CAN'T STAND IN THE SHALLOWS

All right. Brain still Covid-fied, world still mad, life still exuberant and strange, rising and falling like waves at the beach, and I still try to ride those waves like I did when I was a kid in the oh so cold waters of the Monterey Bay, usually at Natural Bridges State Park. The routine was always the same. Walk out, up to your knees, get up the necessary courage, then run in all the way, feeling the shock of the water with both glee and agony and above all an unbridled sense of being alive, in the moment, all other problems and thoughts banished by that cold cold water.

It is the only way to do it.

It's the same in the morning. The alarm goes off, and you wade in the shallow water of not quite awake yet, which can last an hour even though it only really lasts five minutes, and then, as your dreams run off in all directions to wherever it is dreams go, you get out of bed. At least I do. I get out of bed, heat up some old coffee, put the kettle on for a fresh pot, break out the journal, and pour what remnants of dreams are still in the noggin, and try to figure out on paper a sliver of my eternal soul.

It is the only way to do it.

Today, however, I did not do that. I let the alarm come and go like a show on my Netflix cue that I keep meaning to watch but never do. I slept another hour. When Lisa asked me if I was going to make coffee, I said no. 

Very strange.

Like not breathing or being alive strange.

But I think the Covid is giving a good fight and not quite ready to cede the battle yet.

To which I say "fuck that". 

I can't stand being in the shallow water, seeing waves in front of me, enticing and frightening in equal measure. People think I do a lot. I am always directing plays, teaching classes, working on a script. It's not that I am industrious or ambitious or have some wonderful work ethic handed down to me by some fairy tale version of Puritans. 

No. I just can't stand in the shallows, feeling the tide on my legs, and not rush to those waves. I can't resist the ice cold water that reminds me I'm alive. I can't. And I don't.

This stupid virus has slowed me down for a week or so. It's done a number on the planet. On all of us, and that's just the way it is. 

But the waves still crash, the water is still cold, and I am still alive. 

Here's a song. It's the theme from The Rockford Files. Because it's bitchin'

I'M KEIR DULLEA. FOR AT LEAST FIVE DAYS.

Well, I finally got Covid, and I can confirm, it sucks.

Happily, I have been vaccinated and boosted and kept up with current thought on what to do and all that, so I am not in the hospital or anything like that. Still amazed at the Narnian Dwarves out there who insist that it was all some sort of hoax or secret plot. Not only is that stupid, it takes all the fun out of conspiracy theories about JFK, aliens, and the real Men in Black. Not to mention Area 51. And it seems, for the most part, that these same people who are willing if not anxious to believe that there is a secret cabal determined to control us by faking a worldwide pandemic and then putting microchips into us via vaccines turn a blind eye to actual dangers to all of us like climate change that have been brought around by a group of powerful, rich, secretive corporations. 

It boggles the mind.

Anyway, I have Covid. I was feeling feverish Sunday after rehearsal for The Addams Family - which is produced by my company Sasquatch Productions and opens soon at the PACE Center and looks to be an amazing show and I hope you all come see it because it really is joyous and funny and a touching reminder of what love and family is all about- and Lisa noted said fever and suggested I take a Covid test just to be safe, and so I stuck that Q-tip thing up my nostrils, swished it in the solution, put the three drops on the test pad- and where I had been so used to watching nothing happen for fifteen minutes, there was a second line, in way less than fifteen minutes. 

Sometimes, it is hard to accept reality. Sometimes, you become a Narnian Dwarf yourself. (it's a reference to a scene in the last book of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. I go over it in an earlier blog and you can search this page and find it and read it and I hope you do) 

After a few seconds of denying reality, I said "Shit". 

And then called every job I have and every person I've been in contact with and let them know what was up.

Current protocol is to quarantine for five days, then mask for five more. And of course, do not go out until you test negative. 

This is day four is sitting at home, and let me tell you, it is no fun.

I feel like Keir Dullea in the last part of 2001: A Space Oddyssey, when he is in that weird alien assimilation of a human abode, all alone, waiting for the monolith to come.

I have had time to write and to watch shows I somehow missed that have been sitting in queue. Shows include: Killing Eve, What We Do in the Shadows, which are both brilliant; also catching up and current on: Andor, She-Hulk, and Rings of Power. Also pretty great.

Now, writing wise, I have deconstructed Lunatics and Assholes and put it back together, and while I think plot wise it is tighter, I need to inject some humanity and magic back into it. I don't want to merely push all the right buttons, with tension, reversal, and release and such. I want to create the world as I see it, full of nobility and tragedy and misguided heroes and misunderstood villains. I want to make something that tells hard truths while inspiring hope. 

I want to kick the shit out of it.

On a continual basis.

So. To surmise, Covid sucks. Denying reality is not healthy. And magic is important.

Here's a song. It's That's Entertainment by The Jam.