How Many Hours Are in a Mirror?

So my life is on absolute overdrive.  I run from one thing to the next.  I have very little down time and right now that is great for me.  Despite my incredibly hectic life, I don't seem to be getting everything done the way I hoped.  I'm not sure if that is due to time constraints or the fact that my mind isn't working quite right.  If I could only have a few more hours in the day I might be able to be happy with the work I'm doing.  I need to believe this because the alternative is that what I do is just whole-hearted junk.  Art comes from the inside and right now I feel like the play I am directing is being damaged by my direction as opposed to being improve.  When you look through the mirror, everything takes on a new color, a different shape, and a new quality.  The question is, which side of the mirror am I on?

Man seeking supporting _____________

So I am on the prowl for a supporting actress to play my girlfriend in an upcoming play.  I'm in a very strange position as an actor in this show and the casting director for the theatre.  Serving two masters, anyone?  If this was seven to ten years ago I would have been able to get a number of college students involved.  Now I'm so removed from college, my best contact is an actress in the show I'm directing.  The search will continue...

Speaking of support, today was a very hard day for me.  I've stopped taking the latest medication that my doctor prescribed for depression because I have been spiraling into deeper despair.  I remember the suicidal thought on Prozac and PrestiQ was taking me down the same path.  My wife was so supportive as I was a complete lump for most of the day.  I laid in bed, on the couch, in the tub, and back in bed until about 2:00.  She made no demands on me.  A truly supportive wife.

At rehearsal today, I talked to my cast about my medication and apologized for any irritability they may have noticed.  They did not need to say much.  I am so unworthy of the loving people around me who give me such incredible support.  Without them I would have fallen into a grave a long time ago.

Blood, Gore, and Theatre

So tonight I had a shoot at my place for the poster of the play I am directing.  I picked up one of the actresses and worked on her makeup for about 2 hours.  Things didn't turn out the way I'd hoped, but they are still ok.  What was interesting to me was the relationship that I had with the skin of this woman.  I spent a couple hours painting and manipulating her skin.  I don't know her well and would have thought this would be weird, but skin is a fantastic canvas.  It is pliable, a neutral color, and cleans up fairly well.  Doing this tonight makes we want to do more projects on skin.  It's strange to say but I think I now know what Buffalo Bill was thinking in Silence of the Lambs.  Not the kidnapping women and throwing them in a hole part, but the love of skin as a medium for art.  Skin wonderful skin!

Occupying time to stop the mind

So I have noticed that I am constantly working to keep from allowing my mind to be idle.  When I am on a planning period at work I will listen to an audiobook or music while I work.  While my daughters are falling asleep I will read or search the Internet.  I work on plays, I watch movies, I read, I dedicate myself to teaching, but I refuse to sit in silence.  When all is quiet, my mind runs.  It races through the ditches and caverns of my brain shining light.  It is the Gollum who lives there that I fear most.  The little man who has not seen light in so long that his skin is translucent.  He rasps his hate filled words at me, threatening to come out and show the outside world the stranger that no one knows.  Medication has locked him away before, but I am currently trying to find the right key to slide in the lock which is buried in the dark.  While I keep experimenting with the new medications that my doctor practices with, he has free reign in my mind.  I can't lock him up.  One day I'm sure silence will be a respite from daily life again, but for now I just keep it loud enough and filled with enough traffic that his rasp is inaudible.

First Blog "who am I?"

Encouraged by those around me, I am starting a blog.  I am a teacher, a father, a husband, an actor, a director, and suffer from major depressive disorder.  It's funny but even listing all of those things does not seem to get to the root of who I am.  This is a question that I have been examining a lot lately.  "Who is anyone, really?"  What defines a person?  Can a person have a definition?  Because we are constantly in flux, I wonder if we can ever have a definition.  Do our thoughts make us?  Our actions?  The way others see us?  Will I be the same person tomorrow that I am today?  So for my first blog, I guess I just have a list of questions.  I hope I can keep up this blog.  If I can, I guess I can say for sure, "I'm a blogger!"