the last week

doing this show has been fun (we've been sold out for the entire run for the last week or so and the audiences have been great) but i'm ready to go back to the city. there's a lot that's waiting for me: the meeting, the recording session, the birthday gig and the gig the night before the birthday gig -- all of that before the end of the month. so far, i've worked hard on a treatment for the performance piece and the opening monologue, and i've made an information packet that i think i'll mail to each of them tomorrow -- a few articles i found on the great migration north and the recent phenomena of the great migration south, along with a booklist and some interesting graphs -- so they can pore over it now and we can all begin on the same page. i'm working hard to do as much as i can for the meeting before i get there because it happens the day after i arrive and i really want to be ready for it.

besides, my friend is coming over to have mexican food and watch adult swim with me the day that i get back. (he loves squidbillies. i love robot chicken.) if i work this hard now, i'll feel that i'll deserve that downtime. he says he misses me and to tell you the truth, i'm starting to believe him.

funny but in this last week, i can feel myself stepping everything up a few notches. i work out in the morning and again in the afternoon (i read somewhere that missy elliot worked out that way to lose weight) and then i walk several miles to the theater. when i come home from work, i draw myself a nice, hot bath -- partly because i know i won't be able to do that at home, thanks to my roommate situation, and i want to bask in that small slight luxury for as long as i can. and i make sure that i eat really well -- lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, lots of water, and no junk whatsoever. well. i have been stopping for coffee at this gas station that sits across the park from the theater, on the circular road. my friend says it's his bad influence. he's definitely a coffee achiever. maybe he's right.

i think i'm pushing this hard because i've got a great routine going and because i'm seeing such wonderful results. that's why a part of me doesn't want to let go of my life here. i want to get as much out of this as i possibly can. i'll probably get up early on the morning we return to the city, just so i can get in a nice hard sweat one last time at the ywca before we hit the road. boy howdy, nothing motivates like progress.

this small town has been good to me -- but really, i've been good to me, by using this opportunity to help myself in the best way possible. it's been a great jump start. but hey -- isn't this what famous people do? if i were famous and loaded (because a lot of famous people aren't), wouldn't i have done something like this? go away somewhere for a month or so, decompress, detox, spend time with a life coach to refocus and work out with a trainer to get lean? famous fat people and how they lose weight is what i read about in the trashy celeb magazines while i'm sweating on the stairmaster. there's irony in there somewhere but i'm too exhausted to find it.