For the past two days I've been hunched over my computer like Smeagle fingering the ring of power, obsessively looking for theatres to send Kaddish and the Hot Tub play. I'm trying to do a smarter job of targeting likely theatres than I did last time with Kaddish when I sent out about twenty copies of it and received two yesses (that's actually not a bad return--ten percent.)

This time, I'm calling the theatres first to make sure they accept new scripts, and checking their web sites.

Doing this makes me feel all knotted up inside--it's the administrative part of this job, rather than the creative one (which makes me feel insecure and vulnerable too, but in a different way.)

As a distraction, I made chicken mole last night. I had never made any Mexican food before, other than mashing up a few avocados and dumping some salsa into them, but this time I followed a recipe. Onions, garlic, a tiny bit of very dark chocolate, a half cup of strong coffee, two tbsp of smooth peanut butter, a little chicken broth, crushed chili peppers, cumin, cinnamon, kosher salt...stir, stir,k stir until it thickens into a paste. Pour half of it over the chicken; cook, covered; take it out after almost an hour and poour the rest on. It came out rich and spicy and smooth and dark. C all but licked his plate.

Maybe I should be a cook rather than a playwright.

G is coming over soon to drag me outdoors for a tennis game, because if I just stay here doing this too long I will lose my mind and start cooking a bouillabaise or something. And after that, who knows?