Bad at it

You know what sucks?  Endings.  I am bad at them - awkward, graceless, tearful, over-dramatic.

I am also bad at doing anything the first time.  I'm ok at beginnings in general, just not doing something for the first time.

Right, I don't want to sound like a broken record but I'm really tired at realizing there are more things I'm not good at.  I feel as I get older I have to come to terms more and more with the reality of not being good at things, and that upsets me and disheartens me, and frankly, just for a change, I'm getting angry about it.

Not that life owes me anything, it doesn't owe any of us anything - hell, I could have been born in a war zone or been mowed down senselessly by gun violence or been prey to thousands of other fates that would be TRULY horrific, and instead I'm just irritated when some other red head gets an audition instead of me.

But putting the "first-world-problem" aspect of my existence aside, I am weary of having to accept that I am going to lose because whatever I am or do can't win.

I won big time recently getting cast in the awesome project, and I don't want to go back to being a loser.  I want to keep winning.  I want the universe to smile on me for a change and give me a few more breaks.  I think if I got a few more I could be patient again - not that I ever want to go back to losing, but I would really like to be able to find the sweet spot between wins where I was just waiting for the next one and I knew it would come along, so the little losses didn't affect me.

That would be something, to be able to withstand disappointment because I know it will all work out if I just keep at it.  I would like that.  That is the person I would like to be.

In the meantime, I have a couple of big endings coming, and they are all going to hurt like hell.

On the bright side, if anything good ever does happen to me, I truly, truly appreciate it.  Like the awesome project.  It. Has. Been. AWESOME.

Dammit, I'm tearing up just thinking about it ending.

Just settled down

I should be working.  I'll go back to work in just a minute.

But first, I'm sad tonight, and I wish I weren't.

Peanut butter shouldn't be so tasty but ridiculously fattening.

Spring flowers should not contain so much pollen.

When you find something that makes you happy, you should not have to lose it.

If you have the great fortune to hang onto something that makes you happy, it should continue to make you happy, instead of becoming known and taken-for-granted.

But worst, oh, worst, when you have built yourself a fictional distraction from whatever ails you, and are perfectly aware that it doesn't exist, that the mind pictures you've created and luxuriate in for pleasure are entirely in the mind and have no possible counterpart in the real world -

Your heart should not ache for it to be real.  We, my children, cannot travel to Narnia.  Because it doesn't exist.  Why must we saddle ourselves with the longing?

Today, I wish I could pull a Bruce Chatwin, and leave a note on my desk that just says:

"Gone to Patagonia."

Ok, self, you know what's real and what's not.  Knuckle down and do your work.

Bunnies

I love bunnies.  Their adorable fluffy feet, the wispy flash of their pointless cottonball tails, the way their front legs and back legs work in tandem together, hoppity hoppity.

If I'm in a bad mood, a picture of a bunny can nearly always lift my spirits.  Something about their baleful eyes, silently regarding you as something they could feasibly nibble upon, and the wiggle wiggle wiggle of those noses, these details work on me the way endless beach noises work on other people - a calming, gentle tug toward sanity and peace.

I had bunnies as a kid.  I'd like one now, but our landlord is very against inside animals.

Ok, that's a little bit about bunnies.  Just to balance out the screaming, panic, and distress.  I'm going to go look at The Daily Bunny now.  I highly recommend this website.  A bunny picture every single day.  It's the new ice cream, y'all.

A little calmer

I'm not sure what actions to take to follow through on the seething mania of the previous post.  I'm going to work on it.  I refuse to calm down and just forget about it.



But now I'm going to put something down here in print that I probably shouldn't.  I'm going to put it in print because it's been bouncing around in my head for two days now, and I don't think it does mean what I fear, and if I just write it down and send it out into the world, maybe I can shake it off.

I'm deeply restless.  I'm mind-blowingly, terrifyingly, unignorably restless.  I want something to change, want to have an adventure or a challenge or a brand new experience.  I want to stop being contained by some of the choices I've made and some which have been forced upon me.

I have not made a secret of this.  I never really shut up about it.

About two days ago, my wonderful, awesome, terrific husband said to me (I am paraphrasing), "I love our life.  I don't need anything more than this.  All I want is more of the same."

I'm not going to put in writing what flashed through my mind.  It was not a positive response to what was a very genuinely lovely sentiment.

I have spent the last 48 hours convincing myself that what he's talking about the fact that the changes and challenges we are facing in our life together are the right ones - the ones where we try to make stories and make our living from telling stories.  I can get behind that.  I can see how that aligns with what I want.

However, if what my husband just said was, "I don't want anything to change," when I have been screaming for months that I change like I need oxygen....

Then we have a problem.  A mind-blowing, terrifying, unignorable problem.

Next post - I'm going to talk about bunnies.  Seriously.  And forget I said this.

Truth?

This is a space with no audience.  I put markings on it and rarely does anyone look at them.  Ironically, the few people who do know it is here do know me in real life, so I still edit what I want to say.  Oh, and of course, I edit what I want to say because I keep hoping someone might read it and be interested.  Or entertained.  Which, face it, does not happen.

Well, today, I say fuck it.  This one's just for me.

If you're offended, fuck off.

I'm getting weighed down by everyone's expectations.  Worse, lots of people lie about their expectations, so I'm weighed down by THINGS THAT DON'T EXIST.

Today, I want to throw away my life and go traveling.  I want to talk to strangers who know worlds I do not, I want to wander down alleys I shouldn't be in.  I want to dance on tables.  I've been running through the world with a sparkler in my hand: today I want a bomb.

I want to exit stage left.

I want to lie to everyone because only people who know the truth can really hurt you.  If I give parts of my story away, it should be to children that I never see again, like a grandma handing out chocolates.  I want to be on the move so that if anyone bores me, anyone says something rude or unflattering, I can simply remove myself to other climes and look for brighter stars.  I want to leave, I tell you.

Someone else can pay these bills, teach these recalcitrant children, go on these endlessly disappointing auditions.  Someone else can get judged and found wanting every day.  Someone else can be told over and over and over again that they don't matter, that nothing they do is unique or special or clever or in any way remarkable.

Someone else can be ordinary.  THE LIFE I HAVE IS NOT BIG ENOUGH YET.

I want to be on a camel somewhere, being eccentric and asking questions and learning things.  I won't own anything, I don't want things, I'll be a do-er.  I want to stretch the corners of what is possible until there is no disappointment left, until I have conquered "no", until to think of something will be to begin working toward doing it.

I WANT OPTIONS BACK.  I want choices, opportunities.  Intellectual rigor, curiousity, intrigue.

Now, how the fuck am I going to bust my actual life open wide enough for all of that? Because if I don't start getting it....

If I don't start getting it...

If I don't start getting it, I've really let myself become the most ordinary, boring, waste of space.

Quibble

I am beginning to be seriously peeved at George R.R. Martin.

Every time I get well and truly invested in a character, he kills that person off.  Every time I have decided a character is truly despicable, he shows me that person's point of view and forces a more balanced view on me.

And worst, often someone dies and I think, NOOOOOO, only to find that for various reasons, that character isn't actually dead.

Now, I don't have to have heroes and villians in black and white, I can see the writerly virtue of never allowing any character to be safe, I can appreciate that bringing someone back from the dead is what's known as a "twist", but...

The fair truth is that if not a single person ever gets to be happy, if everyone simply gets more and more confused, flawed, damaged, and disappointed...

I think I might have to stop reading these books.  Because there's nothing left to enjoy.  Everyone I like is doomed to be killed or to be unhappy.  I find that to be true in life often enough - I might have to give the unrelentingly dour and pessimistic world view of George R. R. Martin a rest.

Hey, if you're enjoying it, I don't need to stop you.  I just need a break.

The Cool Breeze

I get to sing with a 17-piece Big Band tonight.  It's one of my favorite things ever.  The band is made up of completely amazing musicians and the tunes are classic, and everything I get to sing is so much fun.  It is stupendous.

I can rarely hear myself in the space we'll be doing the show, so I can't tell you I am any good, but it is SO MUCH FUN I'm not sure it matters.

Last time we did a show, there were actually college kids who came to dance!  It was super cool - there's almost no room for something like that, but they were all so young and eager, and a couple of them asked me to dance when I wasn't singing, and it was pretty close to a perfect evening.

I may not get quite that close to perfect this time, but I'm excited anyway!  I think I'll wear my blue suede shoes...