Playing Yourself

Naturalism. It's a fiction, of course. The way you fiddle with your hand, the hesitation before the bon mot, the way you look back over your shoulder. Acting out. How you look, for instance, the time you spend on that. Currently, I have four pair of black jeans and about twenty denim shirts that I wear in rotation, I shave (I didn't, for twenty-five years), and manage a social face. It's not an act, exactly, just an attempt to simplify the decision-making process. I've lived alone for a long time, twelve years; I have a job (which I enjoy) that keeps me integrated with the outside world. But three-quarters of the time, I'm alone. Mostly what I do now is sit and think about things. I've done enough, in a varied life, that there are a lot of things to consider. A lot of failures. Very few things play out the way we intend. I prefer simple tasks now, splitting wood, walking up the hill, reading a book, writing you. Almost nothing. Seeing Philip did make me think about doing another Beckett. Heaven forbid I should stage another play, but he would be a perfect Krapp. A shot out of the rough, first thing you know, you're back in the game. Oh, wait, I swore I'd never play another game. I'm conflicted. Dry-wall dust, joint compound, covered the face of the earth, and everyone had tracked everything everywhere. Not unlike your worst dream, and I mopped until my shoulders were screaming. Off the record, I was pissed, D finally yelled at me to shut up. My left hip and my right knee were both acting up, but I needed to go to town for supplies, both the hip and knee were better by the time I got to the bottom of the hill. I stashed a jug and a short length of PVC at the most vigorous of the springs (I drive the PVC into the mouth of the spring, to serve as a spigot) but I was carrying so much, on the way back in, that I couldn't carry a gallon of water. I'll walk back down tomorrow and get one. The second frog fuckfest is happening, as I write, and the noise is deafening, I finally put on The Cello Suites to drown out the sound. Too many frogs having too much fun. I wasn't working today and Barb was trying out various plastic cups as emergency backup for the Guinness on St. Patrick's day and I managed to drink 40 ounces of stout, lest it be thrown away; I signed up for the St. Paddy's day breakfast, mostly so I could see old members of the staff that had moved on, but always come back, that one day, because the tips are so good, three deep at the bar and every chair occupied. Blood sausage, rashers of Irish bacon, eggs, toast, potatoes; who, in their right mind, would pass up such an event? There are 38 kegs of beer in the hallway at the pub. Plus five in operation and two in the pre-cooler. A lot of beer. The Irish take their holidays seriously. I'll be back home in bed before the party begins. Fucking Daylight Savings Time, they do this to me every year, just adjusting to the light and they change the standard. Except for going to lunch at five minutes to twelve, so I can catch the ten top plays on ESPN, I don't pay much attention to time. It's so artificial. Speaking of losing track of time, I was kneeling on my pad of ethafoam, the other day, and it was cold. I was wondering about the fact that the frog eggs didn't freeze easily. I punctured one of them and tasted it. It was sweet, as I suspected, the sugars acting as anti-freeze. You could probably live on the amniotic fluid of tadpoles, in those harsh days of early spring, when nothing much was available; though I leaven my diet with cat-tail shoots and water cress, I need a source of protein.