moron than off

Day two of learning Italian. Dog and cat are masculine but bicycle is feminine. Why? I don’t know. Because you can put it between your legs and ride it. There. I won’t forget that now, will I?

Lately the days are all about “working towards a goal”. Someday I will figure out my allergies, someday I will get into that bikini, someday I will speak this language, someday the phone will ring and tell me I have work this year, someday Leave of Absence will get produced again…and what happens to the present when so much is focused on the someday? It’s good to have goals but one must stay present. What’s the balance?

Today I’m rewriting my play Leave of Absence. I’m so frustrated and embarrassed as I always am when I revisit my work. Except Holy Mo and Espresso. I didn’t rewrite those. They’re just what they are.

Why did I have Leap’s wife die off the top of the play? Way to load it with unnecessary melodrama. Why didn’t someone advise me against this?! Why hide the fact that Blake is his child?! What an awkward reveal. And to have them fight about their romantic past to end act one is just all wrong. I don’t know. I’m a moron. MORON. It’s a shame. Because it junked up some moments that I know are magnificent. It’s always the balance of the two Ms. The moron and the magnificent. The moron is me, the magnificent is the muse trying to work through my thick thick head. What can you do with a moron? Ah. Ride me like a bicycle. I don’t know. Why do I have a scene at the new house, at the river? Almost everything else happens at the church or near the church. Why not simplify? Why give an artistic director any excuse to say “this is filmic”. Why give Father Ryan all that physics right off the top? It’s great stuff but totally in the wrong place. Way to alienate. I’m still glad I published. I know why I did, and it was the right thing to do. It met a need at the time. But all those books now sitting on the shelf haunt me. HAUNT ME. And the fact that some people absolutely loved this play and some people absolutely hated this play only serves to confuse me.

Hooray.

And that’s my post today. Way more moron than magnificent.