The fog is lifting. The

May 05, 2002

The fog is lifting. The cloak that has wrapped my brain in half sleep since 5:30 am is partially removed. I had to fly back to Vancouver this morning and Kevin and I were picked up absurdly early for our flights. There is something that happens to me when it is revealed that I must start a day in such a way. I can’t get to sleep the night before. Why just endure a slight shock to the system when you can double its effect? It seems insomnia sets in only when sleep is really necessary. I can deprive myself of sleep for weeks when working on something and still survive...but...there comes a day when it all catches up to you. Lets call that day “the Day the Dutch Boy Gives Up”. For those of you unfamiliar with the fable it concerns a little Dutch boy who is plugging a leak in the dike that protects his village from the rising river. He does so with his finger. It seems that when the river of sleep deprivation finally reaches a certain height my internal dutch boy pulls his finger out of the dike and I start to spring terminal leaks. My sleep trigger goes haywire. It won’t go off when I want it to and it goes off when I don’t want it to go off. The dutch boy is stricken by demon possession. I was holding fast on my layover in Calgary and then...as sure as I was staring blearily at the freakish May snowfall... I passed out. I woke up to that horrible site -- although perhaps I WAS a horrible site. Nobody was left at my boarding gate and the flight information was now blank. Shit. The clerk at the next desk said, “Oh its OK. Look behind you. They’re just finishing boarding that flight at a new gate over there”. I hope to ride the wild dutch boy for the rest of the day without incident. I’m on my game and I’m on the caffeine.
The Winnipeg shows were a Jekyl & Hyde affair in reverse. Hyde the first night and Jekyl the second. The audience was tremendous and I applaud those in the upper balcony of the Walker theatre for having overcome the vertigo that must have resulted from staring down at such a near vertical angle. The cast had to remember to look up or noone up there would ever see their faces. I’d hate to have paid money to see the top of the heads of the Kids in the Hall for nearly two hours. There were plenty of technical snags and brain farts on day one but day two was quite smooth and inspired. I must say that Mark McKinney has really been “on” for the last little while. He seems to be locking into something good. The weather on the first day in Winnipeg was biblical as usual. Winnipeg always has some spectacular new meteorological show for me each time I arrive. This time it was dust storms that were rolling in from the outskirts of town. It appeared as if a brown fog was creeping up the corridors between buildings on its way to the centre of town. My hair was a matted with a combination of dirt and whatever salon goop I’d rubbed through it in the morning. The Albert Einstein look was quite interesting.
I’m in a cab in Vancouver now. The can see the sun is trying valiantly to fend off the mottled clouds sitting right over my house up there on yonder hill. Hopefully the fog is actually lifting.