The Little Things

I go along, managing pretty well most days, and suddenly something will happen that will just make me cry. It happened twice this week to me, and I accidentally made my husband tear up once. My husband is not, in general, a teary guy but Ronnie pinched his finger on a toy and I picked him up to kiss it better. Then I gave him a few more kisses and said, "I wish kisses could really make it better." This made my husband cry.

Me? It's usually something completely unrelated to Ronnie that makes me cry. This week, as a distraction, I was reading Bill Simmons college basketball blog. Normally I find him very funny and entertaining. I've mentioned his column on this blog before. Still, I'm going along, hoops junkie that I am, and wham, he hits me with it. He hates Duke. Not only oes he hate Duke but he hates Duke grads as well. Apparently we're a nasty bunch. Yes, sad to say, that made me cry. I want all those media types to just stop it, broadcasters, commentators, columnists, they've all done their 'Why I Hate Duke' bits. As a Duke fan, this year in particular, I just want to be left alone. I know, I should just stop reading sports websites, and the newspapers, and watch games with the sound down. Actually, that's exactly what I've done, starting with Simmons, I'll go back when he's writing about the Red Sox again.

The other thing that made me cry was a playwrights email list that I belong to. When Ronnie was first diagnosed I started sloughing off everything in my life that I didn't have to do. One of those things was the playwrights group that I run, Shadow Boxing Theatre Workshop. I immediately cancelled the spring meetings. Now, I'm finding that I have enough time and energy to get back in the game a little bit. I joined this list for encouragement. I'm discouraged. OK, I'll say it, even though some of my playwriting friends may eventually find this blog. Playwrights are in general the hardest to deal with prima donnas in theater. They are often not team players in what has to be a team effort to succeed. Sad realization, cancel or allow. Sigh. Allow. And yet, I continue to work with them because, because, because I love theater and when it clicks, there's nothing like live theater, nothing. I am also a playwright myself so I can be sympathetic to their plight. I've even had one of my plays poorly directed so I've been through that rite of passage that all playwrights must eventually experience. Still, I wish they weren't such a whiny group. I had a moment where all my past efforts to help in the play development process suddenly felt like a complete waste of time.

Well, since this post was pretty much all non brain tumor related thoughts, I'll leave it at that.