Recalculating: It’s Monday all over again

Image: Harmut Tobies via Unsplash

“I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of daily life.”

– Sherlock Holmes, as written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Indeed.

It is Monday and the beginning of a new work week. First, allow me to apologize for the lack of brilliant posts here over the past few days (weeks?). Of course, the brilliance is still here, but the posts have been few.

There are two reasons for that. I’ve been quite busy and I’ve decided that I won’t post just for the sake of posting. One day, when this blog receives bazillions of daily hits I know that I’ll have to post daily. You can help reach that goal, by the way, by sharing this with family and friends.

But, why so busy?

Saturday night I said goodbye once again to Sherlock and my character of Dr. John Watson. We reprised the roles in a Mystery Murder event for CAT Theatre. It was a one night only deal, something that we thought would be simple and fun. It was, well fun anyway.

But, a week ago last night, my friend Jeremy (Sherlock) and I got together to work on our characterizations for the event. We started with the initial product that we were given and realized that there were some inconsistencies. Don’t get me wrong, for what it was it was a great framework and would still be a most enjoyable dinner party event in your home. But, not only was this event going to be different, we were both quite attached to our roles and wanted to portray something true to the story.

So after grabbing dinner at The Mill, we went to a studio to work. We started talking through the process. Some five or six hours later, we had a plan to rewrite/rework the entire event. Without droning on, that’s how we spent most of our free time over the last week.

We met Friday night at the theater with the other organizers. After that we grabbed a late dinner and talked through more. Saturday was day long marathon of emails and phone calls getting the last minute pieces together.

To put it in perspective, I called my wife on the way home after the event. She and my son had just gotten home from a four show run of Glorious Christmas Nights. She was a little concerned when she got home that she found the back door unlocked, the cat out in the rain, the dog out of his crate and eating trash, two ficus trees in the foyer that I left because I couldn’t transport them in the rain, and the water running in our bathroom sink. She didn’t notice that my computer was on and that there were about 20 still opened Publisher files.

All that is to say that it was great to work with Jeremy again and great to reprise these characters. As I said on Facebook the role of Dr. Watson will remain one of my most favorite theatrical experiences.

I also noted that this time, saying goodbye was just a little less sad. While it was great to work together again, I’m pretty sure Sherlock and I can use a break.

On a side note, I was only able to do this event because I dropped out of Glorious Christmas Nights due to the shoulder and what I thought at the time was inevitable surgery. That of course changed. But I knew even without surgery that I couldn’t endure four back-to-back Saturday shows. Then, of course there were all the nasty side effects of the medication. I miss my GCN friends, but I know I made the right choice.

But, speaking of the shoulder, I joked at the time of the Sherlock show that Dr. Watson was wounded in his left shoulder while serving in the military in Afghanistan. I thought, surely, once I’m no longer Watson, the shoulder will get better. It’s called method acting.

I’m a little concerned that in my next role, I play an aging Confederate soldier who was badly wounded in his right leg.

Ironically, while the shoulder is not exactly healed, I have a feeling this morning that I’m on the way to recovery. I made some personal health decisions that I think are heading me in the right direction.

First, I made an appointment with a chiropractor. He’s a friend of the actor who played Sherlock and also plays in our orchestra at church. I met with him Friday and we’ve started a plan of attack. Perhaps the most encouraging thing was that he knows my doctor (the surgeon who said no surgery). I go back this morning and we’ll see how things go. I feel rather confident that this was the right move.

The other decision I made was to take myself off of the narcotics.

To paraphrase the Lady from The Scottish Play, “Out! Out! Damned side effects.”

Quite simply, I couldn’t stand it any longer. In reality, they only worked to make my brain think there was no pain, they didn’t remove the pain. The emotional distress, twitching and insomnia just weren’t worth it any longer. The irony is that, as of this post, it’s been about 96 hours since I took the last pain pill. The pain is not considerably different. And I’m a bit less of a basket case.

So, I’m not currently working on a show. But Christmas is coming with all of the busy-ness that I wrote about the other day. I’ll try to be here more often. There are no guarantees.

And suddenly, there’s the realization that I start rehearsals for my next show in four weeks.

Recalculating: It’s Monday all over again

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