August 21, 2001 Back when I was younger and more impressionable than I am today, my friend, Wendy, convinced me to attend one of those "teenage rap sessions" with her. Frankly, the idea of spending my Tuesday evenings in the basement of my town's Presbyterian church, discussing my hopes, fears and issues with a bunch of my classmates and one of those "former-juvenile-deliquent-turned-twelve-step-self-help gurus" didn't strike me as the best idea even at the age of fifteen, but Wendy really wanted to go. Wendy bought into that whole late 1980's societal vibe of "we've got to help these kids before they all kill themselves or become drug addicts and/or prostitutes;" I just went along for the ride. Of course, during one of those sessions, I ended up sitting in the middle of a circle of my peers, bawling my eyes out because playing Police Athletic League softball was such a traumatic experience for me. (You know, you think I would have learned the year before when my parents forced me to go on my stupid Confirmation retreat and I ended that weekend by standing in front of my friends, family, and other assorted parishoners of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, weeping and proclaiming my love for Jesus, but, apparently it took me a little longer to figure out that I'm easily susceptible to brainwashing.) Anyway, while the entire rap session experience was more than a bit embarrassing, I at least took something away from it (unlike my Confirmation retreat, where the only thing I took away is that when people confiscate your wristwatch; drive you far away from your home in the dark so you don't have any idea where they are taking you; won't let you know what time it is for 72 hours; make you sleep in a dormitory with a bunch of other scared high school freshmen; strip away any semblance of privacy or personal space; control when you eat, sleep, wake up, shower, and brush your teeth; and then force you to talk about Jesus and how much he loves each and everyone one of us for three days, you're quite lucky if the only thing they get you to do is cry in front of a bunch of other people who have also been tricked into thinking they are "Soldiers of Christ." I mean, St. John's youth group really missed a golding opportunity there -- they could have had us storm the White House or bomb a Planned Parenthood, but all they did was make us stand up and say that we loved God and the Church. Sheesh. What a waste of mind control.) But, anyway, I digress. As I was saying before that tangent on how the Catholic Church has significantly scarred me for life, I actually did get something out of the time I lost my cool at the teen rap session. See, as I was blubbering on about how I had been playing softball for years and how my coaches always made me sit on the bench and ignored me because I wasn't very good and how that made me feel worthless and stupid and whatever, the former-juevenile-delinquent-turned-self-help-guru got up in my face and told me to "Shut the fuck up and explain why [I] kept playing softball if it [made me feel] like shit." There I was, expecting to be comforted and stroked and made to feel special, and so this new approach stopped my self-pitying tears in their tracks and actually made me *think*. However, I didn't have an answer as to why I kept participating in an activity that never failed to hurt me so I pretty much just sat there and waited for the guru to explain things to me. Which he did. He told me that my situation was like being in a room with two tables. One one table was a mountain of good things -- things like my talent and my intelligence and my creativity -- and on the other was a heap of negative things -- things like my insecurity and awkwardness and fear. And he explained to me that by continuing to play softball even though I didn't really enjoy it and always ended up frustrated and hurt by it, all I was doing was returning to the negative table time and time again. Instead, I should give up softball as something that I didn't really want to do, own it as something that I was not successful at, and find something that would allow me to pick things up from the good table. Okay, so the analogy was pretty weak, but hell, the guy was dealing with teenagers, and he got through to me, so that counts for something. I gave up softball. Joined the school paper. Learned to analyze the choices I made. So now, whenever I find myself feeling particularly bummed out or insecure about something I'm doing, I remember that support group and I ask myself exactly why I am continuing to engage in behavior that makes me sad or angry or insecure. And, believe it or not, this has worked pretty well for me. Until now. This past weekend, Rose Theater wrapped up our summer tour. We performed Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in NYC, Stamford, CT, and Stratford, CT. I stage managed the show for the first two weekends, played Peaseblossom over the third, and finished it all up by playing Snug the Joiner last weekend (a part which, as God is my witness, I will be playing for all four weekends next year). Anyway, the project took up my entire summer and drove me crazy with traveling and group dynamic bullshit and whatnot, but I had a great time and now that it's over, I'm so completely out of my mind depressed that I'm kind of concerned. Actually, what concerns me is that I get this way every single time I finish a theater project. I work like a maniac on a production, throw my entire being into it, and then it ends and I spend a month and a half weeping at the drop of a hat, not eating, not sleeping, avoiding responsibility and escaping by reading Harry Potter yet again. Now the last time I checked my diploma, my degree was in Communications not Psychology, but this just doesn't strike me as healthy behavior, kids. And so, I'm left wondering if maybe, even though I love it, theater isn't exactly the healthiest activity for me to be participating in. Maybe I just get too involved, too attached, and I can't move on easily enough. I mean, I have to start school next week and, more importantly, I have to start teaching a Creative Writing class, and all I really want to do is chuck it all and invent a time machine so I can redo this summer all over again. Plus, I'm really afraid that Sabrina and Sammy won't do the Midsummer tour next year and I won't get to play Snug again and for some reason, that's just making me even more anxious. So maybe I need to quit doing theater. Or maybe I need to start doing theater full time. Perhaps the reason I get so depressed when a production ends is that theater is really what I want to be doing and it's just so hard to let something end and return to my day job when I want theater to be my day job. Christ, what a scary freaking thought that is. Particulary when you consider the fact that up until I started grad school and teaching last year, I thought that writing and teaching were what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Now, I still want to write, but teaching is getting to be the same torture that proofreading and copyediting used to be. And considering that I am thirty and a half years old, I CANNOT KEEP CHANGING WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP! Ah, me. This is going to take some serious thinking. On a lighter note: it seems that I take character motivation a bit too much to heart. When I was playing Snug, Sabrina told me that part of my motivation to be involved in the mechanicals' production of "Pyramus and Thisbe" was that I was hopelessly in love with Peter Quince. Well, it seems as if I did my job a bit too well, because now I seem to have this silly little school-girl crush on the actor who played Quince. Don't get me wrong, Fenton is a very sweet, very wonderful man, but considering he's about 50 years old and very, very gay, it's kind of amusing. Jeez, talk about method acting.

7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions Pride: Still feeling particularly proud of my performance as Snug the Joiner in Midsummer last Saturday. Envy: Insanely jealous of people who get to do this theater thing for a living. Wrath: I'm nearing the end of my fuse with the Undergrad English Dept. of University A since they still have not told me when and where I am teaching Creative Writing this semester and I'm supposed to start on Monday. Sloth: If I spend one more hour playing Hearts on this damn computer instead of doing what I'm supposed to be doing.... Avarice: Why in God's name haven't I won a Tony for my performance as Snug in Midsummer last Saturday? Gluttony: I don't feel like eating much of anything. Ah, post-show depression: the best diet there is. Lust: Dreaming of Richard Belzer. Don't ask me to explain. Book: Cervantes' Don Quixote in preparation for my comprehensive Lit exam for University A. I've only read two chapters, but so far, it's a surprisingly easy, entertaining read. Tune: Dar Williams' "Spring Street": I'm thinking about the easy courage of my distant friends who say I could let this bridge wash out and never make amends. Obsession: The Belz, babe. Again, it's better if you don't ask. Task at Hand: Writing a review of a recent collection of short stories for University B's online literary journal.