Today is my birthday and it’s already gone well. In the mornings I drive my oldest, John, to school and this morning -- after dropping the kid off -- I was determined to get to my coffee shop and read the paper and have a bagel and pretty much stop time. That was to be my present to me. Somewhere after wolfing down his breakfast of oatmeal, John started to complain about a stomach ache. Oh no. But after five minutes on the couch with a heating pad (where he asked me about my scar on my stomach -- spleen surgery I had when I was close to his age. He’s asking a lot of these questions now and I really like it) he claimed to be fine and off to school we went.
So now I’ve finished my bagel. I’m giving myself another present this morning (have you figured out I'm good at giving myself gifts?) by posting this birthday blog. The schedule I have hardly allows for time to go to the bathroom, much less time to reflect on things. Being a writer, I crave time for reflection.
Looking back over my 45th year, there’s no hiding that it’s been a difficult 12 months. This stems from having a freelance existence, scrambling to put together a living now a year and half out of being laid off from the newspaper. Right now, I’m mostly working as an adjunct, teaching five classes (Intro to Theatre and Playwriting) at three schools (Hendrix, Pulaski Tech and UALR) in four different classrooms. When I tell this to fellow professors, their eyes get wide.
Along with the crazy class schedule, I am still writing freelance for almost anybody who will have me. Lindsey Millar over at the Arkansas Times is an all-around good guy and I’m still publishing things at the Times (an advance on the Rep‘s “Evita” is the latest).
My little non-illustrated comic, Information Overload, is now running weekly in Sync, the tabloid put out by the Democrat-Gazette. I haven’t promoted this near enough, which is bad because I love writing Information Overload -- it’s just me trying to be funny. I’ve been writing the comic for two months now and it’s bliss.
The person I have to thank for the resurrection of Information Overload is Kane Webb, a wonderful writer and editor and my friend. He’s also the reason I’ve had work appear in Arkansas Life, the monthly magazine put out by the Democrat-Gazette. And yes I also have record reviews in the Sunday Style section of the Democrat-Gazette and I write the occasional High Profile for another friend, Rachel Chaney.
As some screeching pitchman might put it, that’s not all! I post local theater announcements through the Examiner site (I wouldn’t call it writing but I don’t mind doing it as it keeps me connected in a small way to all the theater of central Arkansas). This last year I also wrote for old (yes, I did say old) college pal Roby Brock for his Talk Business quarterly and I had a nice gig with a AAA magazine on a trip the Crater of Diamonds mine.
Then there’s my playwriting. Maybe I needed to list all I did above to make peace with the fact that my playwriting didn’t go very far this year. Oh yes, you should note that right below this post is my announcement of the reading of my Disfarmer play at Hendrix. I am so looking forward to it. But I’ve tried and failed to carve out time to really look at Disfarmer, which I wrote last year. I also haven’t finished a short one-act I’ve worked on in fits and starts throughout the year.
I don’t mean this as a complaint. Or perhaps I do but I want to turn the complaint into a spur to action. That’s part of the reason for writing this. I am a blessed man. I have two sons who are just wild and filled with life. I have a wife who I love and don’t deserve. This year has been anything but easy. I shouldn’t expect easy I guess but I wouldn’t mind a real vacation. Or maybe what I really want is more of what I had this morning. Time to reflect. I could aim for that and hope for the best.
-- Sept. 9, 2010
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