Last Friday night about 10PM I stood at the side of the railroad tracks watching the biggest, longest goddamn train a-rolling past, keeping me from crossing the track to get to the small, modern warehouse where I would read from my play, my work in progress. I had worked all week at a temp job coding legal documents and I was in need of some creative expression. A new local theater company was starting a reading series, where you pay $5, grab a couple of beers, read for five minutes from your own work and receive some input.
Finally the damned train with tankers, boxcars, refrigerated cars, and semi-trailers on flat cars rolled by. It was like a mini-tour of the USA, Red River Valley, Illinois Central, etc. So I finally got to the gathering--a pretty good crowd for a Friday night in Portland. I chatted a bit--being shy I had drank a bit already, and after a couple of beers I felt no pain, i was a friend to all.
The rst of the readers had friends to act out the parts--damn. This never occurred to me.
There were some good pieces that night--mine was about an exhibitionist who masturbates in his local park, where an amateur photographer has spent a year shooting him in secret. She finally approaches him since she is going to have an exhibition at a gallery. She is a teacher, a lesbian and has trouble explaining her fascination with him.
He is middle-aged, a call center support worker in a cubicle--a man of quiet desperation.
The reading went well, I absorbed feedback that will help me re-write the play and polish it to a presentable state.
I took the bus home, drunk and happy, glowing with the joys of being around creative people and being creative myself.
So make your own--art, wine, beer, poetry, plays, what you will.
I went walking in the park the next morning, summer flower smells, loam and a cool wind from the west. I felt happy.