Die Salesman Die

Sorry. You know what's a damn awesome play? Death of a Salesman. There's just so much there that it takes several readings (and viewings) to weed through it all. Today I attempted to cut to the heart of the issue, and I asked my English teacher what's fundamentally wrong with Willy Loman. She said he was a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I nodded like I understood, but I don't. You don't just wake up one morning and have a nervous breakdown. Something had to put him there, and there had to be some underlying issues that made everything go so wrong for him. So what could possibly have been so intrinsically wrong with this man that he ended up being so passive-agressive? There must have been something that happened to him to make him that way. The issues run too deep for all of his problems to have been caused by what he does in the play.

I really enjoy plays, and I'm thinking my next venture into the nonmusical theatre will be This Wide Night. I've never seen Allison Pill live, but I hear she is wonderful. I could take or leave Edie Falco. Anyway, a lot of people write plays off, but I think I actually may prefer them more than musicals.

It just occured to me that Lenora actually cares a lot more than I do about my inkpop progress, and I think I finally figured out why. Smashed is my baby, not Lenora's. If I'm the mother, she's the fun aunt. Cheerleader that she is, she wants to see my book go all the way to the top. I want that too, but I've already spent hours and hours and hours with this project. I've sat up nights trying to get it just right, and it's still not quite there. For some reason, that kind of labor breeds a patience. I'm not willing to wait forever, but I do want to wait until Smashed is as perfect as it possibly can be. And besides: