Cool Cactus #2

It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then, I just need to escape. The pressure of life just gets to me and I need to get away from it all. Usually, it’s after some particularly articulate, well thought-out plan has once again come crashing down around my ears because of some minor detail I may have overlooked, the meddling of some nosy outsider, or a colossal breach of security perpetrated by some idiot employee. Usually some combination of the latter two.

When these little setbacks happen, I like to retreat to my island getaway (if you don’t have one, I highly recommend it) and go through the same little ritual. I have an old house, and it used to be owned by a famous ballet dancer. She had a studio put in and I’ve made some modifications for it for my own purposes. Basically, I took the bars down. This gives me a large room with hardwood floors and full length mirrors.

It is here that I release my stress. First, I get dressed up in my best clothes. Usually a fashionable suit, but if it’s been a particularly bad run, I’ll go with the cape. What can I say, I’m old fashioned. At any rate, I like the way it swirls. Very dramatic. And nothing helps release stress like being overly dramatic.

Next is the proper music. Sometimes, if I’m feeling silly, I’ll put on Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day.” But I usually do that at home. For these island getaways only one song will do – “O Fortuna” from Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” If you’ve seen a vampire movie in the last 25 years, you’ve heard this tune. It seems to be in the contract. “Vampire movie? We gotta use ‘O Fortuna’!” But I digress.

So now I’m dressed, the music is playing and I get to the real relaxation technique – monologuing. Now, I know it’s old-fashioned, but as I noted before, I’m an old-fashioned guy. In fact, the whole reason it’s a stress reliever is that I can’t do it anymore. How many good plots were spoiled by monologuing back in the old days. So I don’t do it as part of my everyday work. I only use it as a technique to relax.

And let me tell you, I am good. In fact, I minored in it when I was earning my MVA (Master of the Villainous Arts) at the most evil school in the country – Yale. I took all the classes they offered, and I excelled – graduated with honors. I even got an A+ on my final oral exam when I explained precisely the fate the professor would suffer if he failed to give me that exalted grade.

So when the world is really getting me down, I like to tell it exactly what I think of it and what I plan to do to about it. This is the true beauty of the exercise. Not only does it relieve my stress, it helps get me onto my next project as I lay out the groundwork for my next sinister plot. So when you’re feeling down, just get dressed to the nines, put on a little mood music and tell the world what you’d do if you were in control. After all, with a little hard work, you could be.