was terrible and we tried watching Freaks and Geeks (which had already been cancelled) and the local news reported that hundreds of kids were dressing up like wizards and witches and staying up until midnight to buy a book - Number 4.

About three weeks we arrived in Athens in time for my 32nd birthday and Toni's teenage sister Adrienne already had the first three in paperback, which I polished off in a couple days, and read Goblet of Fire before the end of the summer.

I believe the emotional difference of beginning a septilogy of books at age ten, and finishing them at 19 is significantly different than what I have been through. The conclusion did not leave me as dazed and disturbed as, say, the final episode of M*A*S*H did, which I saw at age fourteen. I daresay the Harry Potter books will stand the test of time better.

That photograph up there disturbs me. I think I look older then.

UPDATE: Finally read that sinister, spoiler NY Times book review. I don't get it, what did she give away?

A major medical issue

Our absent instructor returned briefly today. She wants to see if the kids can't pull together the act they were working on before she left two weeks ago. Frankly, I don't know if I would have been able to come back under similiar circumstances. I really admire her dedication to the program.

We had sent her a card last week. Most wishes were of the could-be-any-tragedy variety. "We're thinking of you," that kind of thing. Heartfelt, but vague. I think someone wrote "hope you're feeling better" but I believe that was one of the kids who'd gotten their hands on it and thought it was a Get Well Soon card. There had been no general announcement about her absence, though I frankly told any student who asked me about it directly. Gentle, but frank.

Isn't that a Noel Coward play? Gentle, But Frank?

Even today I heard her situation refered to as a "major medical issue."

Yes. It sure is major.

Anyway, I was the only one writing a paragraph on the card. What you'd expect, "sorry for your loss," mentioning to boy by name, I hope you'll let me contact if you need someone to listen ... I think I cryptically ended, "I know about this."

I was on my way back to class this morning after picking up the students' journals, and she was coming down the stairs. It was just a shocked, I just gave her a big hug, I almost started crying right there. I can't explain it, I hardly know this woman, but there it is.

And yes, it was pre-eclampsia. She said she'd never heard the term before, and now she knows everything. At least, you know, as much as any of us do, which isn't much. "Why don't they tell us about this?" she asked. I mentioned What To Expect When You're Expecting and she was a step ahead of me. She skipped the chapter it tells you to skip, the one which would have helped you keep an eye out for symptoms. What is the fricking point, I don't get it.

Pretty early case, at something like 23 weeks. Must have hit her hard and fast. She went in with "hypertension" and they could tell right away the boy was in distress. She was induced, she had him, but he was too little. She got to be with him, alive, if briefly. He opened his eyes. These are the good things you can count on one hand.

She says she's glad for the things I wrote. She didn't know about Calvin, but I'm not in the habit of telling pregnant women I've just met that my first child died. I don't think it would have clued her in even if I had, who would it have done?

I'll see her again tomorrow, she's determined to get something together for the culminating event next week. We'll talk more.

Workin' it

The Vampyres takes place in a coffee shop, and in spite of my being easily distracted, I found it much easier to write the thing when I was in one. A coffee shop, I mean. I visited Toni in NYC for a week in a bone-chilling week in February, 1995 and sat in Cafe Lalo several afternoons while she was working, with my new, black and white Apple laptop. I think it was the last black and white model they made.

Anyway, sitting here in Phoenix on Lee, procrastinating from writing the New Play, I am reminded of how ... dorky I felt, sitting in a coffee shop, sitting in public, working on a laptop computer. I was the only guy I saw doing that. It felt even odder when I was back at the Arabica on Coventry - I had to do it, but I felt like I was shouting, "Hey, look at me! I've got a laptop computer!"

People would even ask, what are you doing? Because really, it was weird. And I wondered whether or not I would be asked to leave if I actually used their outlet to power my Mac, instead of letting the battery run out.

I come into this place a couple times a week, some afternoon every table has someone utilizing the free wireless here. It's a Sunday morning at 10, I am already one of three.