2019-04-29 - 8:36 p.m.

____________________

Writing at 8:37pm Monday night instead of Tuesday morning; I've set my alarm for 4am instead of 3:30. Going to sleep that extra half-hour before the press of Bagel Tuesday.

Ugh.

I feel like I didn't even fucking BREATHE today. Like I was on some ghastly hamster wheel running full tilt - and, needless to say, going nowhere - all bloody day to the point of utter exhaustion or even collapse. More than once today I thought I was on the verge of another nervous breakdown. Which I can't really afford right now. The last one took weeks to recover from.

Now I've been home from rehearsal for about 30 minutes, maybe less, and I'm hoping to get into bed and get to sleep almost immediately, so I can have whatever sleep I can get. Tomorrow afternoon I can maybe breathe, a little. Some time for me. For processing. Today it was go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

We actually rehearsed the fucking play tonight, which is all that really matters for the moment. I was approaching full-panic-attack mode quickly as Karen Gardner talked with Joe about the sofa, and Carolina hovered, and Diana did her usual nervous patter, and Bradley was there to have me try on some Dockers and a really fancy vest or two. Vest. "For when I come back in." I told him I never go out. He said "but you're in the park." I said "that's Will." Our alleged costume designer doesn't know the fucking play!

The only solidarity I managed to feel with anyone: Diana asked me if I'm off-book. Not even close, I said, and I won't be until I've married these words to movement, action, intention. She was so relieved.

She and Joe got talking and talking and talking, and I thought again that I might explode at any moment. And then: Joe brought up last night's question about whether Katherine's really going to Rome. "I don't think so, either," Diana said. They began to go back and forth about what a schemer she is, blah blah blah, and I said to Diana "it's your decision but why would you say twice that you need the name of that restaurant?" Joe started to say that that's part of her scheming, and I said it's an awful lot of artifice to no end, and I said "I have to say that I'm not comfortable when I don't think we're respecting the text. We're imposing a whole lot of things on these characters and this play that simply aren't in the text, and they aren't in McNally's play." Joe looked rather taken aback, but he recovered quickly, and then we actually REHEARSED. Got to explore, to try things, to play, to try several things more than once.

Maybe we're over some kind of hump.

And if I have to speak up for myself more fully, I will.

Please God, please: let me move through tomorrow with panic and dread. Let me be open to grace, let me not feel so raw and stretched. I will try to do the things that you would have me do.

Starting with going to bed without alcohol.

�

�

ebb - flow

�

�