Early last week, we optimistically bought tickets to August: Osage County through TDF for this Friday, thinking that the stagehand strike would be over by then. So much for that.

Even so — this is going to sound strange, but I felt a twinge of disappointment late last week when I read that the two sides were going to sit down for talks, and a bit of excitement when I read that the talks had failed. This has nothing to do with the real-world impact of the strike – stagehands, actors, restauranteurs, bartenders, and store owners are all hurting, and they deserve their livelihoods back. It’s more a feeling of curiosity on my part. The novelty of it. Disruptions of the normal routine are exciting, in a sense. I’m not sure what this says about my day-to-day life.

My odd feelings about the strike are also because I’m a news junkie. I’m a news junkie because I’m not just interested in what happens in the world; I’m interested in seeing how what happens in the world is covered. That’s why I’m an obituary geek and why I like newspaper front pages. I’m interested in seeing how things are covered day by day. I like that every day lately, the headline lead article on the Playbill website tells what day of the strike this is.

I know I shouldn’t feel this way about the strike. And if it were affecting me more personally, I wouldn’t. And I don’t really feel this way deep down. It’s just that it’s something different. And sometimes, something different can be bracing.