82

Thoroughly Modern Millie confirmed to me that I am a people-pleaser, whatever else I may be. I really enjoyed hearing people being happy and know, in whatever small way, I contributed to that. I had a silly grin on my face all through production. It was just so much fun to do something happy on stage, as opposed to being a cynical misanthropist or dying of syphilis.

Bits of Words from the Last Couple of Hours

I stood cold and alone on the grey-est day of the year outside under the sky and I fell into a dream. In that land, where the lines of the horizon swerved about like the finite skin of a raisin, I waded through the names I had written out for myself and tried to drink where it felt appropriate, but I choked. Little centipedes and millipedes and the great monstrous decapedes crawled all over my inert knees until I was reeling. I swayed to and fro like a small ship in a big sea. The lights fell from the sky and built up for themselves monuments, titanic obeliskes that whistled when their corners caught the wind just so. Clouds breathed in and out, in and out like the breaking gasp of a whale emerging from the deep, demanding sustenance for the next plunge. I laid on my back with my ears in the sand, letting it all pound away until it was done. The silence swept in from the North East, and the cats from the mountain descended. They howled for their nightly dinner, and I was mightily afraid. I closed my eyes, and winced, and it was all over.