I’ve been staring at the screen for thirty minutes. Well, checking Facebook. Regardless, I’ve been avoiding the blog. I’m tired today. I’d rather go to bed than write. It was almost five in the morning when I finished last night’s blog about my issues with money, and I was up early this morning (before noon) to attend a comedy workshop in Fayetteville. The point is, I didn’t get a lot of sleep. But who does, really?

Let’s talk about something else.

The comedy workshop I attended was put on by Theater Squared and the cast of their current play, The Hound of the Baskervilles, which I saw last week. (It was hilarious.) The workshop was hosted at the library, and when I got there and saw that there were only a few people in the class, I thought, Shit, I’m going to have to participate. Y’all, I almost turned right around and drove back home. But then I thought, I came here to learn something, so I stepped outside my comfort zone and into the room.

As a general rule, I like meeting new people. Not that I’m “one of those” who get chatty on airplanes or anything, but I certainly could (given enough scotch). Today, however, I wasn’t in the mood to meet anyone new, to be “nice,” to participate. But as I was sitting in my chair and fiddling with my phone, the older lady next to me broke out in a grin and said, “Hi, I’m Janice. What’s your name?”

Reminding myself to smile, I said, “Marcus.”

Janice gasped audibly. “Of course you are!”

I laughed. “Of course I am?”

“Yes,” she proclaimed. “You LOOK like a Marcus.”

Later Janice said she meant I looked stately (like the Romans who originally coined my name), which no one has ever told me before, but I took as a good thing. I just looked up stately on the internet, and it means, “having a dignified, unhurried, or grand manner.” Talk about a high-octane compliment. My head is getting bigger as we speak. And yet, in that moment earlier today, I’m quite sure I didn’t have “a grand manner.” A nervous manner, for sure. First, I was in a new situation. Second, ten minutes after the workshop started, I noticed a missed call from the insurance company of the guy who rear-ended me last summer. Crap, I thought, they’re gonna want to talk about money. I couldn’t stop worrying about it the entire class. All I could think about was calling them back and getting it over with.

Unhurried my ass.

The workshop itself went great. First we talked generally about how a play is written, then talked about how a play (specifically a comedy) is interpreted. And whereas I mostly paid attention, took notes, and “let” everyone else participate, I did get out of my seat to join in an exercise in which a number of choreographed dance steps were performed. Y’all, it really was a fabulous workshop, and my big takeaway was that even when something on stage looks spontaneous, chances are that it’s not. Rather, every sigh, glance, step, and gesture has likely been planned out and rehearsed over and over again.

Three hours later, when the workshop was finished, I called the insurance company back, but they’d already gone home for the day. Consequently, I’ve spent all evening running scenarios in my head–things going my way, things going almost my way, things not going my way at all. I keep telling myself that whatever happens when we talk, it will just be a conversation, and I’ve had plenty of conversations before. But I really am starting to get fed up with the whole ordeal, which has now dragged on for over ten months. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I already feel as if my health and entire life are also on hiatus. Seriously, if only I could get paid for being a professional foot-tapper and watch-looker-at-er.

One of the concepts discussed in the workshop today was that not only does a play have a beginning, middle, and end, but almost every part of a play has a beginning, middle, and end, as well. For example, if one actor looks at another, that look has a point at which it starts, is held for a certain amount of time, and is then completed. One of the points to this conversation was–don’t rush from beginning to end–the middle is what MAKES the ending. This was a great reminder for me. So often I feel as if my life is on hold, like I’m just biding my time until I settle this accident claim, find consistent work, or whatever. But what if this is the middle part of my story? What if being patient now will make whatever comes later that much sweeter, that much more satisfying? If that’s the case, then surely this is an opportunity for me to practice being unhurried, even if that’s not my default way of acting. Surely I could rehearse “unhurried” over and over again until it actually were spontaneous for me to live in a stately, dignified, and grand manner–like a man perfectly at ease with the speed of life.