So, here I am. Another sleepless night. Suki was scratching, which is her way of saying, “Dude! My eyes are turning yellow!” Vicky didn’t really want me to get up because I think she knew that once up I’d stay up but up I went and out we walked and after Suki peed and we came back… I was up. Again.
But that’s okay. I’ve got a lot to do.
Finals are coming up. Per usual, my philosophy instructor has sprung a surprise on us and I have no idea what she wants in this final. So, my strategy is to just hit as much as I can and hope for the best. So, I’m reviewing all things Nietzsche and trying to drill them into my head, if only for the few hours I’m writing my final exam.
At least, that’s what I should be doing. Because even as I study, something else is going on. I suppose I should have seen it coming and I should be grateful it waited. But the writer inside is waking up again. Like some leviathan, it rises from the depths of my subconscious and won’t be ignored until I write something and maybe even something else. Placated, then, maybe it’ll return to the recesses… and shut the hell up…
Right now, it’s feeding me all kinds of lines for a couple of plays I want to write. I try to be philosophic about it. Although I’ve met little success of late, you never know what’ll happen next or even if a joke might make Vicky laugh, which is worthwhile in itself. Now, I should probably return to a couple of books I’ve been picking at but, honestly, Vicky hasn’t proofed Daughter of a One-Armed Man, yet. I wrote that a couple of years ago and can give her another book when she’s through, so it’s not as though I’m in need for any new material there. (Once she finishes Daughter, I’ll be ready to work on selling that – but it’s the next one, Last Ditch, that’s the real killer. I can’t wait for her to read that!) The bottom line, really, is that no matter what I should do, the writer inside of me wants to write these plays.
I already mentioned one, Sometimes We Find Our Way. I’m intrigued with this character of Jimmie Fatovich. Fatovich just sounds funny to me; I don’t know why. But I have this scene stuck in my head – these things just pop in on their own – where the woman he picks up at a bar tries to analyze him: “And Jimmie – you’re a grown man and you still call yourself Jimmie! You’ve been so dominated by your parents that you can’t escape this childish name, this schoolyard name, this boy’s name. Jimmie!” When, of course, he just likes the name. I’m beginning to see the play as a series of miscommunications, of people not really understanding what the other person is saying, which is something of a metaphor for our relationships. I mean, how do we know we understand another person? We just have to assume it and hope for the best.
The other play is this monumental reach into absurdity I can’t even begin to explain. It’s one of those “You have to see it” things. But it begins with a husband and wife:
Wife: Did you eat all the ice cream?
Husband: Yeah, I needed to check my tooth.
Wife: With the ice cream?
Husband: I think I have a cavity.
Wife: And you did that with –
Husband: My tooth’s been very sensitive so I had some ice cream to test it.
Wife: So, you ate the whole –
Husband: I wanted to be sure!
Mind you, those are probably not final lines. They’re just the ones revolving in my head. The play includes murder, zombies, and the devil… Like I said…
And, in there, I need to study for my final exams. One exam, in my Kinesiology course, is a take-home. LOVE THAT! But I can’t escape Nietzsche… try as I might…
Well, I guess I should head upstairs and try to sleep some more. We’ll see…
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