If there was a personal theme for the show last night, it was one of being out of focus. I wanted to be there, I wanted to play, but I just couldn’t focus. And then, I was terrified, not merely nervous, and I clammed up during 185, which is something I’ve been working on NOT doing. I just…couldn’t push past the fear.

It started with a soda can. I needed something fizzy to drink when I got to the arena, and bought a Coca-cola. I sipped about a third of it before getting distracted by something else. And then we started warm-up, but, like the wine-glass teetering on the edge of a table, that pulls focus from actors on stage, I was more worried someone would kick my soda can, than I was about the warm-up game. More than once another player chastised me – gently, and rightly so – for not being all there.

There’s this deep pressure in my brain that’s pushing me to break through some invisible barrier and figure out a way to release the sparky vivaciousness that’s always been a part of my personality, and that I keep repressing, but there’s also an equally insistent inner voice that reminds me I like to write about dark spooky things…and the clash between the two is getting harder to mediate. I’m 36 years old and I still don’t know who I am.

Clay and I talked about creative personalities and a sort of non-clinical bipolar effect that we all seem to have, where we’re either going non-stop, or sinking into misery and plodding doldrums. Sometimes, it just makes you want to chew a couple of lithium cells, or move to a foreign country.

Speaking of which, I’ve felt a very strong urge to really learn to speak and read French. I’ve always loved languages, I usually pick them up pretty quickly, and my smattering of French isn’t enough to achieve what I want to achieve these days.

Back to the show. Overall, it was good, but I’m not pulling my weight, and I KNOW better. I mean, intellectually, I get it. I just feel sort of…lost in translation.