Real People

I went to see a show the other night with my friend W and it restored a lot of the goodness to my life.

The show, Eastland, was absolutely fantastic.  It will sound as if I am exaggerating to say I wept for the last twenty minutes of it, but I did, big, uncontrollable shoulder-heaving sobbing right there in the second row.  I couldn't hide and I couldn't stop.  It's a folk musical, the music is unbearably lovely, and the story is about a 1915 tragedy that killed upwards of 800 people in a day.  A boat turned over on its side in a river within a few feet of shore, and before everything got sorted out 800+ were dead.  It's horrifying, to say the least.  So I knew going in that I might end up weeping.  After an hour or so of just holding my mouth shut the way you do when you're choked up, I thought, ok, this is sad, but I can keep it together.  Then something happened in the show that completely broke me open, and I was a weeping mess for the rest of it.

Which I don't mind, really.  Yes, I am relatively embarrassed to be seen in semi-public crying, but it was a terrifically moving show, and I enjoy that I can allow myself to be moved by what I experience.

Then I sat around for three hours and chatted about everything and nothing with a friend I adore.  It was surprisingly easy to forget about all the things that make me feel discontented.  It was surprisingly easy to be happy that my friend had been called back for a play I'd hoped to be called back for as well.  I wasn't called back, but again, I adore my friend, she's funny and genuine and a kick-ass actress that I love seeing in shows.

Maybe I'm not a completely contemptible human being.  Though I must say others might disagree.  Another day I'll write about my recurring dream of running into a woman who asks me to stay away from her husband but I don't know who her husband is.  Heh.  Someone in my psyche clearly has a distaste for me.  Wonder who it is.

Addendum

This really goes with the last post, but I didn't have the heart to make it longer.

On the train home from work at 11 pm tonight, I had what might be the breakthrough, the return back to being able to live with myself:

I looked down and saw a pair of really beautiful shoes, and as I scanned up I saw they were on a beautifully dressed girl - adorable dress, very glamorous, short and colorful.  She looked effortlessly fantastic.  And my actual knee-jerk thought was - wow, I bet her feet hurt in those by 11 pm at night.

Not, oh, she's so much prettier than I am (she was).

Not, oh, I wish I owned anything as pretty as that dress (I do).

Not, oh, the sight of someone attractive has made me want to crawl under a rock and hide (though of course now I totally feel that way).

Just a fleeting thought for her humanity and the idea that the perfect-looking sometimes pay in ways you don't see.

Double Bind

What an interesting catch-22 this blog is.

The people who read this blog number in single digits.

I can't publicize it to the entire world to get more readers because it's a place I try to say what I think.  

However, I can't actually write about many of the things that happen to me for a variety of reasons: 

  1. I audition for things that I'm required to keep confidential.  

  2.  I occasionally do things I'm required to keep confidential.

  3.  I occasionally do things that I'd happily write about, but there are people who cannot be allowed to know what I think, and it is obvious that the internet is not a good place to detail information you're not certain someone should know.  Even Luddites can read print outs.

So even though it's supposed to be my place to let loose, it isn't.  And I grow more and more frustrated with my seeming inability to say anything of any interest.  The internet seems to have become a place for re-posting - we're all just swapping pictures and opinions and recipes.

I'm thinking of taking an internet break.  The idea came upon me for petty reasons - I opened my facebook to see someone's wedding picture, and instead of just being happy for them, it made me feel...inferior, imperfect.  To be frank, this is someone I already feel highly jealous of, both beauty-wise and career-wise, so the idea that I might be jealous to see the perfect outdoor shot of her perfectly amazing dress and perfectly dressed new husband against a perfect backdrop is not shocking.  

It's bad enough to feel lousy looking at the perfect people, but add to that the guilt that I'm not mature enough and secure enough just to wish them well.  So I get to feel inferior to the people in every respect AND inferior to the person I think I ought to be.  GREAT!

So I open facebook and get a nice punch in the gut about how imperfect I am.  All the naysaying I try to suppress floods in - in a flash it comes home to me how unattractive, untalented, and ordinary I am (because of course I'm not as pretty as this girl, and definitely haven't worked as much as she has, and absolutely did not have a wedding in a perfect setting like this - it might be a hilltop in Spain, or a villa in Scandinavia).  BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!  I can scroll down and within three minutes I can clock a dozen people have been cast in shows I wish I'd even gotten to audition for, twenty babies that are cuter than the children I'm apparently never having, and at least one person just got an amazing job within a week of moving to Chicago, reminding me of the 10 years I've been slogging away here with nothing to show for it.

And you know what?  I don't want to feel this way.  It is a waste of my time.  I don't know how to be ok with who I am and what I have right now, but that is the person I want to be.  I dislike this jealous, inferior, depressed self.  I mean, FUCK THIS SHIT, am I right??  I wanna be happy for everyone!  I want to feel glad that people got married, had babies, had success!

So I'm considering just staying the fuck off of facebook for a while.  Maybe also checking my email a little less.  Maybe read a few more books, talk to real people more.  I don't know if I can banish the spectre of perfection - I've been jealous and sad about all my faults and shortcomings for a lifetime, and despite effort on my part, I slide into despair more readily than I slide out of it.  

So.  Well.  I gotta do something about this motherfucking problem.  Attack it with knives.  Put some depression canaries out so I can see this shit coming.  And yes, Mom, if someone printed this out for you, yes, I am cursing.  Yes, it does make me feel better.  Sorry.  A couple of things you told me that were completely legitimate for you did not work out for me, and that is one of them - cursing is fun and makes me feel better.  Also the thing about no sex before marriage - completely well-intentioned,  I totally saw your point, but it turns out taking your advice (partly) meant I missed out.  Big Time.  

The irony will be that by the time I'm a widow and I can get back around to sleeping around, it will be too late.

Right, because that's the biggest problem with this post.

Like I said, maybe an internet break.

I bet I end up re-writing this a few days/hours/whatever from now.  If you read it within a day or two of posting, drop by and see what I changed in a week.

Then a tiger attacked me

Look, I don't want to complain.  What I want to tell you (me, when I re-read this later) is that I went on a road trip and figured everything out.  I want to tell you I climbed up somewhere high and looked down to realize how petty my worries are.  Wait, not that, because that sounds trite. Let me try again.

I want to tell you I went on a trip, and it was so beautiful that finally, the entire meaning of the universe exploded out of my chest and rang around the neighborhood and that everyone who heard the sound of it woke up just a little bit and felt happier, like they'd eaten Lucky Charms but gotten the nutritional value of kale.  I want to tell you I waded through my own personal detritus, gathered it up, melted it down, and used the shimmering essence of it to guild  the door I walked out of.  I want to tell you I learned how to fuse all these half-hopeless days where I wait for my life to happen into something purposeful and pure, turning every day I wait into a step on a ladder to more awesome.

Instead, I can only tell you I had a kick ass time with people I love and it made me miss them so very much.  I had a barn raising time with my family and it made me wish I lived closer.  I had a soul-filling time in my home area, the towns and areas where I have logged years of memories, and it made me yearn to still be a part of things.

And now I just have to stay put and work to earn money.  Not actor work, which feels different and personal and exciting because it activates some need to tell stories I have, but work work.  Offices and children and data entry and endless phone calls with poorly organized co-workers.

How do I get past the quotidian to the ineffable?  And how do I ever write that down again without sounding like a complete jackass?

Chemical

Lots of good things are happening, but I have been having a truly lousy few days.  Like last summer, the ability to deal rationally and maturely with minor irritants seems to have fled.  This leads me to wonder:

1.  Do I have some sort of reverse seasonal disorder where the heat of the summer makes me unaccountably unstable?

2. Is it just that I haven't been in a play for over two months and without my work to recalibrate me, I'm unable to function properly?

3. Is my mother entirely right and it's just hormonally that part of the monthly cycle?  I'd vote for this one except I can't seem to cry.  Normally, the only time I can really break down in tears on any provocation is for a short four or five day stretch in a month when things affect me more strongly.

On the up side, if I can find something good to hang on to until December, I'll have a whole 6 months of awesome projects, and that's exciting.

On the down side, I find myself continuing to make colossal mistakes.  I'm old now, when do I learn how to do anything at all correctly or well or successfully?

Ok, that last is hyperbole.  I did something well in order to book the awesome project #3, and I feel very happy about that.  It's just that one lone happiness is getting swallowed up by the ocean of mistakes I'm perpetrating.

So, to recap:  feeling horrible.  Hope it will pass soon.  If it doesn't, I'll snap out of it right around Christmas 2012.

Or....something magical will happen, money will fall in my lap and I can go visit the UK.  I'd like that a lot.  Road Trip #2, universe.  I call on you to make it happen.

Also, I do want to thank the universe for not having anyone die on my birthday this year.  That was a nice change.  I appreciate the break.

TWO!

I have booked, not one, but two awesome projects.  TWO.  As in, they haven't happened yet, but will.  Both are completely different and both have huge great fun stuff in them.  And I have been HIRED to do both.

As in, I will be a working actor for six months straight.

In two different shows.

Making actual money from being an actor.

At theatres people respect and with people I respect (and in some cases, adore).

This, folks, this is a good day.  Days like this...don't anyone send me bad news, I wanna just sit in this for a second.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Elsbeth ReBoot

This is placeholder number two, because I must sleep in order to drive 12 hours safely tomorrow, but traveling is really, really good for me.  Also, seeing my favorite people in the whole world is good for me.  In addition, seeing the people who are like sign posts to who I am is good for me.

I don't want to rub it in, but it's also fun as all get out.

And yes, for those of you playing at home, it has happened, that rare rare combination of me spending enough time at home and being tired beyond tired...if you were to talk to me any time in the next three days, you'd hear traces of my southern accent.

Placeholder

Traveling.  I like it.  Being afloat, being outside the day to day.  Being away from one life, though firmly planted in another, one I leave behind most days.

Things I've been seeing:

The eyes of a friend in the face of their child.
Clouds rolling over a sunset, then lightning scratching at the sky, then hail, then the moon breathing out above the subsiding clouds.
The inner workings of a community I can respect, and people I adore at the center of that community, off fighting the good fight hundreds of miles away.
Friends who abide.  They all keep pieces of me, some I need daily, some I've forgotten about, some that embarrass me, some that appall me, but all pieces, and some of those pieces I have very much needed to see again.
Kind waitresses.
Doctors who have the power to give better life through better medication.
The stubborn, stubborn face of my mother as she decides to misunderstand me.  Even when it takes more energy.
Sexy southern men, the rumpled, khaki-wearing ones with hair that ought to be cut and an accent that can melt my bones...the ones with the Ben Silver bowties. Roawr.
Pictures of myself that wound my ego and my vanity.
The clock turning 3..4..5 am...but I don't want to sleep because there's too much to talk about.

Sleep.  More later, when I can think about it all. Bless you, friends.  There are more of you to see...