My last summer's chart looked pretty good, but it took a long time to get like that. Before that probably looked more like this:
| SUN | MON | TUE | WED | THU | FRI | SAT |
| SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
| HOBBY |
WORK |
WORK |
WORK |
WORK |
WORK |
HOBBY |
| HOBBY |
WORK |
WORK |
WORK |
WORK |
WORK |
HOBBY |
| PLAY gym |
PLAY gym |
HOBBY |
PLAY gym |
PLAY gym |
PASTIME |
PASTIME |
| HOBBY |
HOBBY |
HOBBY |
HOBBY |
HOBBY |
PASTIME |
PASTIME |
| SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
SLEEP |
This was pre-derby, did I ever hate going to the gym. After gym, fix dinner—a meat and a starch and a vegetable— and then go upstairs to write or draw or paint. Or sew or knit. I was throwing a lot of spaghetti against the wall in those days. And this was when I was working at the painting studio, and not doing theater. If you go back to 2001, I was commuting two to three hours a day to Abbott Labs and producing The Birds at night.
But if I believe in one thing, it's that it isn't always one thing. Obviously not, it's always one of two things. Ah, I kid. Sort of, I am nothing if not binary. If not always, it's a lot about the good old serenity prayer: having yin when you can't change and yang when you can, and having the genius to switch. It's nice for me now to be more or less balanced, but I haven't always been. Sometimes you choose to sort unbalanced, there are reasons.
People, obviously, can do more than two rows of practice, and do all the time. Pretend though that two rows is the specification, so to do more is exceeding what's specified. You know what you do when you find yourself in this situation, you show yourself some compassion. Before you do anything else, stop beating yourself up and think nice thoughts to yourself.
The harder it is for you to think nice thoughts, the more likely you're overworked. Just saying.
