2002-01-31 6:21 p.m.
topped off

Consider me topped off, like a gas tank before a road trip.

Life has been rough but good. Recent talks with S. and D. have slapped me around, getting me out of tendencies towards helplessness I've been having, where I wind myself up so tight there's nothing to trigger the unwinding process.

But even more energizing has been the dreams, and what's come out of them.

I'm working on a play, a one-act, that's going to star the three most important people in my life at this moment. It's not solving world problems, pushing mythology back into public life, or working magic with any of the obsessions of my life I always imagined I'd be putting on stage. It's a very quiet story, three characters, one apartment, one set, light props.

I called one of my professors from Emory's theater department and gave him the news, and he just replied with "reaaaaally." It was full of fatherly bemusement, like the father who's watched his son play catch and pitch a fastball better than anyone in his school but had no interest in sports at the time, and his son's just told him that he's trying out for the majors. He's been watching my progress from afar since I graduated, waiting for whatever work sprang forth from me, wondering where my bizarre mix of interests and obsessive curiosity would lead me.

I've jumped in and out of comics, journalism, and Web ventures, only to find myself back...at theater. Bizarre.