Short-lived

Wow.  No matter what happens to you as an actor, there is no way to safeguard against feeling like shit when you don't get cast.  You could win a Tony, and still feel like shit the next day when someone else gets cast instead of you.  Well, I suppose that may not be true - since I *clearly* haven't won a Tony, I don't really know. 

This is one of those moments when I think, why, why do I do this?  Why not just hang it up and go make money? 

No, that's bullshit.  I know I why I do it.  But I wish there would be a huge thunderstorm, and I could go out in the middle of a field, and scream for a while that it is some kind of sick sick joke when someone is given the desire and the determination, but not the luck or the talent for success.

You know what I miss?  Not the money, not seeing my family, not good weather, not QUITE living in the UK, not hearing rain on the tin roof, not childhood or my first love, not having a house, not having fantastic clothes, not being rail thin, not being Thumbelina in the school play, not all the friends I've lost.

I miss being good at something.  I know this sounds like self-pity, and to some extent I'm sure it's born of that, but I miss being good at something.  I'd say "anything", but I'm still good at working the copy machine, for instance, and that's not getting it done for me.

Being good at something feels like flying in a dream, and right now it feels like I know that I'll never be able to dream that again.  And how sad would you be if you thought you could Never Ever dream about flying? 

Well, good-bye, incredibly short-lived three weeks of confidence.  Hello, alcohol.  We've never really gotten to know each other, and that seems like a shame.  I hear you're good at making people forget.

Yeah...

You know when you do something and later all you can think is, "Well, that wasn't me."  I think they call that compartmentalizing.

Also, when you do something you shouldn't but somehow you expect not only will you get away with it, but you will have no ill effects whatsoever? 

I think they call that "hubris."

Of course, there's always the case where you do something a little bit shady to avoid doing something clearly insane and destructive.  I'm not sure there's a term for it, but I'm going to go with calling it "innoculation..."  (Though wikipedia seems to think the idea I'm going for is called variolation.)

Several Disparate Things

First, I'm working in...a really tall Chicago Building today and the fog has moved in so all you see out the window is fog. It is eerie and beautiful, if dizzying, I feel like I'm in Brigadoon and the mist is shifting in to take me into the clouds for a hundred years.

(I had the name of the building, then I thought it might be like catnip to my stalker. My hours at this job are random and untrackable, so I am probably safe, but why make it easy?)

Second, there's a TON of wacky stuff happening that I either don't know what the facts are or I'm stuck keeping other people's secrets. People getting fired, having affairs, taking drugs... It's crazy town! Every part of it is bugging me and making me want to write about it on this blog, and every part of it would be stupid to have in print on a blog, even this one that no one reads. Dilemma.

Third, I am working on the no fear policy, right? The first step always comes out defensive, right? Like the time I bought a backless dress - the first time I wore it I spent the night saying, yeah, yeah, I know I never wear stuff like this but dammit, I like this dress! And then I finally firgured out no one cared and the next time I could just wear the dress without constantly commenting on the fact I was wearing the dress.

So, forgive me when I have to preface this today with: the hell with it...you stopped by, here's a poem for you. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. (Eventually I can do without the disclaimer, but baby steps, ok?)


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14. (9 August 2010)

I wanted to howl at the moon
but Larry kept saying that was the last thing my momma needed to hear
the phone ringing late with policemen and their mumbled apologies for waking her.
He was rolling joints and soon we were arguing
cause he said that rusted out barrier was a levee.
"This one? This? I think it's just a big gate
stuck in what amounts to a pond."
Larry said what did I think a levee was anyway
(about then I noticed how the moonlight hit his mustache
how it looked greasy, how his hair looked greasy,
and it made me wonder when was the last time Larry had showered).
All of the crime of the night drained out of a sudden,
and it came to me how different the night would have been
if I could have loved Larry, or not even love,
maybe nothing as grand or complicated, but if I could look at him
and see more than just a two-bit hoodlum in training,
more than all the layers of filth he couldn't wash off.

The night felt absent, like it had just moved out
before Larry and I got there, like an empty apartment
and we were pretending the dust and flotsam left behind by the last tenant
were their furnishings, their nick-nacks.

So I did howl, loud, like a wolf in a horror film,
deep in the throat, letting it tear out of me like a rocket,
and in the distance, some animal barked back
and for a spilt second that night was full of night.
Some animal in the dark had heard me.

Das Loop

My life is currently on some strange feedback loop where I get to examine the past and who I was there and the choices I've made. The universe is fucking with me, I can tell.

Naturally, I see everything a little differently from fifteen, twelve, eight years later. But I look for themes, so I find them. Our computer age means that in theory, I don't have to recall the situations from memory, I could just go find the emails and chats I saved and get a sense of how certain things went down.

Except that I went through and threw away a lot of supporting material at some point in an attempt to free myself of its effects. Which I find odd because I normally save everything. So now what is interesting is to read the handful of things I actually did save, think about why I saved those few messages, and ruthlessly dissect the few remaining clues.

Oh, by the way, the themes I noticed? I get obsessed with things easily, and I've been far far too afraid of making a mistake.

The obsession tendency...I have it with songs, people, food, clothing. I'll find something I like and play it to death or wear it out or eat it all the time. And then sometimes I'm just done with it, and I never listen to that song again, after having played it a million times before. With people, I concentrate on a few, and I try to know them well. Sometimes very very well. I get immersed, emmeshed, fascinated.

In general, the people I care about remain important, as opposed to getting tossed aside when I've worn through them. I'm finding, sometimes inconveniently, that once I've loved you, there's always a pocket of that feeling left. Maybe it would be more accurate to say, once I've trusted you, there's always a spare bedroom of care you can crash in. I'm thinking of friends as much as romances. My closest friend today I knew in high school.

I guess the downside of the above is I don't always let things go. Which in turn leads to some very stalker-like tendencies. (Yes, Michael P, that time I "ran into" you in your office building? I was pretty much looking for you, even though I pretended it was total coincidence. But you knew that. Thanks for playing along.) Which is why I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to toss whole reams of internet interaction from my past. Although next time I go home to my parents' house I bet I find at least one folder of things I kept. But still, hey, it's not around! I don't look at it all the time! For a stalker, that's growth.

Theme Two: Fear. Wow. I wish I could time travel and set myself straight on some of this. I would love to see what would have happened to me if I'd had true audacity to go with my big mouth. I would have gone to Sarah Lawrence. I would have gotten drunk more. I would have made a lot more mistakes. I would have better stories.

I know the answer is to start living with no fear NOW. I'd like to. Habits are strong, and there's more at risk now, more to lose. Still.

Still.


All right, then. I'm getting used to wearing three inch heels and getting my way.


Maybe it's time to buy my own pin-striped suit and start kicking some ass. I threw all that stuff away to have room for what's NEXT.


Bring it, universe. Bring it.

Uncomfortable

So, two things, and quickly, because I need to go to bed.

One is that looking at the "stats" has ruined me, because I feel extra conscious of the hitherto throw away titles. A lot of people end up clicking to the blog because of the title about unemployment and its ups and downs. I doubt they stay, because clearly that's not the kind of thing they are looking for, but the point has been lodged in my brain that a chance comment could be a search string by accident. So now I'm overthinking the titles.

Two is that through an odd set of coincidences, I've spent much of today thinking about how my past actions might appear to someone else. Since I don't know, I can only imagine the worst, and the worst is pretty irritating, annoying, pitiful, and occasionally stalker-like. I have to hope that's not really how I come off, but it definitely makes me grateful to the people in my life who have looked past my sometimes odd behavior and forgiven me for some of it.

Also, I don't like looking back at situations where I cared more about someone than that person cared about me. But, hey, doesn't everyone have those?? Why do they seem so very embarrassing? Why can't it seem brave and noble to care about someone? Nope, it just seems pitiful.

In contrast, I often feel sad about the people who cared about me that I couldn't return the affection, but the truth is, I don't think about those people a lot. (Or maybe there aren't as many of them? I had a penchant for the impossible dream back in the day. I was good at pining, not so good at other woods.)

So, tomorrow I'm going looking for things I'm happy to remember, even if I remember them incorrectly.

Who are you, stalker??

So I've got some free time, and I've just written that no one ever reads this blog, which made me go check my stats, which made me realize that after months of really no one reading this blog, someone came by and read most of it. Yesterday.

Who is my stalker?? I have ideas but I'm sure to be wrong.

Also, Blogger lets you see how people are finding your blog and when I look at the history for all time, I find a search string that made me laugh my ass off:

actress "no one *** wants * to hear ***what I* think"

(The astericks aren't really there but I'm trying to confuse future search engines.)

As my husband said, "Do you really use that phrase a lot?" The answer is no, but apparently I use it often enough for someone to look for me that way. Which also makes me laugh my ass off.

Oh, stalker. I hope you come back so you can see you've brightened my day considerably. I typed leave a comment but I can't guarantee my stalker enjoyed any of my ranting.

Wow. Life is fun sometimes. This is one of those times.

Oh, and don't miss the new post below - TWO in one day after such a long drought! It's all for you, stalker! How you inspire.

Re: Your title here

So, I don't think anyone reads this - and I'm not complaining, I never write it, so the fault is mine, right? It was just a place for me to throw all sorts of thoughts that had no other place in my life. And send secret messages to men who weren't my husband. But two things happened to severely limit my blog time. One: I did finally accept that the men who weren't my husband that I was targeting were not receiving the messages (and that really, my husband was the man I was most interested in, full stop). Two: I got laid off from a desk job that paid me to sit in front of a computer.

But I have sort of a day job again, and sometimes it lets me sit in front of a computer and get paid. Rarely, but sometimes. Guess what tonight is.

And the fact that that most of the men I'd like to communicate with don't read this blog has turned out to be fortunate. Marriage, it turns out, doesn't mean every particle of your interest in the opposite sex has focused itself into one other human being. It means you don't act on any of those interests, but it doesn't mean you don't have them. I am lucky - I have realized that my husband isn't perfect, but no one else I meet could ever possibly give me the relationship we have. Three years in, I still feel lucky and loved. And that I made the right choice for me. Even his imperfections suit me.

But there are all these other men. Men from the past, men from right now, men I have yet to meet, and they are often Interesting. It's like looking back over a Choose Your Own Adventure Book at the turnings you didn't take.

I made a scattershot list the other day of Men I Should Have Slept With - it was surprisingly short, considering I didn't get around much, and there were notable omissions (the man I was totally, head over heels in love with for a year overseas? Not on it). Here's what's funny: I don't really mind not sleeping with them. Ok, well, there is ONE person that the universe and I agree I should have darn well slept with, but it's not who you might expect. Mostly it's a list of sweet men that I was too scared to trust, but would most likely have been very trustworthy.

Aw, side note. Susan - one of the people who made the list was that guy from Ireland, the one who had murdered someone in self-defense and you kept calling him "the murderer?" Thanks for messing that one up for me. He was sexy. That was one good time I really ought to have had.

But overall, I traded trying lots of people out for the privilege of being able to personally make a decision about who those people would be. No one ever forced me, no one ever guilted me into it, no one ever got me drunk.

While that may strike some as a shame, it makes me feel powerful.

It may also strike some (and rightly so) that I might have control issues. Hmmm.

See, this is where it helps that no one reads this. My mother would have a heart attack reading this.

Anyway, I've met men in the last month that I want to add to the list, but I can't really say I SHOULD have slept with them, since I'm married and some of them are also married, and that matters. I don't ever plan to cheat on my husband - it's not worth losing him. No, seriously, there is not a single person whose bedroom skills would be worth losing the best relationship I have ever had. And since it's true for my marriage, it's also never worth the karmic fallout of ruining someone else's relationship (for me).

But I'm not blind, deaf, or resistant to flattery. So there's a new list:

Men I Would Like to Have Slept With.

Are you on it? Probably not. Then again, some of you may be. It's a short list, but it does have room for growth.