Getting a grip on Death

My brother wants me to update this. So I'm going to.

I've been busy lately (surprise, surprise). Actually, Tuesday was one of the first days where I felt like I was back in college, having way too much on my plate. I also felt the ground shake a bit (in a figurative sense). There have just been little hints that I'm poor poor poor with minute details that have pretty major consequences when you forget about them.

Exhibit A: I wait tables on occasion. I worked at a new restaurant last weekend. We can't process credit cards electronically at the moment. So I manually write them down. In my efforts to be on top of things, I failed to write down the last four digits of a patron's credit card (a ticket that was over 90 dollars). I'm not quite sure what's going to happen.

I'm out of that funk right now.

The office was ZANY today. I've got loads of projects to do. Marketing work is exhausting and ranges from very simple phone calls to more elaborate projects that require brainstorming, planning, executing, delegation, follow up. It's a zoo.

Not to mention, I've got long evening rehearsal blocks for one of the most challenging shows I've ever been a part of. This show has only three characters. We're done with blocking and now we're about to embark on heavy working sessions.

I'm a little anxious. I think it's going to be intense. At the end of rehearsal today, the director told me: "be prepared to smile a lot tomorrow. You're probably going to hear that more than you even want to." This is a perplexing note to me. For one, I've received a note like that for a lot of shows I've been in. I get all freaked out. It's weird. I won't dive into all of it. But this is an odd note that makes me more self-conscious than it should.

And now, this pertains to Death. I think about this character, smile, and feel...strange. Like the Joker or something. There's something menacing and intriguing about it all. A lingering unease pops up here and there.

It's a trip to play Death, ya know?

I've surprised myself at some of the ideas I've had about "scenes" and moments. Much more work has to be done (including memorization), but I think we've made some excellent progress in the past week. We did a slop-thru today, just to focus on blocking. It's pretty demanding. I imagine it will only become more epic