Come Back, Shane!

Come back!

We have closed A Lie of the Mind . . . long open A Lie of the Mind. Actually, I don't feel that way. That paraphrasing suggests that the show itself should continue ad nauseum, and really, it's not the most worthy of its ilk to aspire to perpetual resurrection. It's not the script I would see risen from the ashes, but the cast and crew. What a tremendous group of people to work with. I would leap at the chance to work with any of them again, and will probably harbor a fantasy of all of us reuniting for some show or other for a long while yet. My hat's off to you folk.

How did it close? (Friend Nat inquired of me when I was offline yesterday, no doubt in eager anticipation of this very 'blog entry [I am nothing if not entirely predictable].) I would say that it went out with a bang, though it was neither our best nor our worst show. So it went out rather like a bang in the distant woods, perhaps from a 30-30 caliber rifle. I believe we were all sad to see it go, in spite of some relief at being able to spend more time making money and just generally relaxing for a little while. That relief invariably turns to anxiety for me after a little while if I have nothing theatrical upcoming. Fortunately, this is not the case. But that is a subject for another day's 'blogitivity.

Now that it's all said and done, I'm glad I put all that time and effort into the show. It may not have been my best work (I daresay it definitely was not), but just on a personal level it was important work in helping me break through a lot of creative and personal rubbish that I was--consciously, at least--barely aware of. It seems rather awful to make a performance about such stuff, and I'd like to think I don't normally do that. In point of fact, I believe it was only thus in this case because the show challenged me and on some level I had been avoiding challenges in my life. Nothing like high stakes to flush out the delusions.

Interesting, too, how deluded I was when I started this 'blog. In a variety of ways. I began with the intention of keeping it about my professional life, of adding personal details only as they became relevant to such ambitions. I should have realized (just as I should have realized with avoiding challenges) that the sense of safety this aspect of my mission statement imbued was a delusion. It's not like I spend my professional life collecting coins or soldering pipe . . . though I'm fairly certain even in these fields one's personal life colors every aspect of one's work. Moreover, I'm an idiot about this whole "public journal" thing. THEY ARE WATCHING, STUPID! Everything you say can and will be used against you in a restaurant with your peers.

Interesting word: idiot. It reminds me of the word "id," in the Freudian sense, and I wonder if Freud had it or some related word in mind when he coined the term (<--actually, "id" means "it," [man that guy had a penile fixation {or is that me?}] and he apparently borrowed the term from an earlier psychoanalytical text). "Idiot" has roots in idios, meaning "one's own." I lambaste you with this irrelevant series of seeming connections because . . . well, supposedly one's id is the primary component of free association. (Which is probably the most apt sentence in this paragraph thus far.) AND I have to wonder just how much of an idiot I actually am when it comes to this here 'blog. Because, my friends, I have the sneaking suspicion that Odin's Aviary is a direct result of mys ids and mys super-egos co-collaboratin' behinds ma' egos's back. Here I am, happily free-associating on a regular basis, yet with an awareness that I have some responsibility not to write anything that might unnecessarily upset, deceive or otherwise put off someone who might read this.

Yet these things get written, and the ripples initiated by them return to me at the least expected moments. Exes express different views of the past. Directors salve my ego (in the vernacular sense of the word ["ego," not "salve"]) with compliments. Friends bring up subjects I hadn't realized I had approved for conversation with them, and they are startlingly well-informed, because I've already written out all my thoughts for them. It's not that I don't keep certain thoughts and feelings in reserve (Such as how hot I find it when women punch me . . .. Damn it! Did it again!), but I have often been surprised by the results of my 'blogasitude. Sometimes pleasantly, sometimes not, but always on the side of open truth. It's a good side to be on, and this little exercise is helping me appreciate that kind of disclosure.

So I've said it once, but I'll say it again: Don't lie to your mind; it's unkind.