Day thirty-two

Woo, hoo!

In the greater scheme of things, if I was only going to be granted one of my two birthday wishes, Donald Trump not being elected would probably have the better prospects for world peace. I will simply have to ignore what’s likely to happen south of the border and focus on getting the Prothero band back together.

Cue Will Scarlett.

I don’t know what 2017 will bring.

Perhaps someone will stumble upon my no-longer-paid-for rants and think, “Wow! This woman can write! We should sign her up.” Perhaps they’ll offer me two thousand dollars a month to write a weekly rant. I know that might not sound like much to some people, but trust me, $24,000 a year would be a fortune to me. I could consider a trip somewhere. I could get my teeth cleaned. I could pay for car repairs without having to put the cost on the line of credit and watch it creeping up and up. I could buy a nice bottle of wine or go out for dinner with friends without wondering what I’ll have to give up that month in order to afford it.  Even a thousand dollars a month would solve most of these problems. (Although the trip would have to go.)

Perhaps someone will stumble across one of my novels and think, “Wow! This would make a great film! We should buy the rights.” That would be nice.

Perhaps Mike’s daughter will have a belated pang of conscience and decide to clear my line of credit debt.

As people are fond of saying, you never know what’s around the corner. My suspicion is that what’s waiting around the corner is more of the same, but you never know.

What I do know now, is that I have something lovely to anticipate in January. The rehearsals for An Unhelpful Complication will be filled with fun and laughter. In March I will have the performance weekend, which I already know is going to be a blast.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I’ve written another one-act play. That’s Nice was written as a vehicle to allow me to do a play with a friend of mine. It was set in a publishing house, the principles, Charlotte and Emily (yes, that was quite deliberate) forced to deal with their annoying, larger-than-life, best-selling authors and two other eccentric members of staff. I’m not saying it was ever going to win a Pulitzer prize, but it was a fun play and a funny play. Audiences, when they finally got to see it, loved it. Another friend had been pegged to direct it, but at the last moment she had to withdraw from the project for personal reasons. Another woman, with whom I’d previously worked, but never as a director offered to step in. Her offer was accepted. Rehearsals began. It soon became clear that this woman was trying to turn my little Neil Simon-like comedy into a Benny Hill sketch. This was not working. I knew it, my co-star knew it, the director knew it. The director withdrew. Another woman, new to the island, was suggested to me, a woman who apparently had a great deal of theatrical experience. We met, we talked, we seemed to be on the same page, she agreed to take over. She was a bloody nightmare. If it had just been me, if I’d been feeling overly protective of my play and what this woman was trying to do with it, I might have been able to understand. But everyone in the cast hated working with her. The rehearsals, which should have been so much fun, which I’d been looking forward  to for so long, were hellish for everyone. On opening night, I pulled all the cast outside and said, “Okay, this hasn’t been the greatest experience for us so far, but we have a funny play, you are all embodying the characters I created better than I could have ever wished, and we’ve now got the weekend to have fun. And we did. I finally got to enjoy the play wot I wrote.

I know that will not happen this time. I know I am going to enjoy every rehearsal. I know the performance weekend is going to be totally exhilarating.

So, whatever else 2017 may (or may not) have to offer, I know I will be having fun in January, February and March. Thank you, chaps, for giving this starving writer some bounce to her step.

Speaking of steps (well, in a roundabout way – there are steps to be taken on the treadmill) I’m still hoping that by January I will be eagerly anticipating going to the gym. You know, based on my doctor’s estimate that it takes eight weeks to actually start enjoying exercise. (On the other hand, what does he know? He predicted Hillary Clinton would win by a landslide.) So far I’m seeing no evidence that I will soon find myself saying, “Oh, goodie, it’s time to go to the gym.”

Occurred to me yesterday I’m going about this gym thing the wrong way.

What if I started viewing it as a challenge rather than a chore? I do like a good challenge. What if I challenged myself to see how long it takes to get from one repetition to three on the weight machines. Or how long it will take to be able to increase the weight? Or how long before I can get from a brisk walk to a slow trot on the treadmill?

Could that get me excited about going to the gym?

Hmm. It’s a nice idea, but even as I was writing the words I was having a flashback to gym teachers past exhorting me to run faster, swim another length in the pool. I didn’t want to run faster or swim another length. I wanted to punch them in the face. Perhaps that’s the challenge I should undertake: I will get fit just to spite those wretched sporty cows. Yes, there’s nothing like a bit of malice to make a challenge interesting.