I really messed up today. We had our one-and-only brush-up rehearsal for the educational theatre company that I work for before a big show tomorrow. The play is The Government Inspector by Gogol. But I have been so busy this past couple weeks that I never got around to looking at my lines. I thought that I’d be able to more or less get by with what was stored in my long-term memory from performing the play last year. I was wrong. I don’t know which was worse: standing on stage and hopelessly grasping for my lines or imagining what my fellow actors were going through while I stumbled about. I’ve spent the rest of the day going over my lines and I am very comfortable with them now, but this morning was a harsh wake-up call. I don’t ever want to go through that again.