Since April I've been working on posting once a week, though not here, and the title of the post is typically my current weight in pounds, starting at 220.

Oogy. I look quite different in the mirror. Still want to lose another 10lbs. It's more difficult with the colder weather coming in. Discipline. Or just bacon.

Unfairly annoyed with lack of progress on several life-related fronts. Had an "everything is the same, my life hasn't changed in 10 years, I've wasted the last decade" attack on Friday, said I was ready to just burn the house down (saving cats, backup data) and walk away. It's one of those things that surfaces now and then. Like many such attacks, the feeling is strong in the moment, and when the moment passes it's less urgent but still there as part of my psyche. 

How do people look back on their lives and value what they've done? I know I've done a lot of cool shit in the past 10 years. But sometimes it just feels like I've done nothing and have nothing to show for it. I suspect this is rooted in the "lack of multiple strong friendships and a good support network" problem. Which I am now feeling upset about. Great, thanks, journal counsellor. Now I need to talk myself down from freaking out again.

So Thursday we went to see a queer variety show; music, dance and theatre. Some good stuff there. The musical numbers were cute, even pleasant. Some disappointments in the theatrical performances. Learning more about theatre as a director has the super-power of seeing where problems are in productions. Like if there's a particular performer who clunks, that may just be bad acting, but if everyone is mostly on the same level, that's a director problem. Or if you get great acting moment-to-moment but scenes don't flow, or if need/intent isn't visible, also a director problem. Or if scenes just don't make sense, or don't connect together, that's a script problem. Or if an actor emotes well in some places but not others, or feels like they are not connecting to the audience or other actors. Could be a lack of warming up.... or it could be that rehearsals didn't really push the actor. 

By contrast, yesterday afternoon we saw HMS Pinafore put on by an amateur theatre group in another town (Guelph). It was really rather amazing to see a "little" theatre with 300 seats (half filled on a Saturday afternoon), a real stage, a lighting grid with catwalks, separate rehearsal space, workshops and so on. And a cast of 20 who all pulled their weight; not perfectly, but no clunker performances either. Decent directing, modest but adequate lighting and choreography. With a little pit band. And in a community 1/4 the size of ours. Makes one think. What are they doing right? What is our community doing wrong?