Pupperoni...

I think actors look at time differently than other people. We go through long stretches where we can't see the people we want to see. And then we're free, but we've been so out of touch, we need to reconnect. I started dealing with all this in elementary school. We'd come downtown for opera three times a week, go late to school the next day, have to make up work over the weekend, etc. A 10 year old can only hear, "Sorry, I'm too busy this week" so many times before they move on to making other friends.
Don't get me wrong; I loved growing up the way I did. It just clarified for me what my friends mean to me--especially the ones that aren't theatre people but stand by me just the same. I'm so lucky to have people who stand by me through the painfully busy and the painfully free.
Because of all this, I still savor my weekends. And because of all this, I've never been particularly good about following things like the 3 day rule. To this day, if I have no show and free time, and I think of you, you're getting a phone call (while you still can).
But more than rule breaking, this whole actor warped sense of time thing has made me very aware of "normal" time expectations and "rules."

On a related note (wait for it), I have this theory about one reason people, particularly women, love to have dogs.
Friends, significant others, partners, coworkers, spouses, families--nobody wants to spend all of their time with the same person. I know the concept of marriage is supposed to at least involve seeing each other almost every day. But I find that men especially need their alone time.
But my dog--my dog doesn't even like it when I leave him to go to the bathroom. He follows me everywhere as if there's nothing more he'd rather do than be a part of my day. He hates when I leave him, and he's happy every time I walk through the door or even just in his direction.
So, friends, is it possible we enjoy having dogs so much because there is another being that cares as much about our daily lives as we do? If dogs give us something that humans are incapable of, how much does this factor in to our choice to keep them around as companions? I know there are plenty of reasons dogs make wonderful companions. It just seems to me that when you compare dog/human companionship to human/human companionship, there's a big difference we often skip over.
I'm waiting for someone to jump down my throat with feminism now. And I probably would have done the same before I had Blitz. Honestly, I just think it's funny if you think about it. There are all these male/female dynamics, all these time rules we're supposed to abide by. People come on too strong or leave too suddenly, and to some people, those things can have a profound effect on a relationship. But a dog and human only have to be there for each other as much as possible for their relationship to flourish forever.
If humans tried it, I wonder if it would be an utter disaster or the key we've been missing to ending game play. (I bet we'd be hard pressed to even find volunteers, though.)
Just a few thoughts for before bed. And now, I better go. My puppy is about to come in from his bed time walk, and he's going to want to snuggle.