Nothing Left To Do But Smile, Smile, Smile

There's this bittersweet feeling to everything today, and I could probably explain it in a number of ways if I chose to. And being I'm having a difficult time focusing my mind, I choose to.

First there's the lemming leap of the 31st off the cliffs of August and into the crumpled and bloodied corpse of September. Another month is down, face stolen right of its head, as the man once said. Nothin's gonna bring it back. Even the hot weather that hovered the last couple of days has conceded to the inevitability of fall.

And while I love me some fall, no lie, I sort of feel I was cheated on my summer this year. There were only a couple of those sweltering days and frankly none that made a dip in the lake effing mandatory. I sort of feel, looking back on this summer, as I did looking back on my teens from the wide vantage point of 20; I should've done more...

Also, there was rehearsal last night. We were rehearsing the climactic scene for my character which involves a long emotional outburst. We did it four or five times. We performed it so much that I had blown out my voice to a Bonnie Tyler husk, and while I sat quietly trying to shake off the dark emotions the scene dredges up, my cast mates sort of stepped lightly around me.

There is no complaint in any of that. It's a good feeling, the feeling that you're doing interesting work and that you're acting truthfully, but the combination of that, the 182 degrees in the theater and the three fistfuls of wasabi flavored peanuts that I had for dinner, I was beat.

Oh yeah, and some good, fine people, some young actor friends are shuffling off the dust of this Seattle town and trying their hands at the business in LA. While I hold out hopes for the best for them, LA can crush you pretty easily. And show business in LA, even more so. It's just that they're good, talented people and I want good things for them. I guess I need to learn to let them leave the nest.

Wipes away dramatic tear with dramatic finger.

I mean, people have to make it in Hollywood, and they certainly deserve to be those people, but there is a definite sadness knowing our days on the stage together are done. Not a lick of jealousy, but already a hole where there was laughter.

So yes, a complex flavor of emotions for this day; a dark chocolate and a sip of cabernet. I'm muddling through it with the hilarity that comes from exhaustion, that and developing my alter ego Banana Fitzbitch.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: "Letterbox" by They Might Be Giants. I have absolutely no explanation for this whatsoever.