Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Spinning

That’s what my head’s been doing lately. I had a busy weekend, which is bleeding into a busy week. I’m trying to figure out some purpose to my life that doesn’t involve doing things. Indeed, I’m going to see if I can find meaning in not doing anything. I used to not do anything and I rather liked it…

Saturday night I saw Twinters in the flesh, that was cool as it had been a while. She, like Kurt, is not seeing the Big Mac Show. I certainly understand when most people can’t make it to see something I’m doing, but Twinters and the TuohyBuoy! Those are my biggest fans, yo! I’m losing the base. After leaving Twinters on Saturday, I decided to get in touch with a friend I haven’t talked to in even longer, the legendary Thomas Beach, one of my best friends from high school, whom I last saw about six months ago. At that time, he was about to embark for Nigeria in order to make a movie about it. Not enough movies are made about Nigeria, but it’s a pretty dangerous place in comparison to say, Winnetka, where he grew up, or even LA where he lives now. So the last thing he said to me and two of our other friends from high school was “Just in case anything happens while I’m over there, thanks for the memories.” We told him he was welcome for the memories. Typically, he didn’t call me or anyone else I still talk to when he got back, apparently in March, but it was nice to confirm that he was not in fact, dead. He admits himself to be a tool, and I’m not one to disagree.

On Sunday I attended a Leahy family event, which is unusual given how I feel about many Leahys, but many of them are okay, and this was for my great uncle Moe, who was celebrating his fiftieth anniversary as a priest. Mostly the day was notable because I attended mass, which is always an intriguing, if slightly awkward experience for me. I was raised kind of semi-Catholic, that is, my parents didn’t go to Church and in my father’s case at least, actively railed against the Church, but they sent me to Catholic school anyway. So I have twenty two years of mass attendance under my belt, nowhere near regular, but enough so that I kind of know, you know, the gist of the liturgy. But that’s it. I mean, the Catholic liturgy is full of signals for the faithful to do and say things on cue and I know most of them, but when it comes to the Apostle’s Creed, I always have the experience of standing up with dozens of other people reciting the exact same thing, while I’m only able to recite every other word. We believe in one God, mumble, mumble, Jesus, mumble, mumble, born of the Virgin Mary, mumble, mumble-cified under PONTIUS PILATE! I know that bit. Then there’s Communion. I more or less know how to line up for the bread and wine but some twenty years after doing it for the first time, I remain completely and utterly baffled by what you’re supposed to do afterwards. You’re supposed to go back to your seat but there are all these multiple, snaking lines of people and you go the opposite way but you’re supposed to wind up in the same plave and you inevitably wind up stepping on sweet natured, highly devoted old people. I guess if God loves you, you figure it out, and I’m clearly very unloved.

The Big Mac show had a weekend I’d have to call pretty great. The understudy performances on Thursday and Friday gave the show a strange new energy that everyone loved, and it also gave the usual leads a renewed energy themselves on Saturday and Sunday. So pretty great. The best part of the show for me, has always been not what Shakespeare wrote (although that’s obviously pretty good) but getting to run around in blue armor with kali sticks going “YYYYYAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” with the other guys during the testosterone driven “let’s go kill Macbeth” scenes. There’s one scene in particular where I get to lead the charge, on Sunday my enthusiasm was sadly premature, as I started going “YYYYYAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” half a line before the requisite heroic speech was over, which led to me kind of standing awkwardly frozen onstage for a few seconds, and then one of those classic “run out of the theater and burst out laughing for several minutes in the parking lot” moments that was a much needed reminder of why I do this.

Despite my need to go to sleep for approximately fifty years, I’ve found myself agreeing to play Don John in Much Ado About Nothing and seventeen people in Antony and Cleopatra for the recordings of those plays my roommate is producing as part of a high school tutorial project. Again, actors in my living room. Cool and strange. And tiring. But not entirely unprofitable. Someone left a quarter on my couch. It’s part of my laundry fund now! HAHAHHA. I’m pure evil.

Another thing my roommate has done recently is review Stardust, a play based on Neil Gaiman’s novel, after which her website was freaking linked to by Neil’s! This marks the second time in a year Neil has referenced her in some way. Billions of people go their entire lives without being referenced by Neil Gaiman in any way. I have no words, my voice is in my links.

Why am I still typing? I need to stop doing things altogether.

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Posted by Twinters @ 05/19/2005 10:14 AM CST