After a tedious day, I am inclined to stay up way too late, trying to redeem it. If the day was a bust, I keep going, writing, typing, doing, hoping to find some good in something bad.

My partner is the opposite when his day has been particularly tedious, he will go straight to bed, hoping that sleep will re-set the day in the morning. He is more like the King in this respect. I am the opposite. Unless I’m suffering from jet lag. Then all bets are off and I’ll go straight to bed.

Tomorrow, I have to get on a plane and fly back to my country, my state, my city, my borough, my apartment.
There is work waiting for me, a company of actors, a lovely group of students, and a man who loves me.
And yet – despite the water pressure and the madly expensive cost of living and the transport that shuts down so early and the freezing cold houses and the difficulty of eating sensibly –
Please, sweet, leave me here awhile.
Let me tarry just a bit longer
Let me take in more inspiration
Let me have more inspiring conversations
Let me meet more kind brilliant people
Let me be here, where I’m both more at home and less.
Leave me here awhile.

Is this what the king was gunning for in that epic speech about people changing their tunes later? Was he aiming to get a MORE binding oath out of his wife?
Was all that stuff about the discrepancy between thought and acting actually just a play to get her to swear herself into a corner?
I suppose that might give the King something to play in that excessively long list of aphorisms.
This line, then, becomes a button on his having won the thing he wanted.

People say these sorts of things so they can say, “I told you” later. But of course if the predicted event happens after your death, it’s a little bit of a wasted, “I told you so.”
Unless, of course you come back from the dead, as the other First King does in this play. If you come back from the dead, you can, when your wife who swore she’d never re-marry remarries, show up in your ghostly raiments at the wedding or the wedding night and shout, “I told you so! See, you said you wouldn’t and I said you would and I was right and you were wrong so now I can go back to my grave knowing I was right. So… anyway – enjoy your wedding night, guys. Just popped by to stay “I told you so” and do a little gloating.”
And then the ghost can return to decomposing because he did tell her so.

Once upon a time, I tried to control my thoughts. I believed if I thought positively enough that I could change my fate. Long story short – it didn’t work.

But what I find funny is how those thoughts were not mine, really.
I was changing the thoughts I HAD to try and fit into some life changing thought pattern. I was denying my own actual thoughts for the thoughts of an idea. Which, I now recognize, are not nearly as interesting as the complicated ones I was having.
The control I was attempting to wield was powerless against the actual complex, fascinating thoughts that were mine and mine alone.
And so in the end, I surrendered to my own thoughts, allowing them to be truly mine. And I think that made me a better writer.

Ain’t it the truth?
It took some time for me to work this out. In my early years, my will was pretty much in line with my fate. I thought I’d get almost anything I set my mind to – because I would manage 9 out of 10 things I set myself to. I auditioned for shows and got in to every one. I may have lost the Shakespeare competition at the Regional level but I got into Governor’s School so, no big deal. I got into the college of my choice. I won contests and got good grades. Okay, so I wasn’t able to find a find a boyfriend and I was woefully inexperienced in relationships – but I wasn’t WORKING at the those things. . . so of course!
But – time is a great teacher and I failed to achieve MANY of the things I’ve attempted since my youthful achievements. The ratio for success used to be 9 out of 10 and now it’s more like 1 out of 10. It was reversed.
But then, my ambitions are greater, my goals less in reach. The odds are longer. And fate will do what it will do.
I do have a boyfriend now, though, that’s something. And I didn’t even WILL it to be so.

But that “hollow friend” bit is the key, isn’t it? If you have no needs, if you’re one of them that gets, sure, you may have all the friends you need, but they are all the more likely to be of the hollow variety.
My closest friends were forged in times where many of us lacked a lot in the resources department. Bosom friends will remain so even during the hard times.

You can, with too much desperation, even wear out a bosom friend – but a hollow friend, is sure to fly away in the face of need.
I suppose this is why when people make it big, they keep the friends they forged in poverty – because they already trust them. They have seen their merit, they have seen all the way through.
Hollow friends try and hitch a ride. True friends try and help you get there.

This is the “God Bless the Child” section of this speech. You got the – “Money you got lots of friends crowding round your door. When it’s gone and the spending ends, they don’t come round no more” bit right here.
Great man down, friends gone.
Poor folks get a little success suddenly everyone wants a piece.
I’ve never been advanced enough to see this in action for myself but I have heard stories, I have heard many stories.
God Bless the Child that’s got his own.

They say that flies are the hardest to train. If you want to make an insect circus, you’d be better off with fleas or beetles or anything other than flies. Flies can’t remember anything. Train them at noon – they’ll have forgotten everything they learned by teatime.
But the Great Man didn’t care. He had a room full of flies and he spoiled his favorites, gave them sugar water from an eye dropper, wrote them love songs. He was indefatigable. He’d run them through the same routine everyday and every day they’d start again at the beginning as if they’d never landed on a little trapeze before, never sat in a miniature lion’s mouth.
When the Great Man tripped over his tiny tent one morning when the door bell rang at the crack of dawn, he went down with a crash and never got back up.
When the authorities finally came to retrieve him, they just waved the flies away, not noticing that some were dressed in tiny costumes – with tiny top hats and tails, tiny evening gowns. They brushed them all away, missing their distinctions.

I’m not sure it’s that interesting a question, actually.
Does Fortune ride love’s roller coaster or does love ride fortune’s roller coaster?
Or both.
I mean, really, it’s both, isn’t it.
It’s all mixed up – love and fortune.
A change in love changes your fortune and then a change in fortune changes your love.
You’re miserable.
You fall in love.
You cheer right up.
Love feels good.
You lose your job.
You have a hard time at home, you’re a different person now that you scowl over the classifieds every day.
Love is a little bit inconsequential at the moment.
Your love wins the lottery.
Both of your lives improve for a moment.
But then your love enjoys those fancy meals out more than you do and you disagree about the investment strategy.
Love and Fortune. It’s all just ups and downs.