We Are Coming Up on the One Minute Mark

Not even sure what to write in this post. No, that's not it. Just don't know how to articulate the feeling I have. This --- I tried describing it the other day. Came out something like...

You ever been driving (or riding) along a road with lots of hills? Good hills. The kind that you'd want to sled down if they were covered in snow (and not cars that could squish you like roadkill)? You know that feeling you get when your driving on a road like this, hitting peak after peak, and sometimes when you hit the crest just right --- yeah, that feeling... That split second where your stomach tingles, rolls a bit, and then settles back as the car continues on --- almost like, for just that briefest of moments, the Earth let go... all the heavy... all the everything... just let go and you got to be the closest you may ever be to weightlessness... to breaking the bonds of this planet... to being free...

And in that moment of infinity, you feel it in your gut --- and it feels good. So take that sensation (and if you've never had it, for the love of all that is good a pure, find a car, a road thick with rolling hills, and go for a drive at fast --- yet respectably safe --- speeds) and then multiply it by... well, how long has it been since Monday night here in the States?

Roger, Houston. We are go for launch. Yeah --- if I start inserting phrases that lean towards NASA-speak, it's because my brain is rapidly filling with them. In case you missed the memo, I'm directing a play that has a bit to do with Apollo era astronauts. That's such a generalization, but it explains the switch in lingo. Like how I never say "lingo". But yeah... this is the reason for the
aforementioned feeling.

The cast is set. And, without embarassing them, I'm going to add that they are wicked talented people. I wouldn't have been in this cast if I'd been auditioning. Not that I'm winning Tony Awards over here, but I've been told I'm fairly decent on the boards. But this audition --- frack me. It was a good fight --- long, bloody, and these thespians were not holding back on each other.

You know, I just got this mental image of Shakespearean actors boxing in their tights and it's making me laugh... but trust me, this was so much cooler than that. Like prize fighters at the top of their game. 17 rounds. Brutal. I'm more than excited to be working with these seven actors.

See... you can't feel it, but just the thought of going to the read-thru gives me that awesome feeling in my gut. "Darkside" begins tonight with a read-thru and in seven weeks from this Friday (that's it?!) the curtain rises. Seven weeks to take this show that I've been literally carrying around with me for a year and put it on its feet and take an audience along for a fantastic ride. I get to do that. And it starts tonight.

Shiny.

In totally unrelated (but still thrilling) news, my Goddaughter turns six today. Wow. I met her when she was three days old. Right before my final semester of college, there was this new little person in our family. The seventh girl of our generation, she has evened the scales of gender balance for the now fourteen cousins. She was so little then. Still is, you know, being six. I was terrified when my aunt put her in my arms that first day --- surely I would break her or something. So tiny. She only fussed for a moment. Then it was like she already knew me. Knew I was family. And like any decent Irish cousin/Godfather to be, I sang the best lullaby I know. The Notre Dame Victory March.

Not even kidding. Not even a little bit.