break

My new duties in my day job involve lots of Flash, Photoshop and Powerpoint/Breeze work. As a result, after doing tech work professionally for 12 years, I am just now starting to experience a bit of discomfort using a mouse. So, I'm taking a break and doing a little typing instead.

The show is going well, and it feels so nice to say that. It's hit a point where rehearsals are fun, and my stress over the show is back to what I would think it should be. Of course, the stress level I expect is very high, but at least I no longer have questions as to whether or not the show will HAPPEN.

There are moments of relaxation, however. Dave and Kate Austin-Groen restarted their annual book party, which was on Saturday. Last year didn't happen due to birthing issues, and I had missed the previous two years due to show commitments. This was, therefore, a real treat. I gave a book about the schools of philosophy as expressed through the Simpsons, which went to a computer programmer who I believe will actually read and appreciate it. Lucky break that. I got a book called "A Humument" from Martha Soukup, which is a victorian novel which has had each of its pages painted over, revealing individual words and phrases that offer up observations about love in the midst of a refrigerator magnet type narrative. It's strange and beautiful, and I am looking forward to slowly savoring it. In addition to the books, lots of wonderful people were there, including Dylan Russell, Arwen Anderson, Brian Schirmer, and Kevin Montegrande.

Later that night I went with a new friend to go see Crisis Hopkins playing at the Climate Theatre. I haven't seen much theatre in the last month, and it's been even longer since I saw any improv. Julie Potter has stepped down from active membership, it seems, but the quartet has filled out with Lily Harvey, who I've always been a fan of. I laughed hard enough to bring tears down my face, so I consider it a good evening. I didn't hang out for long after the show, however, as I have been feeling the exhaustion rather more than usual.

The easy reason for this would be "age", but that's not the real reason. I'm sure that my temporal location as a man in his late 30's is having an impact, but the fact is that I don't get home until almost 11pm every night, and got home much later for much of last week, and when I get home I can't just fall right asleep. I should probably read, as it might send me to sleep earlier, but instead I've been picking up the XBox 360 controller and playing an hour of whatever is in the tray before slamming my head against the pillow.

As a result, I am tired all the time.

I know that I should just fall asleep when I get home, but part of me is unwilling to release that little time to play and let my mind disengage from everything that is going on. I wish I could figure out a way to have that disengagement without it resulting in so much fatigue, but with Christmas coming up next week, and New Year's after that, I'll have a few chances to chill out and catch back up on my sleep. Once I hit January, my weeknights will be completely open... at least for a while.