Author: Matthew Groff

I seem to be doing a lot of that lately; just forgetting stuff. I have left home without my keys twice in one week, which is something I very rarely do. I forgot my wallet today when I left work for lunch. At work, for what seems like the past month, I have to be reminded about things that I have promised to do. I’m only 41… So, I’m not that old.

It feels like my memory keeps getting jogged all the time. Such as, I asked where a co-worker was today, and then I was reminded that they were on vacation. Now, the second I was about to be told this information, in my mind, there flashed the image of the email that was sent out to the office last week stating that they would be out. It’s as if I’m one step behind.

As stated above, I’m not too old, so I must think this is being caused by other factors. The first is that I have not being sleeping well at all; kid-o, work stress, life stress, I need a vacation stress… But I went through other periods of stress and lack of sleep and didn’t forget things all the time…

Or did I, and now I have just forgotten about it…

That’s spooky…

Like the realization that I have never directly seen my face… it’s only been a reflection off of a mirror.

Anyway… I’m forgetting stuff all the time now.

I have had to write everything down, and I use the reminders in my phone. What this makes me feel like is that I am living off of a list all the time, and everything feels scheduled.

This could be what it is like to get older after all.

At least the sun was some up…

I met a friend last night for a drink, but he was running late, and I had thirty minutes to kill at the bar by myself. It was 5pm, and the start of Happy Hour, and I was the only patron there.

I got a beer and a bourbon neat. I sat at the end of the bar, and watched as people came in, and I jotted down notes.

I thought about the fact that I really can’t day drink anymore. I mean I could, but I don’t feel right about it. This would be due to the kid. I feel like I need to be sober “just in case” something was to go wrong. So, when I get a moment to drink in the day time, I feel like I am getting away with something.

As I had my beer and bourbon, I thought popped into my head that I hadn’t had in a very long time; I wanted to smoke. I haven’t had a cigarette in four years, and I have no desire to smoke, but it was there for a second in my mind. Like thinking about an ex-girlfriend you never want to see again, but “POP!” – There she is in your head. Not that I was going down that road, but just for a second, I did miss smoking in a bar.

And to be in a bar, to meet a friend, and catch up, and laugh.

There was a book that I read called “Bluets” by Maggie Nelson, which I was considered poetry, but read like prose, but impacted me like I felt poetry always should have. I enjoyed it highly, and even tried copying its style for a book that I was writing. Of the many things that “Bluets” is about, the color blue plays a role of popping up in the authors life.

I feel that I’m having the color “navy” show up in my life. I am the one bringing it into my life, as I feel that I want more “navy” colored things in my life. I have even got my wife to add some navy colored clothes to her wardrobe, and we are not contemplating painting our bedroom a shade of navy. I have a watched whose band is red and navy, I have a navy checkered shirt, and navy blazer, and navy argyle socks. I do associate the color with New England, and I have a desire to relocate there when the NYC adventure, and maybe I see the color as a sign that it is time to leave the City.

I do feel like the color blue is the default refuge color of boring white men, or at least that is what I used to think. I remember someone making the joke that the Republican National Convention was also the national convention of khaki pants and button-down blue shirts.

I own several pairs of khaki pants and button-down blue shirts…

I have been thinking about the state of theatre, and the importance of community theatres. I cut my teeth in the theatres of North Teas before I moved up to New York, and to be honest, I had way more fun in the community theatres. Now, I can make a living here in New York, but it’s not as much fun, and the quality of performance is better, but not always.

I would not be the first person to write about the effects of capitalism on art and theatre in this country, so I won’t, but capitalism is the force that has and, if nothing changes, will continue to have on theatre in this country.

What I want to approach is my belief that most of the theatre that is consumed, is through community theatres. (I will look for research to back this up later.) I define a community theatre as a non-Equity house for actors and stage managers. So, in my mind, we are talking amateur to semi-professional. It is in these houses that people either get their first opportunities to work in a theatre, or experience live theatre for the first time.

What I find interesting is that, being that community theatre are place where people first get engaged in the theatrical arts, why aren’t professional theatres, unions, producers and performers dosing more to make sure these spaces stay open, and continue to thrive? The more community theatres there are, then the more fans you will create who will travel to NYC to see a show, or go to a local roadhouse to see the tour of a Broadway show.

Part of the reason that I started this blog was that I wanted to sharpen my skills when it came to writing for an audience. I am fully aware that just about no one reads this save to subscribers, and I think my wife. I have been out of the writing game for almost a decade now, I felt very rusty, and thought that this was a good way to keep working at it, even when I wasn’t sure what I was working on.

The way I see it, right now, I spend about three hours a day writing, give or take. I journal, write in this blog or at least try to type out 250 words, and I work on a project, which right now is one of three novels that I shift between. I have been keeping track in a calendar to see what I work on, so I can see what has been taking up my time. Since I have started the calendar, my productivity has increased.

Which leads me to the question that popped into my head right before I stared working on the blog: Am I writing, or am I typing? Am I just creating words for the ability to say that I am creating words, with the hope that someday they will naturally help me to become better as a writer? I can crank out words, but am I really saying anything?