Noun: a co-worker who becomes a friend; WHAT I FORCE MOST EVERYONE THAT I WORK WITH TO BECOME. 13 days into this Notebook musical workshop and I’m feeling very very grateful for Ingrid, who bakes the world’s best salted chocolate chip cookies, who is both vulnerable and collaborative, who brings me good luck crystals to keep in my bra and essential oils to sniff, who gives me half her orange when I’m staring at it with envy, who deserves nine million Trammy’s for her beautiful work on this project, a Trammy of course being the combo Tony Grammy that will be invented JUST for her.
You’re not a Cat person, you say. You’re not an Animal Person even, you say. BUT THEN I ASK YOU: ARE YOU IN FACT A PERSON AT ALL? AND I ALSO ASK YOU: HAVE YOU NEVER HAD YOUR SOUL EXAMINED BY A CREATURE WHO HEARD YOUR WORRY AND SAD FROM ACROSS THE HOUSE AND EMERGED SOFTLY AS IF UNBEKNOWNST TO YOU, YOUR HEART CALLED TO HIM AND HE LITERALLY PUTS HIS HANDPAWS ON YOU AS IF TO SAY, I AM HERE, AND NO I DO NOT CONTROL THE UNIVERSE BUT JUST KNOW THESE SIMPLE FACTS: I EXIST, AND YOU ARE FINE?
I think I don’t even listen to myself when I talk. I’m just sort of whirring around the house, doing 900 things, thinking some things, saying some of them out loud, and Morrison takes the most ridiculous and most important things and writes them down in the notes section of his phone, WHICH IS WHY I got this amazing flowing robe shirt thing for my birthday:
because at some point in the last year while stomping through the house declaring and straightening things, I said I NEED A FLOWING ROBE SHIRT probably followed by DID WE CALL THE PERSON ABOUT THE THING and DID YOU READ ABOUT THE OTHER THING and HAVE WE DECIDED WHEN WE WERE DOING THAT? Please note his note-taking diligence is ALSO why we forever know that one point I actually said to him, ‘Let’s not mince hairs.’
Last night, deep in the trashcan of the Internet, I stumbled across this heinous, vile (BEAUTIFUL) thing called Couples Acroyoga, in which COUPLES DO YOGA CRAZY YOGA POSES ON EACH OTHER AND ALSO KISS:
Do they like it? Or Is it forced? Does she say, hey Jason, let’s do the thing and he’s like ugh Melissa, right NOW? And she’s like JASON YOU PROMISED
Do they puke on each other before, after, during or all of it? ALSO, MOST IMPORTANTLY, I WANT TO DO IT, HOW LONG UNTIL MORRISON AND I ARE CASUALLY DOING IT WHILE WATCHING TV
Came back to NYC to see Cake one last time before press week, catch up with some friends, have some meetings, workshop my next play which is in THE MOST DIRE NEED OF WORK before it goes up in June; but Once I landed, I DECIDED* TO GET THE FLU INSTEAD BECAUSE THAT JUST SEEMED MORE FUN
* WAS FORCED BY LAUGHING GODS OF TIME; IMMUNE SYSTEM
Every theater company doing The Cake, in all of their marketing materials: WE ARE SO PROUD TO PRESENT THIS PLAY, WRITTEN BY THE HEAD WRITER AND CREATOR AND SOLE BRAIN BEHIND THIS IS US!
Me, frantically: IT’S NOT ME I’M JUST ONE OF THE WRITER’S I DID NOT CREATE PLZ ADJUST IMMEDIATELY
Theater Company:……?
Me: IT’S JUST THAT SERIOUSLY, I AM REALLY IN NO WAY IN CHARGE AND IF MY BOSSES SAW THIS I WOULD DIE
Theater Company: But can we tell everyone that you are?
Me: PLEASE DON’T
Theater Company: But what if we just let people BELIEVE that you are, so as to sell tickets?
(NOTE: I am never quite sure exactly how to give cred, but this incredible image that perfectly captures my at once haunting and comical indecision is by Luke Chueh. PEEP HIM NOW.)
I love to organize my time. I’m soothed by plans. Some people like to lie on beaches and listen to the waves. I LIKE TO PLAN, AND IF I HAPPEN TO BE ON A BEACH, THAT’S ALSO FINE. But my plan making usually goes something like this:
Consider all possible plans
Labor over all options intensively
Choose one plan, commit to that plan
TORTURE MYSELF WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF THE OTHER, UNCHOSEN PLANS
TRY AND CHANGE CHOSEN PLAN TO OTHER PLAN
accept original plan
engage in original plan, it usually goes fine
Spend some time wishing I could get that time I spent laboring over other, possible plans back
Realize I’ve wasted more time on said regret
Move on to next plan
Lay all options out on the floor of my mind
Think of a lego house, and how each small brick fits together
but if you leave a space blank, you can make a window
Yesterday afternoon, Morrison painted a miniature while I tried to rewrite a tiny part of The Cake for the 900th time. Taking a break from (READ: PROCRASTINATING) my own task at hand, I watched him swirl tiny paints together with a tiny brush and bring the tiny brush to the tiny face of a tiny person. It felt like he and I were attempting the exact same thing. And so, if it’s a writer’s job to collect similes: trying to rewrite a play that’s already existed for years, without breaking it or changing it entirely, is EXACTLY like painting the Hair onto a fingernail sized person: you must use the tiniest of brush strokes, you must never once question what it is that you are doing.
