The title says they're free, but you can have them...

   It's 10:30 in the morning; I'm in Indianapolis. The Best Audience Ever opens at 4:30 today, and I've been up since 8 AM. It's too early, considering the lateness of the hour we returned from the first night of shows at IndyFringe. (Fear not, advocates of temperance--the time was spent largely in conversation...while trying to find Kurt Fitzpatrick's car. The side streets around Mass Ave in Indianapolis look a lot like places I've seen in Buster Keaton movies, so the simple act of finding where you parked stone cold sober in the dark can turn into a routine worthy of Buster himself.)

"This one can't be ours--the radio's tuned to the all-classical station."

   No, folks--I'm up early due to good old-fashioned insomnia, just like Mother used to make you try not to have when she was trying to get some sleep herself. It's not due to any of the so-called 'classic' causes...it never is. Strange house? I've slept on park benches an ocean away from my own bed. Neighbourhood within earshot of the railroad tracks? So was the house I grew up in. I find freight trains soothing. Ditto for cicadas and katydids. No--what gets me, plain and simple every time, are these:

BUTTERFLIES!

  

   You've probably guessed that I don't mean the literal kind. Nerves in a performer are a funny thing--you need a little edginess to stay sharp...but, Dear God in Heaven, it can eat away at you. This morning, I'm in the midst of a swarm of metaphorical lepidoptera, some of them the size of 747's. Bits of the show come swooping down on me out of nowhere, like questions a professor has told you will be compulsory on a final exam, demanding that I run them in my head just one more time. As if that weren't enough, things I know I have to do in the days and weeks ahead start barging in like bailiffs with liens on my property, demanding my immediate attention. Did I send that e-mail apologizing for not being able to be a last-minute substitute goalie because I'm in Indianapolis? Have I remembered to stay in touch with my thesis advisor? Are we stopping in Toronto on our trip home? At what time in the morning will I brush my teeth two weeks from this coming Tuesday? And, of course...did I remember to update this blessed blog? 

   So now, the answer to at least one of these questions is a firm, resolute 'yes'. (You guessed it--I sent the e-mail about not being available to be a sub-in goalie.) The wild rush of activity that is part and parcel of the last-minute preparations to open a Fringe show has also meant that an interview I did with IndyFringe Talk slipped onto the World Wide Web under my disabled radar a couple of days ago. My apologies to anyone who followed the link in the interview during the past couple of days and saw a posting that was already gathering dust and cobwebs.

   Well, either another cup of coffee, a nap, or more busy-work to chase the butterflies is on the agenda, so I'll sign off. Hope you readers within a reasonable drive of Indianapolis check out The Best Audience Ever during its run at IndyFringe. I'll see you at the Cook Theatre, starting this afternoon. For now, though, I have to check our supply of toothpaste to see if we have enough to last until two weeks from Tuesday.