Doug Paulson

I’m sitting in the Boise Airport waiting to board my flight to Sacramento. I left McCall around 1pm and drove down to Boise with my friend Matt, who was also an actor in the conference this year. We had a breif lunch at the Bistro before hitting the road, where I said my goodbyes to the staff who has fed me and gotten me drunk these past 14 days, and to whom I have grown very close.

It wasn’t, though, nearly as tearful (read: blubbering) as my goodbyes at the theater this morning after our final company meeting and load-out. I was just tired enough (and, yes, hung over from our company party the night before) to have absolutely no emotional walls up. I held it all together pretty well as people trickled out, one by one. However, when my time finally came to leave the theater and everyone who was still in town, the tears started to flow. I can be quite the cry baby.

Yesterday was a blast, and the perfect way to spend my final day off. I woke up late, threw some laundry into the washing machine, cleaned up the kitchen, sat on the deck in the sun and had food. At 2pm I attended the second to last conference reading and then headed over to the Bistro for a beer. I waited for Derek, one of the staff members there who I’ve become friends with, to end his shift so we could head out to the local golf course where we hit a few buckets of balls at the driving range. I don’t think I’d picked up a golf club in about 15 years. Surprisingly it went well. The balls went far away, and high up, and sometimes in a straight line. Go me.

After that he and I headed back to the theater for the final reading, and then back, yet again, to the Bistro for the closing party, where I proceeded to get really drunk and kiss people. I also managed to belt out a few standards at the piano. There are pictures. I’m not sure I want to post them. You understand.

I’m looking forward to my week in CA with the fam, but I’m really so sad to see this wonderful experience come to an end. In the past two weeks I worked on 4 new plays in staged readings, rehearsing two a week, most usually from 10am to 10pm. I made a slew of new friends and a ton of great contacts. It’s a bit weird sitting at the airport alone. This is the first moment of solitude I’ve had in the past 14 days. It’s funny, because I usually crave it. In this moment though, I miss them all. I miss the chaos and companionship. I miss the theater and the Bistro. I miss new pages and the conference bell.

In 20 minutes I’m going to miss Idaho too.