Cruelty, thy name is theatre

Sideways was one of the movies I loved most in the past couple of years; I was pleased when it was nominated for and/or won all those awards. One of the things it gets absolutely dead-on is the soul-shriveling experience of the struggling writer walking downstairs to check his mailbox every day and finding...nothing.

(I've been known to joke that Sideways could have been made for me. I'm a struggling writer and I've had a crush on Virginia Madsen since 1985.)

So anyway, this evening, I go downstairs to check my mailbox. In it, I find an envelope with the return address of a theatre to which I submitted a couple of my plays a while back. Now, I don't mind so much these days, having one of my plays rejected.

Though obviously I'd be delighted if one of those messages in bottles I sent out so long ago suddenly brought me a production. But my ego isn't invested in my plays at the moment, not the way it is in my novel.

So I have no big problem with the fact that in the envelope was not a letter telling me they wished to produce one of my plays and send me some thousands of dollars. I do, however, think it was a bit chintzy of them to be sending me a fundraising letter.

I need Virginia Madsen to come and teach me about wine...