It’s Sabbath, sorta. Drove into San Francisco this morning to visit our son, for purpose of planning session about retuning and launching our new website. Got some rest last night, but still very heavily under the grip of a cold that’s lasted two weeks now. Energy drains early in the day, and the rest of the time depends on summoning fragmented will power.

We get there early, drive down to schmooze around the Haight. Look for shoes and shirts in a resale shop, no luck, and then split up to meet back at the car at 12:30. I camp in a coffee shop to continue work on the first draft of Lost City. Not exactly a draft—that happens when we start improvising with the actors. But the process of writing something, anything, brings me into an engagement with the scenes and characters that greatly helps the focus when we get into the actual work. Making progress on this, but each line seems squeezed out of an exhausted toothpaste tube. EF likes the first 19 pages, though. Still haven’t finished the redraft of the scenario — second act highly resistant.

Amid the proliferation of projects, we’ve taken on another: a series of Monday night performances in April at Sonoma County Rep. We need the money badly, and also want to use the occasion to develop some pieces that could be performed by the larger Hitchhikers Ensemble at summer festivals & non-theatrical venues, e.g. Oregon Country Fair. Some ideas for this, but it’s going to be an extreme challenge.

—CB