Prom and Conversations I'll be a part of someday but not today

Okay... optimism is a fickle bitch and can't decide whether it's in abundance or a rarity. In my life, at least. So tonight, I write with an ambiguous "things are... things" kind of mentality. Not good. Not bad. Just things.

My friends Matt and Frank are throwing a birthday party prom for their 26th birthdays this Saturday. I'm all ABOUT this, as high school prom was a complete debacle in the majority of my remembrances, and a do-over is definitely in order. Plus, I'm not planning too far in advance. The planning is all-too-often where prom goes horribly awry-- expectations almost always blow the entire event out of proportion.

And another way this prom is already better than the first one-- I have a real date! I asked him over G-Chat and it's no big deal, but still, he's a real live guy-date*.

*Not that going to high school prom with Emily Roberson wasn't a slice of delightful. She was just a she.

In secondary news, today at work I was a part of a discussion that placed me in terrain so clearly out of my league. To explain-- a group of playwrights got together for bourbon and discussion. I happened to be working, sat down and joined in.

I spoke maybe three times over the course of two hours.

They talked about politics and playwrighting and theater and America and ALL THIS SHIT I'm CONSTANTLY thinking about. The difference being-- oh, I don't know, their legitimate status as playwrights? Their intimate knowledge of the topics we were discussing? The big, deliberately chosen words they used to express pertinent, edgy ideas? One of those.

So while I was overwhelmed and felt totally under-qualified to so much as express my opinion, it was huge just to be in the room. It was like hearing all my college professors get together over booze and shoot the shit. I'd be SO interested and listen with unwavering attention-- but I'd be scared out of my fucking mind.

Attrition! Attrition! .... Attrition!

Sing the title to "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof and it's way funnier.

I've been blog-absent for years now, it seems. I only honestly admit this because I just spent the past hour or so reading old entries and getting lost in the alleyways of memory lane. ("I was still friends with people from high school in my junior year of college! And I wish I still was! Oh my god how detached I feel now by comparison!")

There's this idea that got introduced in my playwriting class that seems a little daunting. It's what makes "All My Sons" a fucking virtuousic dramatic work-- indicative of what theater should be able and IS able to do. It's the concept that dramatic actions build upon every dramatic action that's come before it-- the attrition of emotion/information is cumulative, and pressure builds until the drama has stuffed itself into too small a space and something has to explode in a cathartic release (CLIMAX!).

That being said, I have a bit of a problem with attrition in my own life. I think it comes with my ability to completely forget the past and live completely in the future. (This is a recent development... ironically.)

I love progress. And I love thinking that the version of myself that I am at the moment is more advanced and evolved than previous versions of myself. But reading old entries makes me realize that old me wasn't the senseless, underdeveloped me that I always pretend she was. Granted, reading old entries is a bit like hearing a stranger talk (and what a clever, attractive stranger she was). But I wasn't completely retarded, and certainly not so less sophisticated than I am now. Less well-read, perhaps. But not unintelligent and not completely incomprehensible.

Speaking about completely incomprehensible behavior, I had a point about "attrition" that may have been thrown to the wolves of a slightly inebriated mind. Blame it on people at work deciding that Thursday night is the best possible night to throw a Bourbon party.