strange fruit

i ain't gonna lie. i've been a big ol' honkin' ball of stress as of late. tension ooooooozing outta my pores...manifesting itself as zits and a sallow complexion. my left eye a throbbing sunburst of pulsating twitch and redness. this little reptilian o' angst slithers down my neck and latches on to my left shoulder blade and squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezes with all its might 'til i am reduced to tears in my shower bathing with Johnson & Johnson lavender-scented baby bath "for fussy babies." ahem...fussy adults, thank you very much.

it's fun!

but here's the thing i realized the other day - Yours Truly is the creator of all this hooha. this perceived stress is just that...perceived. i'm just fine. the show's in just dandy shape for where we are (one month out). i have a fabulous publicist. i have an amaaaaazing director. i might have a donated LCD projector (I LOVE YOU GARY SILBER and LAVONNE BRUCKNER!!!). i've got a sound designer, and you no doubt saw the body forms that are slowly taking shape, stuffed and wrapped and fortified by my rock star set designer. i'm fucking blessed. my sweet, generous friend A. is sending she a scheisseload of sparkly MAC products too. so why all the stress? why all the angst? why all the drama?

habit, my lovelies. pure habit. i mean, there certainly are legitimate stressors in doing this show, but truthfully, i think most of my stress isn't even coming from the show, but other crap...personal things, silly personal 12-year old things that i shouldn't even be entertaining right now. and the stuff that does have to do with the show is the schtuff i can't control so, of course, by my very nature, i'd like nothing more than to tackle it, wash its mouth out with soap, and send it to its room.

ain't happening.

so...the other night, as i lay in bed, begging for the morning to come b/c i just couldn't bear another sleepless night, mind racing, a prepubescent troop of Boy Scouts practicing their knotting technique at the base of my neck...i recalled reading about something called "treeing." here's the deal - a tribe in africa has a "worry tree." whenever anyone in the village is worrying about something - particularly something they can't control - they hang their worry on the tree to let the gods take care of it. a kind of prayer. a release. a "i really cannot fix this right now. do you mind? thanks a bunch. i'm off to go do what i really need to do. ta!"

i 'treed' a few things:

money
money
money
and, oh yeah...money.

...a few people...

that one...
that one...
and oh yeah! that one.

a few self-destructive ideas...

you're getting fatter by the minute, lookit them cheeks.
no one's gonna come to this show.
no one's gonna "get" this show.
you're wasting all of your time on this show.

them's some doozies, but i did it. know what? i slept better than i have all week. now, you should know that a couple of those monkeys kept leaving their perch and hopping onto my back throughout the day, but i just continued to ever so gently toss 'em back up into my imaginary arboretum overhead. tho there was one that i had to shackle to the branch.