Fan

A confession. When I get excited about a performance (i.e. play, musical, opera, concert, cabaret, reading--and anything else I haven't thought of at the moment) my adrenaline seems to send me into a mild form of mania. Bipolar is a disorder that moves from mania to depression, so something that already increases your brain chemistry levels to a heightened feeling just goes a little bit father with me. Doesn't matter if I've taken my meds or not, my excitement leads to adrenaline leads to mild mania...leads to me saying stupid things. No, not mildly curious words. Just really embarrassing shit. Those kinds of things you regret for, well, ever. The more famous, or the more impressive, or the more beloved the person, the more cringe-worthy the words that flow from my mouth. Yes, (almost) everyone says a foolish thing now and again, which is a normal part of being creatures that can speak sounds that mean things. So I'm not talking about those occasional lapses.  My penchant for cringing is much more frequent than that. At least once or twice a year, I come out with just the most ill-formed, stupifying ideas that never fail to discombobulate, irritate, offend, or embarrass the poor person (or worse, people) trapped in front of me like deer in headlights. No, I will not give you examples. Are you nuts?

Which is why I did not go up to the actors who had just finished a reading of a very interesting play at The New School, Monday night.  All of them were good, but two of the actors I have seen many times on TV or in film, and I like them very much.  I even had a small window when I could have just walked over to a group of them to say "Congratulations!"  And maybe I could have stopped it at that, and all would be well.  But the minute someone turns to look at me after I pay them a compliment, my brains does its haywire act and out blurbs something odd, tangled, puzzling, or just downright rude. The problem is that once I'm in that state, my brain works faster than my mouth, so what comes out is a part of an idea, or two ideas smashed into one, or gibberish. But they rarely seem to be harmless.  I have a gift for making it awful! And when my brain finally comes back to where I started, its too late.  No way to fix it.  So I just walked by without saying a thing. I calmed myself with the thought, "I'll send them a message on Facebook or Twitter.  Surely all actors need one of those things.  (Not to mention the playwright.)"

So the next day, I find that only four of the seven (actors + playwright) were on social media.  I wish they all had been, but I sent those four short messages of congratulations. No stupid, half formed, crazy, embarrassing insults.  Just a few words to let them know I enjoyed the experience. Nice and safe.  And I waited.  And waited.  And eventually...I heard from one!  One fucking person answered me! True, it was a very sweet answer, and it was from an actress I've been watching for decades, so that was more meaningful to me than if one of the people I knew nothing about had sent it, but the other actor, whose work I have long enjoyed, sent me nuttin'. Not a word. Not a key stroke. Not even a #.  Granted it was on Twitter, and it was in the afternoon, so I could have left well-enough alone and just chalked it up to the overload that is the Twitter universe. But I went to read his feed and there I was.  And a few minutes after mine, he answered someone else's about a completely different subject. So no such luck in the "it got lost in the Twitter universe" defense.  It seems he just chose to ignore it or think it needed no response. A childish part of me thinks, "Well, fuck you, too, Buddy. See if I ever tweet you again!" A irritated part of me wants to send another: "Should I have mentioned boxing or hockey?" (Two subjects he tweets about often.) But rationally all I'm left with is...I can absolutely be sure that he didn't think what I said was stupid.  Nor did the other three that got my tiny missive. Because, this time, I pretty much stopped at "Congratulations!"