1/22/2021

a lot has happened in a few days.

1) my wife's company, the one she's worked for for over 20 years... it is closing shop. ALL stores. after feb. 15, the stores are all going to be closed. so suddenly, our two income household will become a one income household... also, our health insurance, which ran through my wife's job, will now have to come from mine. and from what i hear, it's extremely expensive through my job. so that will eat a significant chunk of our income as well. add to that, my daughter's preparing for college next year... i know a lot of people are struggling, so i know we're not alone, but we've gone from a position of weathering it out, to suddenly being exposed. in any case, we're just taking it a step at a time. my wife is working on her resume, and looking at options. and as my daughter's situation with colleges becomes clearer (in other words, as she gets acceptance or rejection letters, along with financial aid packages) then we can proceed to making some of those hard choices...

2) i'm sick. i hate getting sick, not just because of having to suffer through the illness, but because it requires me to consider coverage issues... like: can i get a sub? if i do manage to secure a sub, which is a miracle in itself, how am i going to convey the complex plan that we run every day? this morning, even though technically, i'm not supposed to go on campus, i tried to set everything up for whomever had to come in to run my class (i don't think a sub showed up). hopefully everything went well.

i tested. still waiting on results. to be honest, i don't think i have the rona. it all started with some dry coughing, and then i experienced drops in my energy level... i've been resting up a lot. i do have periods where i essentially feel back to normal, but then unexpectedly, i get really tired.

so, there's all that.

*****

for my writing: i composed the piece that's going to be read at our writer's workshop this sunday. they're going to have 4 actors actually read the parts of our works. it's kind of awesome, actually. i just don't know if my work is up to that sort of honor. but in any case, i tried to rework the piece; i even had my family read it (imperfectly) to get a sense of the timing. i realized some parts sort of dragged, and though i didn't entirely correct them (didn't want to make such radical shifts), i did make some minor adjustments. we'll see what happens. i think i'm going to try to record it if i can.

mamet keeps saying stuff about how a piece should not be written by the conscious mind. that is, it shouldn't be a "cautionary tale," a tale with an obvious "punchline": the example he uses is "deaf people are people too, duh." i do think i'm drawing on my unconscious a lot in writing this story; it's just that i am not sure if it's really articulate or not. there's a lot of hate in me. and i think the story is about the temptation of that hate. of course, in normal brotherhoods, we sort of brush things under; that's the way it is. brothers are like that. but i wanted to explore pushing things to the hilt, where, if you could, would you murder your brother for the abuses committed? or would you save his life? and would you be content with that, especially knowing that things would always return to the ambiguity of before, of always being consigned to shadows and obscurity?

lately, my brother has been making cameo appearances in my dreams. i don't know if it means anything. there's this awkwardness around him. it's like seeing some sort of rare fish pop up in a tide pool or something...

in any case... i keep thinking of my story, my play. should i cut shit? like, right now, i'm strapped in to writing about the trial of swords, of water, of fire, of shadows. that's a lot. and i automatically dread it, because to pull readers/audience through FOUR events like that, seems somewhat- unnecessary? a drag? i mean, what is it i'm really trying to say? also, it seems i've kind of committed to a sequence as well. and i've been trying to relate these abstract concepts, like fire- to the little vignettes in my memory. there really is a poverty of actual events, actual turning points, in my relationship with my brother. and i feel that i really shouldn't modify things to much (i mean the actual biographical details) because that's the blood of it all. but writers do what writers have to. in service to the narrative... so we'll see.

oh well. i guess i should get ready for my distance learners. even sick, i feel i have to service them. so see ya!