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September 2001

Saturday, September 1

I attend a technical rehearsal for Bad Epitaph's next production, "The Censor." I am designing sound for the show, but the tech rehearsal is murder. I am painfully uninterested in having anything to do with producing theater, and just want to go home.

Monday, September 3

Labor Day. I resolve to dispose of my legendary T-shirt collection.

Tuesday, September 4

First day at work as an actor-teacher for Great Lakes Theater Festival. "I told the crew right off about Calvin. I figured they needed to know. I am glad I did."

Wednesday, September 5

"One day we will be happy. One day. I will be 42 years old, with my children, aged 9 and 7. Toni will be 40. It will be 2010 and we will live far from here, living a modest, simple life. I will have a big beard and Toni will have wisps of gray in her hair. And a boy and a girl. And all of this will be so far behind us."

Every now and then, I have to go off to the bathroom and weep.

Friday, September 8

Bad Epitaph's production of "The Censor" opens.

Tuesday, September 11

I'm at work - we're doing warm-up exercises, playing games, things like that. A co-worker's cellphone goes off, the way his does pretty much every day, interrupting rehearsal. And he answers it, instead of turning it off, the way he usually does. He tells us what has happened. We stop everything, turn on the radio, and listen as the World Trade Center collapses, the Pentagon burns, and no one can find the President.

Meanwhile, Toni is at the gym - I reach her by cellphone and she is remarkably calm, watching it all play out on the t.v. I know she will eventually become very upset by all of this. We agree to meet at home, and stay there the rest of the day, like so many of us, just watching the set, waiting for an explanation.

"It is simply the worst year ever. I honestly hope that if I can live the rest of my life without another 2001, I will consider myself, while not exactly fortunate, at least a little safer.

"I do not mean to take this tragedy all onto myself, but as Toni says, it is not strange for one trauma to revive the anxieties of another. And if I can say anything about this morning and my experiences with my co-workers, it was that we were all feeling the same thing, and all at the same time. I cannot say I have received the same kind of support or sympathy for my other tragedies."

Thursday, September 13

I finish reading "The Diary of Anne Frank."

Friday, September 14

Toni's thirty-first birthday. I prepare breakfast in bed, but no presents - I had put off buying presents until this week - I was going to go shopping on Tuesday but the world turned upside-down. Toni didn't feel like celebrating anyway, she didn't want to do anything. She was supposed to turn 31 with a baby.

Sunday, September 16

Bad Epitaph presents Anthony Neilson's "The Censor"

Bad Epitaph holds a company meeting where I announce my intention of stepping down as artistic director. I have no desire to continue producing theater, not then and not for the foreseeable future. I had been pulling away from everything since Calvin died and our two productions since have suffered due to my lack of attention.

The company urges me not to step down, and suggests instead that we merely call a hiatus once "The Censor" closes. Everyone is busy enough with other projects, there is nothing that dictates putting shows on all the time. So that is what we choose to do.

Thursday, September 20

Sixth month.

Sunday, September 23

I participate in Cleveland AIDSWalk/Run.

Monday, September 24

I discover one of my co-workers' mother had a stillbirth when they were seven. This child was buried and memorialized, but no one ever talks about it.

I begin working in schools as a member of Great Lakes Theater Festival's Education Department.

Friday, September 28

We attend Red Hen Production's "Stop Kiss."

October 2001

Friday, October 5

I depart for a thirty-six hour trip to New York City. One of the shows I was going to see was canceled as a result of Sept. 11, but the other - "Urinetown" - had only been postponed a week and I already had tickets from before the tragedy. In spite of natural apprehensions about air travel, I decide it would be wrong not to go.

Saturday, October 6

Harris and I attend "Urinetown." Afterwards we have beer with Hank, and they both encourage me to see "ground zero" even though I think that might be considered goulish. Harris leads me around Midtown, the burning smell is pervasive. And there are all the flyers. It feels like its been forever since the attacks, and yet the place is still raw and horribly disorganized. As dusk draws near, it appears more and more tourists are arriving, taking pictures and video of ... well, of nothing, of a corridor of burned out skyscrapers and a mound of debris.

I see a small baby in a stroller, making a lot of small, consistent coughs, while their guardian stands nearby and takes snapshots of the ruins, At this point I decide I just want to get out of there.

Sunday, October 7

I return home.

"The Gulf" cast, backstage at WFA.

Friday, October 12

"The Gulf" opens at Willougby Fine Arts for a one-weekend revival. The show has changed so much since January - and we haven't altered a word.

Friday, October 19

We see "From Hell".

Saturday, October 20

Seventh month. We attend Great Lakes's season opener, "Lone Star Love - or- the Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas." I feel like it's a "coming out" party for me as a member of their education department.

Sunday, October 21

We attend Writers Group. I am still playing with a memoir about my early theater experiences.

Thursday, October 25

Congress passes the PATRIOT Act.

Friday, October 26

Toni and I and my parents see a truly bizarre, 60s era Japanese film at the Cinemateque called "I Am a Cat." We then go on our own to see "Luv(Sic)" at Dobama's Night Kitchen.

Saturday, October 27

We decide to create a Dio de Los Muertos shrine for the days leading up to Halloween. On our mantle we place blow-ups of Calvin's ultrasound pictures, and a photo of Toni's step-father's dad (who had passed away recently) as well as a photo of the World Trade Center someone took from the Staten Island Ferry while we were there in August. There are candles, little "day of the dead" figurines we had acquired before or got just for the shrine. Toni adds offerings of food (Halloween candy), water, almonds and salt.

"We remember our dead, those closest to us, those we do not know yet mourn all the same. It's nice."

Sunday, October 28

"Cleaned the bathrooms (at least the fixtures and the floor) and the cats' box and made lunch (yes, that order) for Toni who was at yoga. When she got back we had lunch, and an upsetting conversation about what to get Calvin for Christmas - in particular, Toni had asked Connie, who was already planning on ordering me my own stocking, to get one for him.

"I guess I had to put my foot down on this one. Yes, I am more upset about having a dead baby this Christmas than having a stocking for a dead baby this Christmas, but dammit, I just didn't want it. I just cried and cried at the table, I couldn't articulate what it was ... until I was at least able to say I feared that in the effort to compensate for not having our baby, I didn't want us to keeping getting things for him. There is a difference between remembering and unabated mourning and I felt hanging a stocking for a child who was never alive to have it to himself in the first place just crosses that line."

We see "Nosferatu" at the Cinemateque with live accompaniment from the Alloy Orchestra.

Tuesday, October 30

I weigh 155 pounds.

Wednesday, October 31

We get about half the normal number of Trick or Treaters. Sad.

November 2001

Friday, November 2

We see "Refuge" at Dobama Theatre. It makes me depressed and angry for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday, November 3

We attend the building dedication for the ACLU of Ohio.

Sunday, November 4

We visit the Rainforest.

Wednesday, November 7

Working with elementary school children has been a revelation to me. I was afraid being around young boys and girls would make me miserable. This simply has not been true. This morning, however, I found myself alone in a third grade classroom early, before anyone else had arrived. Empty classrooms leave me shaken.

Friday, November 9

I leave work in Brecksville and headed straight for Athens, where I will meet with Toni at her folks' place.

Sunday, November 11

I leave Athens for Wooster, where I will be in residence for a week. I have never been away from Toni for that long since she has moved here from New York.

Tuesday, November 13

I see Mary Doria Russell speak at the College of Wooster. During the Q&A I try to make some point about a connection I made in her books ("The Sparrow", "Children of God") and the challenges, the trials I had been through this year. I end up feeling like mentioning my dead son kind of took the air out of the room.

Wednesday, November 14

My partner Mariah and I have dinner at the house of our host teacher. The food is good, our hosts are very kind, we eat extremely well and I have too much to drink.

(I would like to point out, in my own defense, that when I say "I have too much to drink" it usually means I have had two drinks. If I say I am, for example, "hammered" - then I have had three drinks.)

Thursday, November 15

Mariah and I take a long walk around the campus, and for a time she sits and reads while I sketch. That night we go to see "Thirteen Ghosts." It's exciting, because it's just the kind of movie Toni and I would never decide to see together.

Friday, November 16

I return home. Toni takes me out for sushi and we go to see "Harry Potter: The Sorcerer's Stone." It is much too long, soulless and boring.

Tuesday, November 20

Eighth month.

"I don't know what just happened. I suddenly, in the midst of writing, thought of last New Year's Eve. I thought of the pictures of Toni and I at Niagara Falls, in the ice and the snow, on the carriage ... I started crying, just like that. I wanted to look at the pictures but I was scared but I kept crying and so I got them (there were in plain sight, behind me) and they made me howl and cry. Toni looks so happy in those pictures. She is smiling so brightly. And so am I. In the snow. On the carriage. In the birdhouse - and I made a wish, I cried that once or twice, I made a wish. It didn't come true. I wished for a healthy baby. It didn't come true.

"And there we are in the Skylon, having dinner, Toni and I and a very tiny fetus, who we later named Calvin. We were so happy. I worry Toni will never be happy again.

"I was crying Saturday night, after Toni had stopped, after she had calmed down and I was on fire, I was so angry ... she asked if there was anything she could do and I said no, and then I said, yes, pick this sh*t up, referring to the mess she had made and I went on from there, I was angry and so sad and I screamed at her and she took it and then asked if I wanted her to leave and I said no and then I said yes, get away but I meant out of the room and she walked out of the room and I was feeling so sorry for myself and so sad and so angry and I got on the floor and was picking things up and throwing them out and she said let he do that and I told her to get the f*ck out of the kitchen or something, I was hysterical, there was a big blob of snot coming out my nose though I didn't realize it (or no - not yet - it came soon after) and I was crying and she said "Do you want a divorce?" and it was the most insane thing I had ever heard. I mean - well, this is what I said, which was "NO!!!" and then I think I said, "What the f*ck is that?!" and I went on to explain (this is where the snot came in) that I love her, and I need her and she makes me happier than I have ever been and I can't live without her and I am nothing without her and I do not know who I am without her and if she were in an accident or died or something I would kill myself because I would not know what to do or who to be or how to continue. I would just stop.

"That is all true. It's true even when I am not hysterical with a big thing of snot running out of my face."

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