Well, this has been fun

The last couple of weeks have not been my favorite.  Family stuff blew up, and I blew up, and the residual feelings of blame, guilt and regret are not helping the general terror I have at the oncoming baby.

Oh, have I not mentioned?  I'm terrified.  When I say this aloud, as lightly as possibly, people tend to ask something like - terrified of having a child, or terrified of the labor?  Yes.  Yes.  All of the above.

Starting with first things first, the whole impending labor is utterly terrifying.  There will be pain.  Lots of pain.  Possibly the most intense pain I've ever had to deal with, for an unspecified length of time, which could drag on quite ponderously.  And the more I learn about this pain, the more I realize - I have to at least give it a go.  Because if I take the drugs (and I have no political agenda, if I really feel I can't do it, I'll take the drugs), the drugs get in the way of what really should happen.  The body has a plan, a set of tactics that will aid the whole process, and once I take the drugs, I interrupt the setup created by thousands of years of evolution.  So...I have to try to avoid the drugs, try much harder than I once thought.

But let's look at labor as a finite amount of time that will eventually pass.  I'm terrified, but it will end.  But as it ends, the terror is just beginning!  If we make it through, if the baby is healthy, then I get to start an entire lifetime of taking care of this brand new human being.

I'm terrified I'll make a mess of it.
I'm terrified I'll lose every part of myself to this new responsibility.
I'm terrified the baby won't be healthy.
I'm terrified I won't be healthy.
I'm terrified the baby will never sleep and will never stop crying.
I'm terrified I'll discover I have no capability to take care of this thing.

I'm also terrified that I won't ever be able to think beyond it again, or think of anything else without feeling like a bad mother.  I wanted to have a family to have a bigger life, not have my life narrow down into simply being a caretaker.

And I'm terrified to hit post on this, because I don't love the idea of being judged for feeling this way.  Also, the internet never goes away.  What if I love my child with every fiber of my being when he or she gets here, and all of this fear fades into the background, but someday he or she stumbles upon this?  I could be damaging my favorite human being just by being honest about how I'm feeling right now. (Ok, inkling, if you're reading this, just know I hadn't even met you yet, you were just some kicking keeping me awake and making me feel like an unattractive walrus.  Judge me by how I am with you now, not by this.)

Man, this parenthood thing is triiiicky.  I already feel as if I'm proving to be absolute crap at it. (Inkling, for your sake I hope I get better really quickly.)

Right.  I guess...enough whining.  This was my choice, and fear is an indicator that I am doing something that will force me to grow as a human being.

Perhaps the greater the fear, the greater the coming growth.

Perhaps.

I guess I have to hope so.  And I have to figure out something to hold on to during the fear.

Great question

A friend saved my life today by asking me a very interesting question.

"What's the thing you're looking most forward to, having a baby?"

And I realized that for the moment, if I were being super honest, I would have said, nothing, but I couldn't really say that so I had to reach into my mind and turn it inside out.  I need an attitude adjustment.  Because yes, this whole process is terrifying, but I wouldn't be going through it if I didn't want to have children.  I do want to have children.  I have always wanted to have children.  I like them, I like being around them and I get a lot of enjoyment from the ones I teach.

I told him I'm looking forward to being there to watch a child discover things for the first time, to be able to introduce the things I love to another person who will be (at least for the first 5-6 years) consistently blown away by the world.  And I was sort of making that answer up, but as I said it, it also felt really true.  I am looking forward to that.  "What thing will you be most excited about introducing him or her to?" my friend asked, and I said everything, I mean, dinosaurs!  How cool are dinosaurs!  And that's just the beginning.  But when I thought about it more, my answer is: story.  I'm most excited to introduce story to my child.  Music a close second.

Ever since that moment, I've realized how much fear is running me for the moment.  I'm not proud of that, though I can give myself a break and admit it's pretty reasonable and normal.  I'm so frightened of what I may be losing and how painful this change is going to be that I have no space to dwell on the amazing thing I may get in return.  Because even without story or dinosaurs or music or anything else, I'm about to bring more love into the world.  Maybe more of some other things, too, maybe a little more mess or order or science or art (or crazy), but no matter what, I can teach a child to love, and my family can help, and that will ricochet through our lives forever.

I'm mostly still terrified.  And I do deeply fear losing myself to this person who doesn't exist yet.  But a tiny corner of my brain opened up this week to the idea that maybe, just maybe, this might be fun.

Just gonna get harder

This was the week being pregnant really wasn't pleasant.  I've been sailing through relatively easily, but this week a car wreck, plus traveling in a plane to a place with air dry enough to give me nosebleeds, plus possibly the beginnings of hemrrhoids (yep, joy), plus swelling in my ankles and feet, plus true exhaustion born of aforesaid travel, all combined to make me fairly miserable.

The anxiety is really coming to the forefront, as well.  This is truly scary, having a child, and I have no idea what I'm doing, or even to some extent why some days.  I don't know if this child will be healthy, or someone I can like.  I don't know if I can make enough money to support him/her (we still don't know). I don't know if I will end up giving up all of what I want and what I love to support and care for this being who will be in a pretty basic mode for the first year or so.  It's terrifying.  And that's just anxiety about the baby itself...what about the birth??  That's truly terrifying as well - pain I cannot even imagine.  Truth be told, going through the nine months of pregnancy is pretty troubling, since you really do give up an entire lifetime of understanding what your body does and how it behaves for months of uncertainty and new limits on what you can do every day.  It's a slow losing of oneself, and that's difficult for me (and probably most people, really).

I hope after the birth I come back to this blog and write how much it's all worth it.  I already know how lucky I am to be pregnant at all.  When I actually meet this person my body is creating, I hope to be blown away by the event.  Because there's no getting around the fact that I am doing this, and the only other alternatives to going through childbirth and caring for the baby are so sad and heartbreaking they don't bear thinking about.

What a difference

I forget every single time.  I get bogged down in something that isn't theatre - no rehearsals, not in a show, whatever - and I forget that I physically need it, like Vitamin C, to function.  Then I get a dose from somewhere and, bam!  I perk up, the jaundice fades, life gets sparky again.

This does worry me about having a baby. Naturally.  Heh.  Because it's definitely going to be a while until I can do much of anything.  Heh.

But guys!  Guys!  I did a play reading last night, and I felt so differently afterwards it was astonishing.  And here's the nice part - reading that play, sitting there trying to do justice to a story with lots of other people to bounce off of and react to, I could actually feel power coming back online.  I could feel the medicine working.  And I could feel myself being good at this.

Ok, that sounds obnoxious.  Sorry.  There are still lots of people who are way better.  I don't mean I'm amazing.  But I can say I have experience and enthusiasm, and even occasional flashes of talent.  It was a really lovely night.

On the strength of it, I managed to get the hell out of bed this morning and exercise, and start working my way through a pile of things that need to get done.  Because when you're an actor, you're supposed to act, or else what's the use of talking?  And when you do act, you get the nutrients you need from life.

Bless that man for asking me to take part.  And universe....you need to book me something for after this baby.  Because I want to be there and enjoy it and have a great time having a kid, and I will be worse than useless if there's nothing to give me this feeling.

Oof

I haven't been writing much, and eventually I'll probably regret that.  Later I'll wonder how I felt throughout pregnancy, and there won't be a record.  Maybe the lack of notes means I'm busy being instead of analyzing, for a change, though I won't bet on that.  Maybe if I wrote all the time it would just be one long refrain on "I'm tired and mostly frightened of the future."

I wish I could say I'm at one with the mystery of creating a child.  Yes, baby clothes (and things) are really cute.  I held a three week old baby this weekend and he was beautiful.  I see that this all has a magic I'm lucky to experience.  I didn't get pregnant because I thought I should or my husband wanted children or my parents needed grandchildren.  I did it because I honestly love kids and think it ought to be exciting and fun to have a family.  It's unexplored territory, new horizons.

Truth: most of the time I feel like I'm losing myself already, and the baby isn't even born yet.  I'm not resenting the baby, still far from it, but so much of my being has been tabled while I do this new thing that I don't feel myself.  I feel like a washed out, faded version of myself.  Hormones flood my body and this temporary state feels permanent, as if my personality were a balloon leaking air.

And just when I get worked up, I have to take a nap.

I know the idea of an excuse to be lazy and eat a lot of food sounds great, but in practice it isn't.

Now, I gotta go take a nap.  I hope...I don't know, I hope it turns out the baby is taking a third of my oxygen, blood supply, and energy, and when he/she is born, I'll discover I have all those things back - plus a new baby that my body grew all on its own.

And I hope radio drama makes a big comeback in the US so if I'm ever pregnant again I have something I can do to keep me sane.

Conversation

Me: Well, think about when your girlfriend finally moved in.  Remember how you felt?

H: Yeah, it felt like a huge commitment that I wasn't sure I was ready for, but her lease had expired and the clock was ticking and I had to just give it a shot.

Me:  Ok, so imagine that instead of your girlfriend, who you knew you loved, you were getting ready to take in a mail-order bride.  You've only seen a couple of blurry pictures of her, you've never talked to her, and you don't have any idea if you'll like her or not, but to get the paperwork to clear, you'll be married to her, so the commitment is guaranteed.

H:  Oh, that would have made me way more anxious, yes.

Me:  But wait.  Turns out, not only does she not speak English, she doesn't speak at all, in fact, she doesn't know any basic skills, like how to feed and dress herself, and you'll have to teach her every bit of it, from the ground up.

H:  I think I see where this is going.

Me:  AND then it turns out you have to give up a third of your blood supply, energy, and oxygen for nine months just to keep her alive. 

H: And to make this metaphor work, you gotta include that there won't be any sex.

Me:  Right.  Yes.  That's sort of what having a baby feels like right now.

Urgle

I'm having a little bit of a rough day.  Rough week?   Rough time?  I guess not really a...

Wait.  So. I'm used to being pretty lucky, overall.  And the internal monologue that runs things over in my head usually tells me I have nothing to complain about!  Look at how everything is working out ok!  I'm not destitute, or alone, no one in my life has died super recently.  When my problems are things like gaining too much weight, then overall my life is on the plus side.  (Not to derail where I'm going here, but that's a very individual comment about myself.)  

Next week I'll be six months pregnant.  I've heard endless horror stories about the pregnancies of others, sickness and issues and all sorts of stuff that can go wrong.  Everything is going pretty well for me - I'm generally healthy, I haven't been super sick, and overall things are starting to come together - we've got some stuff, for instance.  More is coming.  It'll be fine.

If you, dear reader, can just know that I am aware I'm lucky, could I just trouble both of us to put that aside for a second?

Because I currently feel terrified and guilty and worried and out of control.

First, I feel a lot of guilt at just plain getting pregnant.  It is super hard for a lot of women, especially women my age.  It wasn't simple for me - we'd been at it about three years before it happened, so I'm not one of those oh-as-soon-as-we-decided-to-do-it-it-happened-as-if-by-magic!  (I feel as if those people should be kicked.  If it's easy for you, great, but no one needs to hear you brag.)  But even though we are pregnant now, it's a little like finally getting picked for the volleyball team only to find your friends haven't all made the cut - you feel guilty, even if that choice wasn't yours in the slightest.  I mean, why me and why not everyone who wants this?  

This leads me to worry about some of the people I had to tell.  When we were trying, I had moments when someone would tell me they were pregnant when internally I would cringe, because here was yet another person who had somehow gotten something right and I couldn't.  I don't ever want to make someone feel like that, but I'll bet at least one of the people I had to tell recently probably did end up feeling bad about it.  I hate that.  I don't ever want my success (especially one I didn't control) to make someone else feel less successful.  

That dilemma leads me to something else: I don't need anyone else to be excited about this baby I'm having.  I needed my parents to be excited, and happily, they are.  But everyone else gets a pass.  Don't get me wrong - I find it incredibly generous when people are excited for us, and I appreciate it.  But our culture places such value on having kids that everyone feels like they have to go ape-shit for every baby that's born.  You don't!  If you're not into kids, more power to you!  Congrats!  Whatever you decide to put your energy into, that has value as far as I'm concerned.  (Well, maybe not internet porn or your membership in some hate group, but everything else.  I can get behind crochet and bird-watching, for instance.)  I do not expect everyone to adore my child just because it is a child.  That's my job.

Right now I'm living in the middle of all of the no and none of the yes.  There are all these things I can't do - I have to turn down endless auditions, I can't drink, I can't eat sushi, I am slowly losing the ability to lie down on my back, I can't exercise the way I used to, soon I won't be able to see my toes.  And I fully expect that these slight denials will be balanced by the hopefully wonderful experience of having a child.  But I don't know that yet because I don't have the child yet.  So I'm turning things down right and left, all for some perceived future benefit.  This is fine.  This is called delayed gratification.  It is also really hard.  As human beings, we don't handle delayed gratification well, and I am no exception.

All I can see is what isn't, and I have nothing of what will be to soothe the blow.

Still - I'm terrified that I'm not giving up enough - am I eating too much? (Yes.)  Am I doing all the right things to keep the baby healthy?  (No idea.)  Will some tiny thing I do thinking it won't matter too much have some irrevocable impact on my child's life? (Who knows?)

Also:  I'm terrified because people have endless endless expectations of parents.  Many of which I don't agree with.  We had to register because someone is kindly throwing us a party, and all I could think was, why don't you just give us your old stuff?  Why do we have to go through buying new stuff?? Will the baby be that aware that other people have slept in this crib, for instance?  Or read these books?

Don't get me started on how stupid it is that nothing for babies is gender neutral.  We don't know whether it is a boy or a girl, but everything is classified and produced either in pinks with bows and flowers or in blues with trucks and dogs.  What would be so very horrible about a line of clothes in greens or reds or yellows with animals on them?  We tell ourselves that gender typing is biological but we treat ONE HOUR OLD INFANTS differently depending on their gender???  We registered for clothes that were pretty gender neutral but most of those are labeled "BOY" - so now everyone in the family thinks we're having a boy.  Which hey, we might have, but we just don't know.  It. Is. Infuriating.

That's just the stuff.  People have expectations about what you'll do, how you'll manage, how you should run your life, whether you've planned where the kid will go to school, EVERYTHING.  

Aside:  One of the first comments we got from one family was, "You need more money, of course."  Really??  We're not flush, but we can feed, house, and insure ourselves.  I think overall a lot of people have kids who can't do those things.  Are the most successful kids you know the ones who grew up with the most money?  No, they aren't, are they...

Then.  My body isn't my own anymore.  It belongs to some tiny being with apparently really long legs (we don't know the gender but this child's femur was in the 95 percentile for length) that I don't know and I'm not absolutely positive I can handle.  The fact that it is hanging out and using me as a growing platform means my body is flooded with hormones I can't control, and I am at the mercy of its whims.  It doesn't feel like kicking to me, but I get these pulses of movement, not painful but very distracting.  It's gotten harder to sleep.  It's gotten more uncomfortable.  And this is just the beginning of the discomfort.  It will get a lot worse before it gets better.

Worst: I feel all of the above - terror, fear, anxiety, irritation, etc. - but somehow those all feel wrong.  I should be blissfully happy at all times, right?  I should be thrilled and excited!  I am, sometimes.  But not always, and every time I get more nervous, I feel I've betrayed this child before it even gets here.  

And, hahaha!  I was feeling all of this for months when I couldn't tell anyone why.  Because miscarriage is a reality, as common as one in three pregnancies for women my age end in miscarriage.  That is terrifying.  I couldn't talk about it, I couldn't open myself up telling anyone about it when it could end so suddenly.

So I'm having a little bit of a rough day.  I hope it will pass.  I still expect it's all worth it.  I just don't know yet, and that's terrifying.

Shock

I'm in shock and there's no time to absorb it.  Oh, I'm fine - I just woke up this morning in London and will go to bed in Chicago and tomorrow I'll fly to Washington, D.C.  I'm a little travel weary but basically surviving.

Yes, the rest of the trip continued to be wonderful.  What I lacked in personal reflection time I more than made up for by seeing people I adore, who seem to continue to feel the same about me, stunningly.  And they all live extraordinary and creative lives, even the ones who think they don't.  It's pretty humbling and inspiring to see.

And those were the folks I had time to see!

More eventually.  First, laundry, repacking, a little work catch-up, dinner, and BED.

Almost a fairy tale

Gorgeous day.  It's hard to realize that people live like this, live in this city every day and can enjoy it.  Of course, a lot of London is dirty and unsafe, but lots of it is parks and pubs and structures that date to the eighteenth century or farther.  Even if you don't live in a luxury flat with a Thames view, you can leave your grimy bedsit and go off to any one of the free museums that look like palaces.  We were in the Natural History Museum today, and it's gorgeous, ornate and yet restrained, multicolored stones and stolid skeletons, stuffed birds and wild sculptures.

I went up to Hampstead, my very first stomping grounds, looked in the window of the Worrell House (my first ever London address) while a ginger cat sat on the ledge and watched me watching some student practice guitar.  I walked down over Primrose Hill (Sylvia Plath lived nearby at one point), then down through Regents Park.  I went over the canal bridge that runs through the Park.  I wanted to use the path along the canal but I was worried I wouldn't have enough time for the long way.  I like the canal path because it backs up to the London Zoo, so as you trot along you have every chance of running across the odd wild horned animal peering at you through the fence.

I used one of the rentable bicycles and manuevered from Baker Street (the line of tourists outside of 221B Bake Street was comical, not least because they were all wearing yellow hats - a school group, I presume) all the way to Exhibition Road, which boasts the NHM as well as the V&A, which I wish I'd had time to wander through, if only desultorily.

After a truly amazing Salgado photography exhibit, I ended up picnicing by the round pond in Kensington Gardens, looking back on Kensington Palace, the place Victoria lived before she became queen.

It was beautiful, all of it.  Did I mention it rained most of the day?  Didn't matter.  It was beautiful.

The wood

I must must must go to bed, but today I went to a magic place that I will try to describe in more detail later - a ten acre ancient woodland owned by some friends of mine off a canal near Basingstoke.  Ancient woodland means the trees have been there at least 400 years - not these same trees, perhaps, but there is a particularly lovely yew tree that may be 300 years old.  It's magnificent.  We made a fire and cooked an amazing dinner over it (roasted portabellos, grilled cheese, sausages, salad, bits of lamb, hummus, irish soda bread, cheeses - incredible), and went boating on the canal in a boat that unfolded out of a bag and that came out of a neighbor's shed - the neighbor has a house with a thatched roof, some donkeys and some decorative sheep.

The whole thing was really out of a novel of some sort - the idea of what England is, only this was really happening as if it is completely normal and everyday.  I was...I was delighted.  Charmed.

Now I must go to bed.  Sigh.  So few days, so much to stuff in them.

Ah, yes

I'm sitting in one of my favorite kitchens in the world, a sunny, bright yellow and green l-shaped room smack in the middle of Chiswick, London.  It's glorious, and wonderful, and odd.  It feels so much like home and yet I haven't lived here in 13 years, plus I haven't even visited for five.  I spent the day with my friend Maeve yesterday.  We haven't seen each other properly for eight years (on skype occasionally, but not in person), and yet it was almost as if no time had passed.

Yet I miss my husband, and I am here knowing I have been incredibly lucky the past few years, and that being happy here is partly the result of having made some happiness at home, in my actual life, with my lovely husband, who it must be admitted I miss dreadfully.  (He was spectacularly supportive about me coming to visit here, then when I booked the ticket he started moaning about how sad and lonely he'd be without me. Awww.)

Also, I think everyone knows now, more or less, but I don't think I've mentioned out loud here that I'm pregnant.  Which is exciting, but changes things.  It's also why I'm here - it was a pleasure to tell people in person, but more importantly, I can't imagine I'll have an easy time traveling for a few years after the baby comes.  In January.  Of 2014.

Yep.  Gonna have a baby.  A life-changing, possibly life-absorbing baby.  It seemed a good time to go haring off across the globe and check in with a self I left behind about twelve years ago.  And more importantly, with all the folks who are important to me on this side of the pond, not just myself.

It feels very natural to be here, not forced or strained.  There's just a hint of uncertainty before arriving somewhere or seeing someone for the first time, the pause of do-I-remember-how-this works? and then it eases, and all is well, and I am content.

I picked a time back home where there was no specific work scheduled, but of course, people keep needing things, which is annoying.  Or perhaps more annoying is that I can tell they need them, since my iPad works just fine and email comes through.  Oh, technology, keeping me tied to obligation.

More soon - mostly it's been old friends and very ordinary experiences that I am thrilled to go through - buying biscuits, riding the underground, looking out the windows of trains, getting a proper calendar in the stationery shop.  It's all regular and non-touristy and non-epic and I love it.  Hopefully there will be epic things to report soon.  I'll try to keep a log.

Bizarre and no mistake

Well, this has been an odd day, to be sure, spent almost entirely with my mother and managing to fulfill at least some of her wishes. We visited lots of people, although she claims she had about thirteen people she wanted to have over for a luncheon, but couldn't figure out how to invite certain different subsets together - they wouldn't get along, they wouldn't have commonalities.  So instead we had lunch with one person (and had invited a second but she couldn't come), went by to visit another person (we'd also spoken to that person's daughter but she wasn't available), and then stopped by yet one last person's house.  Strategic road work helped us jettison plans to take one last person home from work.  (The one I really wanted to see I called, but she's not well enough for visitors.) So all in all, we dealt with six or seven of the thirteen.  I have NO IDEA who the other ones are.

Though I enjoyed seeing these people, they are all sweet ladies that I do adore and was happy to see, I think my mother's assertion that "they want to see you so much!" is false in the extreme.  And after today, I feel it would be more accurate to say she just wanted to show me off.

But here's the weird part.  I grew up having it drilled into my head that no one wants to hear you talk about yourself. I've internalized this idea to a large extent and while I often run off at the mouth about myself, I always end up feeling guilty and ashamed about it.  Yet today my mother actively encouraged me to tell these women about myself.  I kept hearing: "Tell her about how big the crew was..."  "Tell her about what he said to you about hand modeling..."  "Tell her what you thought he said!  Oh, this is so funny."  It was at odds with this idea that as a well-bred younger person, my job was to ask questions and listen with enthusiasm.

But the conclusion it brings me to is that she is proud of me, and proud of all the things I'm doing, not just the ones I assume she approves of, but also how I struggle to work as an actor and keep working and continue plugging away at the profession.  I can hardly believe it, but there's not really any other way I can explain her behavior.

The down side (always a down side, right?) is that she then spent this evening pulling old clothes out of the closet in hopes I would take them home and add them back into my wardrobe.  And these are items I don't ever want to see again, much less wear again.  Sigh.  She always and forever insists on trying to make me dress like a 60+ year old.  When I humor her enough to try something on that I know I will abhor, she tries to convince me I really look great in it.  I do not.  I promise.

But I try to be grateful while firm that some items I simply won't wear, despite the fact wearing them would age me 30+ years instantly.  And I try not to be appalled that items I thought I managed to get rid of 15 or more years ago (and will never fit my mother), she's been hanging onto.  And just because I explain I don't ever want to wear them again will not inspire her to donate them or throw them away. Siiiggghhh.

The unsung

I'm pretty tired, and it was a really long day, genuinely tiring, but it was a really cool experience to shoot this commercial today. I want to write about it in more detail, though I can't do it all justice tonight.  Tonight I just want to say how much work goes on behind the scenes of something like that, work that no one ever sees.  In fact, if you were aware of that work, it would probably mean it was being done poorly.

Trust me, though I'm the only person you'll see on-screen, there were probably over 30 people working on this thing today, and most of them were working their butts off.  From the continuity lady making sure every word is correct, to the prop guys painstakingly cleaning and resetting everything I touched, to the wardrobe lady who bought a trillion tops in order to get they would approve for me to wear, and a whole host of other people who were working really hard and I don't even know their titles...it's amazing, a ton of people are working to make small things seem effortless and easy.

It was a really nice crew.  I hope I get to work with some of them again someday.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Y'ALL.  Y'ALL!

I just booked a national commercial.

Seriously, someone is going to pay me some insane amount of money to stand in front of a camera and talk about something for 30 seconds, and then eventually you will see my smiling face on your tv telling you thing is great (and frankly, it sounds pretty great), and eventually I will get a check for that insane amount of money and I will get to put that ad right smack on my resume and think, "BOO-YAH."

There are so many good sides to this I can't even begin to tell you about it.

Actually, there's a whole section of good sides I can't get into right now - we'll just save those for another post.

But here are two I can let you in on:

1 - the audition was at a casting agent I rarely get called into.  Now, you don't have to be a genius to see that if someone starts booking things, you are far more likely to call them again.  So I hope this translates into further opportunity.

2 - the audition was through an agent I like and want to earn money for - I want to be one of the people they trust to send out on bigger and bigger auditions.  A bunch of movie and tv stuff is filming in the next year or so in Chicago, and while I have no expectation of being cast in any of it, I haven't ever been called in to audition for one tiny speck of it, so it would be great if I could at least start being seen.  That's where the money is, of course, and that's where the validation of doing this for a "living" comes in - anyone can believe in you when they've seen your mug on tv.  (And to take away the money aspect, I think all that work would be really fascinating - I've never done much of it, so for me it would be a cool gig to see how it works.)

To back up: just plain getting and doing this job is going to be a monetary windfall at a VERY convenient time, but I also hope it gives me some greater possibilities down the line.

But all of that is far more rational that I feel.  I feel:  wheeeeeeeee!!!!!  You know in a life of rejection, it feels really really really good to freakin' book one.

I mean.  Really good.  I hope everybody's having as good a day as this one.

Filing Cabinet

Hooray!!  I bought a new (well, used, but barely) filing cabinet!  Instead of having a pile of boxes with disparate things in them, that I have to move around periodically to get to the stuff on the bottom, I will have everything in nice, neat folders with labels on them.  Today I started digging through the boxes, filing what I need neatly, and throwing away outdated or useless material.

Two things.  One.  As I was going through things and thinking how relatively mundane my life/approach to this filing cabinet is, I noticed I was labeling a folder: Funeral Ephemera.  I know lots of you may be pack rats, but at the very least do I get points for creative labeling?

Two. I wrote a lot of truly terrible stuff, mostly bad poetry, but also other bits and pieces of fiction.  However, I'm surprised to find bits and pieces of fiction and poetry in these piles that aren't entirely cringe-worthy.  There's a whole story in there that I wrote as an assignment for a play, and it's not so fantastic that I'm going to start submitting it to magazines, but it's readable!  Sort of intriguing!  Perusing it doesn't make me want to burn it immediately!

I suppose the larger lesson is that it's nice to look back on who you have been and like some of it, be proud of some of it.  Mistakes are made, and regrets exist for us all, but to have experiences and relationships and work you remember fondly is a great delight.

And so, you see a beige filing cabinet, slightly used, I see a repository of delight.

Talent

For the most part, I don't think about myself as someone who has much talent of any kind (in my chosen field or in any other).  Once upon a time, this attitude was a product of true self-loathing but nowadays it's usually born of the awareness of the truly talented people I know - I know amazingly talented people, and enjoy the talent of lots of people I don't know.  Once you've met and experienced real talent, it's impossible to call your own feeble motions anything grand or successful. Even when my sweet husband says "You're amazing" to me, I tend to shrug it off, because I'm well aware I am pretty ordinary.

But.

I actually do have a talent, one I forget about until exactly the right combination of factors comes together.  I can take a handful of leftover ingredients, mix it with a few staples, and without using a recipe, I can make tremendously tasty meals.  Outrageously tasty.  The one downside is that they can only rarely be duplicated, because their creation is utterly spontaneous.

Of course I want to lead up to what I made tonight.  It was spectacular.  Let's leave aside the fact that I made homemade strawberry ice cream, because I did use a recipe for that and I made it because I got an entire flat of strawberries (8 lbs) for $0.49.  That's a ton of strawberries.  I may have to make pancakes in the morning to make this worth my while.

BUT that isn't what I made. I had a bag of grainy/orzoy/couscousy mixed goodness (trader joe's - it's really tasty no matter what you dump in with it), cooked that up (using chicken stock, thank you very much), roasted grape tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and tofu slices in a lemon juice/olive oil marinade I just made up, tossed that all in with the mixed grains and some feta cheese, drizzled the whole thing with more lemon juice, and....it was excellent.  I was impressed in spite of myself.

It doesn't hurt that the strawberry ice cream also turned out so creamy and delicious.  Y'all - I'm not a food genius, but give me a handful of ingredients that go together and a half of an idea and you will get a great dinner out of it.  It only really works when my back is against the wall and I have to combine foodstuffs before they go bad and have to be tossed out.  But when it works, it really works.

Come for dinner sometime - you'll see.

Perspective

So, most of the time, when you audition for something, you have no way of knowing what the people in the room think about your audition, unless you get cast.  And even then (not that they would cast someone they don't think can do a role), you don't know the details of what they think - were you good at one thing and not another but they're willing to risk it?  Did you happen to complement someone they already cast?  Were you really really close to being chosen but some tiny sticking point forced them to make another choice?

You just don't know.

It was completely fascinating, therefore, to do an audition recently where I had a dependable mole in the room.  First, my audition was late in the evening, so I heard a lot of the auditioning going on beforehand. A lot of it was shouty, which made me question my approach.  My approach to this character was a woman intensely in control, and hearing all that emotion come through the wall, I doubted myself.  Was I underplaying it?  Was I choosing small, less interesting emotional journeys?

Still, I stuck to my guns and tried to stay true to the text and the moments.  I enjoyed it all hugely.  I tried to keep her control in place, to fight the way I thought she would fight, to genuinely react to the characters around me.  When asked to try scenes again, I changed what I was doing to prove I had more than one thought in my head.

It seemed to go well but I couldn't be sure.

My mole told me it was far and away clear to everyone in the room that I was ideal for this role. That I just was her.  Now, for various reasons (some political), I won't get this role.  I can handle that so much better knowing I did a great job, knowing that for an hour at least, I really was her.

And it sounds as if this whole story is about ego - yay, I was good!  Hooray!  Of course that plays into it - I love acting, I love this play, I want to be good at it, but there are two things so much more gratifying at work here for me.

One, maybe I can finally start trusting myself.  My instincts won't work for every project and every role, but I really felt I had a handle on this woman, that I knew who she was, and that knowledge was more constructive than all the emoting and yelling coming through the walls.  Knowledge trumps fervor in most cases.  I've definitely auditioned for plays where I didn't feel comfortable with the role or have a handle on who that person was, and that shows.

Two, just because I don't get cast doesn't mean I don't have talent. The stars really have to line up perfectly to give you the chances, and even this time they did not.  I have to trust that down the line, something else will come up and I can prepare and knock it out of the park and I'll be in the perfect place to make it happen.  It does break my heart just a little that I had such a good audition and that I love the play and that it would be such a great opportunity but that circumstances just do not allow me to do it.  BUT I have to trust the larger universe.  There are always more plays.  There are always more chances.  I have to keep getting better and showing up with the same level of confidence in my work.  I can't get thrown by the no's anymore, because I'm learning they may not necessarily mean "no".  They may mean, not right now, not opposite this person, not with this company.

It may be obvious, but the above is entirely for me.  Someday soon I will be feeling low, and will have been rejected from something, and will feel it means I can never do this.  I need to leaf back and remember that I can, and that more chances will come my way.  The stars are moving all the time - you never know when they will line up directly over your head and shower you with everything you want.

In the meantime, I really enjoyed that audition.  I hope I can enjoy them all that much.

Turns out....

So, I didn't get far with the board meeting.  Turns out, I had a 101.6 temperature.  I went to the meeting, tried to stay with it, and gave up 20 minutes in.

Now, I very foolishly took a hot shower after that meeting, and then registered a temperature of 102.4.

Sort of scary.

Four Tylenol and some rest later,  I was back at 98.3 this morning.

I go through this to remind myself that being that tired might, just might, be my body's way of tipping me off that something isn't quite right.

I'm hoping it's back to quasi-normal now.

Weary

I am tired beyond anything I've felt in my life.  There are times I've had less sleep than this, but this is less like physical exhaution and more like being underneath a very deep expanse of water.  The effort it took me to walk 6 blocks today was sort of hilarious - I had to sit down in the park halfway and rest.

The resting was entertaining because there was a fountain in the midst of the square where I stopped, and two ladies, seemingly unconnected to each other, had jumped a fence and plowed through some very expensive landscaping to splash around in that fountain.  While part of me looked askance at them because they clearly had to trample some plants to get in there, the other part of me said, you know, ladies, more power to you.  There's a fountain there, and you're daring to use it.

Eventually it turned out one of the ladies had left her socks right where I chose to sit down, and rather than participate in what would surely have been a very long conversation, I decided to press onwards.  I was lucky there was a bench sitting outside the elevator when I arrived at my destination.

That destination was an audition.  One in which I had to get super excited and jump around.  I will level with you: I did not think I would be able to do that.  But shockingly, when the moment came, apparently I had some reserve power.

Now I have collapsed on the sofa and I am cursing the board meeting I must attend tonight.

Someone else's house

I need a nap in the worst way, but I'm babysitting, and while this fantastic child is currently asleep (thank heaven for just this moment), I am guessing if I lay down and close my eyes, he will decide to wake up.

Still, it's raining, and the windows are open in the back of this flat, and it's such a peaceful place to be, here in someone else's house, without my own baggage and without my own mess-I-haven't-cleaned-up and with the rain coming down outside.

Now if the people in the apartment upstairs would stop having a party or re-arranging furniture or whatever loud thing is making it sound like herds of elephants live upstairs, it would be entirely lovely.

Lord, I hope beyond hope we are not this loud to our downstairs neighbors.

Callback and forth

So, things are going well professionally, at a time when I had planned to be free to do a lot of traveling.  Well, horse piss.  I've been trying to think of it as a no-lose situation - if I book this super cool project, I make a nice chunk of money, earn my Equity card, and get some probably high profile exposure in a show that's likely to be pretty moving and good.  And even if I don't, I've probably made a good impression on people who are booking professional actors for well paid work.  Plus, if I don't book this project, I will actually be free to do a bunch of traveling that I keep saying I will get around to and never get around to.

So, no-lose, right?  Win-win?  Boy, if only I could feel like this more often, I think I would perform so much more effectively in auditions.

Well, we'll see.  My impression of my good impression may be highly rose-tinted, and I know they saw a ton of great people.  There's just such a specific energy in a room when you seem to be doing well, when you seem to be giving them what they are looking for.  Years ago, I went to a callback and starting singing and the two co-directors looked at each other and nodded slightly and I thought, "Yeah, I just booked this."  And I had.  But equally, I had a long drawn-out audition a few years ago that continued and continued and continued - I sang, I read sides (bits of the script, that is), I sang from the show, I read with someone else who was auditioning, I sang again.  The accompanist came out for a bathroom break at one point and said in a whisper, "That was great."  So it all seemed positive, but I never heard a peep from them.  That one didn't faze me, but it did remind me that my sixth sense of how I'm doing is flawed at best.  And that you never know what the discussion is like on the other side of the table, and what sorts of things go into a final decision.

So now, we just live our lives.  Maybe eat a(nother) cookie or two.  Plan dream trips but don't book them.

If I can just keep auditioning like that, it'll all work out eventually.

Right on time...to screw up other plans...

Wow.  When stuff starts to happen, it really just doesn't stop happening.  Tomorrow I have to teach, go to a callback, rush from there to a voiceover booking, and from there to a commercial audition.

Then I plan to come home and collapse on the couch and watch a movie or something like that. Whew!

The callback is interesting because I walked out of the initial audition at about 4:35 pm, and got an email asking me to a callback at 4:56 pm.  I know computers and smart phones and tablets make it easier for folks to make those requests faster, but that's still really fast.  (I'm tempted to say "hella fast", but I am old and it sounds ridiculous.)

It's tricky, though, because if I book this job, I have to fudge an offer I made to my Dad, which I would do (and hopefully he would understand) but would feel awkward. (Why is it that projects are never slated for the long long stretches of time in which I have nothing whatsoever planned??)

Still, I haven't been offered the job, so at the moment, there's no conflict and I can bask in the success of being called back.  Better, I can bask in the success of having made a Really Good Impression.  How do I know that?  Because I had that experience again, the one I am happily having more and more often, where I treat myself as a professional with a point of view worth having in the room, and I ask a legitimate artistic question.  And today's question was especially genuine/  I always like to have some kind of artistic question on hand, but today's was absolutely necessary - it was a "does this character know x or not at this point in the song?"

There are several reasons this was a great question.  One, knowing or not knowing something changes how I sing the song, and by asking, I've implied I have more than one way to approach the song.  Two, in asking about this, I have proven I've read the entire play and have some understanding of the arc of this character.  Three, I've established that I am thinking about the project as a fellow artist, not as a supplicant for a job.

I think it's three that makes me the happiest, and has been the nicest part of my week.  I like acting, the doing of acting, and when I can turn auditions themselves into the doing, into the experience of figuring something out and trying it different ways, then I'm really getting to a new level in terms of my comfort with the craft.  NOT that I am mastering the craft - no, no, no.  But being comfortable with it as a discipline is far preferrable (for both sides of the table) than being obsessed with whether you get the job or not.  I probably won't get this job.  But all of those people in that room today work all over the place, and I walked in and showed them I work as well.  I think, and I haven't been in enough rooms on the other side of the table to be certain but I'm pretty convinced, that showing up prepared and behaving every minute as if I have something to contribute makes an impression, and I don't think many people do that.  I don't always do it.  Nerves win often, and wanting work can mess with your presence, and being rejected (especially after auditions that seem to go well) takes its toll.

I did a different audition last night for a team I know well - well enough that they went "hooray!" when I walked in (which was charming and lovely and I felt exactly the same about seeing both of them, hooray indeed).  And again, the best part is just being able to concentrate on the work itself, on trying to play with the words and tell the story and react appropriately.  That team called me back as well - and again, I could easily not get cast, because they have a ton of great people auditioning, but I also know they understand what I can do, and if they make another choice this time, they would still like to work with me.  It just makes the rejection so much easier to handle, knowing you were relaxed and did well and they liked it, they just couldn't choose it this time.

Oof. Now I have to go record 3 voiceover auditions and get read for my 2 auditions tomorrow.  I tell you, come late Thursday or, at the latest, Friday afternoon, I am going to lie around on the sofa and NOT MOVE.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

I was on vacation last week, and it was great.  I barely touched my computer - in fact, I wouldn't have done so except nothing ever really stops when you're on vacation, and people keep sending you audition info and sides and asking you for work things, even when you just want to go lie down on the beach and stop thinking.

This week has been a rough re-entry.  Y'all.  Sometimes, even though I know it would drive me completely crazy to actually do this, I want to move home to the South.  It's home.  Racism and close-mindedness and poverty and all, it's still home, and it has a grandeur and a warmth and a rightness that's hard to deny.  It's just...I would go nuts.  What would I do, first of all, and how would I keep from going completely insane?

For a long time, I thought there was always the secret back door of academia.  That's the place to be, where people think for a living.  But as an artist, my recent experience with academia trying to make art was awkward and disappointing.  It's art, but it's art without purpose, it's art for the sake of seeing how to make art, and that's just not enough for me.  For me, art of any kind needs a use, whether it be usable by two people or millions.  The better art is usable by more, I believe, though I'm still road-testing that theory.

I think equally disappointing is the Hollywood version of "art" which gets quotes because I think much of that art is really commerce masquerading as art.  A lot of big splashy musicals aren't really "art" - they're entertainment, without question, but it's like consuming empty calories: it will fill you up but it won't give you any nutrients.

Now, to be fair, there is plenty of great art in South Carolina.  Some of it is even theatrical.  But theatre is on a very small scale, and not the kind of scale you can make a living on even if you've got great luck and are working a lot.  There just isn't enough work out there to sustain a working actor.  Mathematically, I mean, not philosophically.

So, if I were to move back to the South, I'm pretty sure I would be giving up on everything I love.  I might be able to work, but only as a hobby.  If there's one thing keeping me going this week after a great vacation, it's that I have two awesome auditions coming up.  And had a voiceover and print booking today, so I've even earned money in my chosen profession this week.  Since I'm teaching theatre this week, one can even make the argument that all the money I have earned this week is in my chosen profession.

Still, being home makes me wish there were a city in the South - a proper city, with theatres and film studios and voice-over production houses. Until that happens, I guess I'm relegated to visiting when I can.

Or I suppose someday I might get famous enough to live wherever I want and still get the work I want.

HAHAHAHAHA....yeah, maybe that'll happen.

Time moving so fast

I feel as if it's been three months since I made a post, time is moving so fast.  Everything is happening, all RIGHT NOW, and there's not a moment to stop and write about it.  Had a lovely weekend, have finally started going to auditions, and in general I'm scrambling to keep up with everything this week so I can be on vacation next week.

What's happening is either personal and private enough that writing about it in a public forum seems foolish or silly or crass, or it hasn't seemed interesting enough to chronicle.

However, here's something that happened that doesn't fit in either camp.

Recently, I was at a general audition.  I looked around and didn't know anyone - and the room was absolutely full of people - crammed full.  Most of these people were very young, and at least two things dawned on me.  One, I was looking at the newest crop of graduates and new arrivals and freshly anointed actors.  Two, the reason I didn't know them is that for the past year and a half, I have been outrageously lucky enough (and it is luck, absolutely) to work with people who are exceptionally experienced, who have the kind of experience I can only dream about, who have longevity in this business.  I have been working with professionals, and this was a room full of wannabe professionals.

Another glance showed me that a lot of those wannabe professionals are making what seemed like massive mistakes in how they present themselves.

This has very little to do with talent.  I'll bet some of those people can sing me under the table and I guarantee you some of them will be hired by this theatre while I probably won't be.  But the way they were dressed!  The things they were saying to each other!  The songs they were choosing to sing!  Some of what I saw seemed so obviously unfortunate.  Many, many people were oddly shaped.  Now, I don't think shape alters your talent level.  (It does sometimes limit your versatility.)  But here's the thing - whatever your shape, wear something that flatters you, no matter what the current styles are!  No matter what shape you are, some clothes flatter you and others do not.  If this is confusing, pay attention to how good costume designers dress you.  Copy that.  ( I wrote that and realized that's how I was dressed last night, so take that with a grain of salt - I could be wrong.  It sounds good, but that doesn't make it true.)

Never mind.  Let's take all the appearances out of it. Let's take away my commentary on others and focus on the base level truth.  I have been out of the auditioning circuit for too long because I was fortunate enough to be working, but haven't been lucky enough to book the next gig from the handful of auditions I had time for while working.  While I was basically put together and focused, I was scared.  Scared of not being good enough, scared of not showing what I'm capable of, scared of the fact that inevitably, some of the people on that room will surpass me and have careers like the one I still dream about but haven't yet achieved.

Don't mind my babble.  I'm just scared I won't work again, and I love working.

Some, not much

I've completed a couple of things, not many, but just enough to feel like I'm no longer a complete waste of space.

Tonight I'm listening to these old old folk songs, beautifully harmonized, and thinking about how elemental they are, how each song tells a story that could still be happening right now and be just as relevant.

My favorite on this cd is Clyde Waters (the original is Clyde's Water, I think, but it doesn't scan as easily in the song that way), about a man (William) who wants to go off to see his girlfriend.  His mother doesn't want him to go that night, there's a storm.  She ends up cursing him - if he goes, the Clyde Water will drown him.  But he can't care, he wants to see to see his Margaret, so he gets on his horse and heads off.

And he sings the most beautiful, most heartbreaking thing to the Clyde Waters as he travels by them:

"Make me a wreck as I come back; spare me as I'm going..."

Isn't that how we all plan to pay, every time we approach love?  We just want to get there - we know there's going to be pain, and death, that curses are inescapable, that hurt is unavoidable.  It is coming for us all, no matter what we do.  But just let us have the one we love first, and we'll face it.  
Because it's a ballad, of course, Margaret's mother is no better, and has turned William away by pretending Margaret is busy with other men.  Off he goes, to face his fate without love, without hope, without the comfort of whatever he hoped to get up to in Margaret's bower.  (And these ballads are mostly full of pregnant women, so I doubt she would have turned him down.)

He drowns.  The only comfort he gets is that Margaret, heartbroken that her mother turned William away, heads right off to Clyde Waters to drown herself too, so they can at least be dead together. It doesn't seem like much comfort to me, but it is a beautiful end to the song, Margaret walking into the water to hold William through eternity.

Knuckle down

A whole week to myself, and I accomplished exactly one and a half crochet projects.  SIGH.  Not another thing off my list.

Right.  I'm going to knuckle down and get to WORK.  Sort of.  If I have the energy.

At least I start a monkey...a crocheted monkey, that is.

Happy Memorial Day, folks.  I remember happily two years ago was the hottest day we'd had in Chicago for about six months - it was finally hot hot hot outside, and sunny, and hubby and I walked about six miles down by the lake out where everyone in the world was barbequing.  Sadly, today was chilly and overcast and drab, and the weather affects my mood more than I want to admit.  Still, some part of that warm, joyful ease of finally being hot again, of winter finally ending, is part of the memory of what Memorial Day is, and I'm trying to remember that.

Writing that, I'm realizing I'm really worried I'm staring down a winter of no acting work, an never-ending season of unrelenting cold.  I'm just trying to calm my anxiety by remembering work will come.  I need to be active to get it, but if I stop being lazy and start auditioning, something will happen.  Just because nothing is booked doesn't mean nothing will ever happen.

(Worse, the two recent quick and simple projects someone asked me to do without me lifting a finger to work for it were both things I would be out of town for, which is so disappointing.  I mean, here I am terrified I won't work, someone offers me something to do, and I can't do it because of prior plans.  I really feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot at those moments.  Oh, well.  I decided a long time ago I should try not to let my family time/vacation time be hostage to my "career".  Let's see how silly that decision turns out to be!)

Scratchy throat

Y'all.  I can't stop long.  After nearly the whole day in bed, reading and trying to get over a scratchy throat, I just opened this file that I never end up working on, that lingers in the back of my mind much of the time.

And it isn't horrible.  I make no claims for it's skill or interest, but I also opened (by mistake) an old draft of an email to an ex back in 2003 and by contrast, it is so painful I couldn't read it.  The strident whining, the complete lack of perspective - I understand them and I can't blame myself for them, but it's so ungodly painful.  I wish I could have just kept silent.

However, I gotta get back to my novella.  It may not be good, but it's readable, and that feels like progress.  It doesn't matter who ever sees it, but I'd like to finish it.  I'd like to finish something, I can't help thinking, as I indolently laze on the sofa still in my pajamas.  Something besides baking a cake.

So, I gotta go.  Thanks for putting up with me, since I can be both excruciating and overly-dramatic.  I appreciate you.

****
Update:  I read the whole thing and made minute corrections, but couldn't get myself to add any of the section I've been writing in my head for 10 months.  Sigh.  Instead I made nearly all of a crocheted moose.

I suppose one could make a case for the moose being more useful.

Luddite

I think the world of technology is officially moving faster than I'm interested in now, and I am going to turn all of this off and go read a book.

Am I a Luddite?  I guess so.  Do I now feel a thousand years old because every three seconds there's some new interface on a product/site I use a lot and it screws with everything I liked or knew about said platform or interface?  Yes, absolutely.  Does it feel as if I can never, ever catch up with the memes, in-jokes, information available?  Without question.

On the up side, I was out watching real people in a play tonight and that was wonderful.  Afterwards I spoke to them, in real life, conversations were had.  I enjoyed it thoroughly.  

Right.  Book.  I'm off.

Terror

I wish I could go running.  It's the only time I feel really in control nowadays, on the lakefront, either biking to work or running my five mile loop.  I'm a little stuck right now, between projects, between lives, between being convinced by myself and utterly unconvinced.  When I strap my running shoes on and head out, iPod on shuffle, life opens up again and feels possible, even if the sensation fades as soon as I slow to a walk.

Knowing this, one would think I'd be running non-stop, but naturally, I find it hard to motivate sometimes.  This morning, however, I'd do it, but the weather is truly suspicious and I fear I'd have a ton of rain dumped on my head.  So inside I sit, and I try to convince myself to clean the house instead.

I just need to mean something, produce something, finish something.  Not being in a play or having a theatre project to work on always leaves me unfocused and uncertain.  This time I'm afraid it will be a long, long time before I book another project, and I fear the length of that time.  How do I survive it?  How do I stay alive long enough to re-open delight and investment?

As I write that, it feels pretty entitled.  No one guaranteed me delight.  Still, today I envy those with the talent and luck to move from play to play to play or project to project, whatever it may be.  I still hope to be one of those people someday.

Narrowing

I've been flitting about, half-engaged by events and distractions.  Not quite committed to anything useful, but not fully present while being entertained.

Then last night I picked up a book.

It was like turning the lens on a Mag lite so all the diffused glow becomes a single, concentrated beam.

If you need something, I'll be reading this novel.  Actually, both of these.  The internet can go to hell.

Transforming

I went to see a concert tonight - no, not a concert, that sounds like a pale, weary word for something electric and alive - I went to see people sing and play music at the Old Town School.  I knew it would be good, because the name I was following was Anais Mitchell, writer and performer of Hadestown, a transcendent folk musical based on the story of Orpheus. (Never heard it?  Oh, I'll wait.  Click through.)   But recently Anais teamed up with another folk performer, Jefferson Hamer, and they've written/re-written/arranged some folk ballads from The Child Ballads.

Someone else tonight compared listening to these two play to the warm and relaxing sensation of taking a bath - it was like that, and it was also like being pumped so full of oil that all the rusty, awkward parts of your heart finally swing free and open up, leaving you vulnerable but also gloriously free.  No more squeaky sounds as you try to feel.

I spent an ungodly amount of money on cds (and a tshirt) tonight, but I suspect the truth is the recordings, though brilliant, will not be able to recapture the performances - at best they just refresh the memory of something glowing and vibrant and necessary.

It's a good reminder to me that sometimes the best thing to do is leave your house, because the amazing talent and fascination of the people outside of it are worth exploring.

Unexpected but completely enchanting was the opening duo, Mike + Ruthy, two-thirds of the now-defunct group The Mammals. They opened with a ukelele, a harmonica, and Ruthy's bluesy low voice.  It was gorgeous.  I was just a little afraid Anais wouldn't be able to match up to how effortlessly charming those two were, chatting with the crowd about their two children tucked in the soundproof green room and writing songs and finding other people's great songs.

I shouldn't have worried, of course, Anais and Jefferson were absorbing in their own perfect way.  But now I have three new cds and that doesn't even cover all the ones I wanted.  Sigh.

Also, I have to go to bed, because it's getting insanely late.  But at least I was up reading the lyrics in Old English to the Child Ballads, and not watching some lame tv sit-com rerun.  I was learning things tonight.  And relishing them.

Confession

I've got the waiting on a stranglehold - I've figured out how to pretend that the news I have to wait to hear doesn't exist, so the anxiety is down to a dull roar.

I have not, however, figured out how to turn off that news awareness without also turning off my ability to accomplish anything at all.  Today has turned into a time suck of a day, and I mostly wasted Friday making a cake and in other non-work producing shenanigans.

So the laundry continues to pile, assignments languish, friends go un-emailed, and projects continue only as a gleam in my eye.

But you know what?  Tonight I'm going to settle down with a book and read it.  A physical book, with pages I can turn, with heft and new, uncrinkled pages.  (I have nothing at all against e-readers.  I applaud any and all reading.  I just like real books a lot.  Whatever works for you, go to it.)

But, y'all.  This book I'm planning to read, possibly after eating a piece of cake?  It has no intellectual value whatsoever.  None.  Now, I'm a fan of books with substance, as a rule, but tonight, avoiding thinking about all manner of things, I'm going to settle down with a good, fluffy, consuming novel and go to it.  I will also probably eat more cake.

Just for fun, and to remind myself what I really ought to get back to tomorrow, here's a short list of things I can avoid by reading:

• the 350 word article I need to write for the neighborhood association
• the thing I'm waiting to find out about that is driving me nuts
• the entire disturbing conversation on the internet about rape jokes and why male comics (and their fans) seem to get disproportionally bent out of shape when anyone questions the wisdom (or humor) of rape as a source of hilarity (I can't figure out why anyone at all is yelling and screaming at sady doyle, who seems to me to have been a model of calm clarity in stating her objections, and I'm horrified to note that merely questioning the rape-as-joke mentality seems to invite men and comics to name-call and belittle said questioners.)
• my lack of progress in cleaning the bedroom
• my forever losing battle with ants in this apartment.  If I ever move somewhere that doesn't have ants, it will be a miracle.
• the event I'm behind in planning

Wait, gracious!  Good lord.  I am wasting reading time telling you about all the things I am not doing by reading.  Sin upon sin.  Everybody - no fighting for a couple of hours, and kiss your mothers if you can. I've got a book to disappear into.

Bored/Not bored

The internet at my house has abruptly stopped working.

The worst part about that is finding out how depending I really am on such a thing.

More when the internet comes back on.

Holding pattern

Ever had to wait to find something out?  Time passes very slowly.

Here are some thing I should be doing with the endless time:

• Balance my checkbooks.  I have no idea what's going on with my money right now, and whether I have the faintest chance in the world to earn enough to pay the bills I currently have, much less buy anything new or travel.
• Finish the two separate crochet projects I have in progress.  One's nearly done, the other barely a glimmer in my eye.  But both are for specific people, so they need to get done. (Hey, JRA, one's for you!!)
• Mail a birthday present to my best friend.  (Hey, girl, if you're checking this out!)  It's sitting in my living room being all adorable.  Her birthday was in April.  I sort of suck.
• Write a different friend a letter.  (Hey, P, if you're checking this out!)  I got a why-can't-we-go-have-coffee-all-the-time note from him recently, and it would be lovely to respond with a real life, analog, honest-to-god letter, because the truth is I think of him often and my life would be greatly improved by being able to go have coffee with him more often than, say, once or twice every eight years.
• Clean the bedroom.  Extensively.  Throw a bunch of things away (really, this means to give them to Goodwill/the Brown Elephant, but it amounts to the same thing:  those items should leave my house and go be useful to someone else). If I clean the bedroom I can rearrange the bedroom, and I have a feeling that either I will absolutely love the bedroom in a new configuration or it just plain can't be done. One of those.
• Work on my novella.  What, you don't think I have one?  I do.  It's just I haven't touched it for about 18 months.  Oh, wait, and recently I discovered everything I write is worth nothing.  But I could at least finish it before I decide it's worthless and throw it away.

Of course, I have accomplished none of these things.  I have barely managed to dress and feed myself, and my recent cleaning of the house was cursory at best.

I remain preoccupied with waiting until I find out certain pieces of information.

Blank or clean slate?

I feel hollowed out, the way a doll no one is playing with lacks personality.  I'm not animated by anything.

It's preferable to feeling miserable, I suppose.

When the wonderful husband is around, I know exactly how to behave, or at least how to try to behave. I have been in support mode for about 5 days, and I understand that.  There's purpose in being someone's lifeline.

And truth be told, there was a moment today when I thought something really cool was happening for me.  (The husband would have been excited about it, too.)  And then, abruptly, it was clear it wasn't.

There are lots of little kids in the family that just gathered for this funeral, and we've been playing with them over these past few days.  One of them has one of those boards you write or draw on and when you push a slide across the board, it wipes it clean and you can start again.

I feel like that, only, as I sit here, I can't decide...what should I draw next?  What should I do next?


I think maybe I'll just sleep and go running a lot.  Also, maybe it will help to do a show tonight?  I'm not sure about that.  This is a hard show to be doing at this time.  I feel disconnected from that, too.

Oh, well.  I'll go to bed early and sleep late and see what appears on the horizon.

Marking the Day

It's late, and I need some sleep fairly desperately, so this has to be quick.

But someone died today, and it was someone I loved.  She was important for lots of reasons, but she was also kind and funny - not slip-on-banana-peels or make-crazy-faces funny, more the kind of sharp dry wit that slices through you so cleanly you don't know you were cut until the blood starts to pool.  She was tiny and sometimes critical and painted beautiful watercolors, and had the graciousness to accept me into her family.

I married her son, and she never once begrudged me for it.  He was very special to her, and I loved her for that, too.  She held him in a very specific kind of esteem that almost no one else did, as one artist to another, and her pride in him was not just that of a parent for a child but the pride of an equal and a kindred spirit for one they recognize.  Yet as special as he was to her, she didn't love any of her other children any less.  Just differently, just as themselves, because they are each so different.

She was in poor health, and she died unconscious and at peace, and after having said all her goodbyes. I don't know what I think about an afterlife, but I like the thought that perhaps she is finally with her husband again, the man who loved her absolutely, with a fervor and a devotion and a completeness one doesn't often see.

I rode home on my bike from the theatre tonight, with the moon hanging in the sky like a cosmic doorknob.  It hasn't sunk in yet.  When it sinks in, it is going to hurt.  A lot.  But tonight, as I watch the blood start to gather here where the axe fell, before the synapses have had time to process the pain and transmit the news of such a severing to the brain, I rode home feeling more alive than I have in weeks.  And grateful to still be here.

I sit watching the cut, knowing what's coming.

Goodnight, Ardyce.  I liked you so much that I loved you.  Thanks for your son, he turned out great.  Say a good word about me to Dick - I'm not sure he would have liked me, so see what you can do about talking him around, ok?  Don't worry.  We've got your pictures hung all over our house, they are beautiful.

Incident

A bunch of upsetting things have been happening.  I can't stop or change them.  My only current course of action is to process them.  What follows is one such attempt. It may not be very successful.

One of my co-actors in a current project is a total sweetheart, and took to writing haiku's for me last week.  I found this in turns sweet, adorable, a touch creepy and a tad frustrating.  He's lovely, very young, and definitely intelligent, but he's naive and kind in a way that makes me a little infuriated, because I can't figure out how he can stay that way, but I won't enjoy watching the world teach him any differently.  He thinks everything is wonderful.  And hey, for him it is, and I appreciate that.  I don't want to mess it up for him.  It's just that not everything is wonderful, and a life that doesn't understand that really doesn't have much depth.  So he writes these haiku, and haiku is a form that really can contain the ineffable, that can distill large thoughts into tiny drops of wisdom, and his are sweet and heartfelt and without wisdom.  Granted, he's not necessarily striving for wisdom, he's mostly just trying to make me laugh, but I feel I should be writing haiku's back, and my delight in complexity won't let me play in the shallows in that way.  It's like the piece of art on offer is a turkey made out of a hand print - it's delightful and charming, but as an older person, you don't make a turkey hand print and think it's art.

So I wrote a sonnet as a response instead.  It seemed fitting, a way of implying life offers more complexity.

The next morning, I read my sonnet to my husband.  To my husband, who teaches other people writing.  To my husband, who gets royalties for plays he's written. To my husband, who is working on an mfa in writing.

And he made a face of...he's since accused me of reading into it, and perhaps I have, but he made a face of distaste, of displeasure.  Whatever he meant by that face, it wasn't positive.

Something in me crumpled.  "OK, don't worry, I won't give it to him, I get it, it's a terrible poem," I said immediately.  There was a lot of "I didn't say that" and subsequent discussion, none of which can undo this fact:  the second I saw that face, I knew that poem was trash, and no one should ever be subjected to it. There were a lot more conversations where he said things like, well, was that just your first draft? Have you considered taking a poetry class?  How long did you work on the poem? Maybe you should have someone else read the poem, I don't know that kid.  None of these sentences made me think my poem was anything but a complete and utter waste of any one's time.  None of them changed my opinion of "the look" being one of intense dislike.

My husband has finally (if accidentally) convinced me that I am incapable of writing anything of value.  While, yes, I understand that sounds extreme, I think it's probably a valuable lesson.  There are plenty of terrible writers in the world, no need to add to the pile of dreck.  But I can't deny - it makes me sad.  Really, really sad.  It's hard to face up to being inept at something, hard to come to terms with your own inabilities.

He'd like to take that face back, because he feels guilty that he made me see my own inadequacy.  But what good does it do either of us to pretend I am good at something if I am not?  Look, if the world had been throwing praise at any of my writing and this one face was an anomaly, I could ignore it.  But any writing I do has been uniformly rejected over time.  You'd think I would have figured out by now: I am not good at stringing words together.

Wait.  Even if the world at large has been unimpressed with my writing but I believed what I wrote was still good, I would fight on, I would tell you how subjective such a thing can be.  But I look at any single piece I've written...it doesn't hold up.  I can see that.  I can see it failing to express any of what I wanted.

Ha!  Hilarious - only I could write so much about finally understanding all my "writing" was garbage. I know this page isn't frequented by very many people, so I don't count this blog.  This is words in the ether, this is the long slow howl of defeat.  I'll continue to write things here, in an attempt to understand them.  But I won't bother you with any fiction or poetry unless someone else wrote it.  I won't bother my husband with it.  I won't go to open mic nights or submit anything to journals or otherwise pollute the world.

And as sad as that makes me, in sum total, isn't that a win?

  

Illness

I've got things I'd like to write about here, but I feel awful.  I think I need to conserve my energy to get through a show tonight.  Sadly, I just had to waste a bunch of it doing a birthday party.

Seriously.  I feel miserable.  Nor do I have a name for whatever is wrong, which is uncomfortable.

I'm gonna lie down and hope I can get back up later.

Poetry Month

April, I'd forgotten, is poetry month.  A friend had posted a swath of poems, one for each day, and I started rolling through them and the images started to attack me the way branches you hold aside snap back and slap you.  I'm tear-eyed and thoughtful this evening, emptying long dusty pockets of memory and longing with lines of Frost, Chuck Miller, Bukowski, Lisel Mueller, and Vassar Miller coursing through my veins like alcohol.

I need to read more poetry.  Oddly, I had a plan earlier this month that involved going to the big downtown library and checking out Anne Sexton, Theresa Rebeck (she writes plays not poems), Bukowski and Bernadette Mayer.  I stalled that plan when I realized I hadn't done my taxes yet.

But they are done and I need poems instead of spreadsheets.  It is spring, I feel bereft and lacking and maybe I can fill that empty space up with poems, other people's really evocative, living, breathing poems, not my own wretched fumblings towards a grace I cannot grasp.

Here's one that really, truly got to me tonight, had me weeping in seconds.  Oh, how how I yearn for that golden envelope of light.

http://www.tylercoreshootspeople.com/poetry/april10-miller.html

The past is not even past

So I'm trawling through a lot of old email because I'm gearing up to change my email address for the first time in sixteen years.

It feels weird.

Like any move, I only want to port the addresses that are useful, so I've spent the afternoon deleting and merging and cleaning, even emailing a few people whose addresses had no name and no identifying information.  (I'm really really curious about throw_something@blahblahblah.com - it teases at my memory, but I just can't place it.  It was someone I once could identify, so not a totally casual address, but I just can't remember.)

As I was merging a contact, it occurred to me I used to email the merged individual at an entirely different address.  So I went looking to see if I still had the original address (so I could include it in the merge).  No, I didn't.  Which made me curious enough to loop back through my email archive to see whether two years ago (our last contact) I had used the old address first or the new address.

Turns out, I had deleted several messages I know once existed.  I mean, I had an email I had sent (because sent mail gets retained automatically), but I had deleted the response. (I remember getting a response, and its general content, though no specifics.)

Y'all.  Y'ALL.  For a quasi-stalker who is stuck in a current surveillance mode she can't quite relinquish (and thoroughly despises), this is FANTASTIC news.

Because it means I really can let some things go.  I can let things go and not even notice they are gone.

That's good.  That's progress.

Now comes the bigger question, though.  This person in particular, but also some others in the same wash of addresses, do I let them know when I change addresses?  It seems polite, as long as there's no follow up or overly personal framing.  And of course I can delete whatever bounces back.

I'm leaning towards yes, though that's more because it seems a complete and utter pain to have to divide out every email - much simpler to just send one blanket email saying, here's the new way to reach me if you need to - and leave it at that.

Hmmmm.  Change is hard.  Yuck.

The Ughs

I have them - the ughs.  I'm not feeling well, but I'm not sick enough to cancel work and sit around being indolent.  I'm eating chicken noodle soup and hoping it won't make me feel worse.  (It's not a cold or flu, so chicken soup may turn out to be a mistake.)

Plus I have to teach a new class in an hour and I feel unprepared.

Oh, Horse Doctor, I need an episode of you, but I don't have enough time.  Have I told you all about the Horse Doctor?

It doesn't matter.  I just need a story to take me out of this story, the one I'm currently living in which I feel terrible and have nothing interesting to say or even think about.

Chicken Noodle Soup, you are my only friend.

If only I can always feel like that

Recently I mentioned I am in the midst of a "year of no bitterness".  That's the plan, at least.  A couple of years ago, when every audition ended with, "Nope, not you," I got discouraged.  Deeply discouraged.  That discouragement ended up taking the form of a great deal of bitterness - why did that person get picked, etc. etc.  Why why why.  What's wrong with me, blah blah blah.

Trust me, I didn't enjoy it either.  But somehow, I couldn't stop.  I couldn't let it go, because I was losing so often there was no refuge, no safe place to leave my brain.

About eighteen months ago, I got lucky.  Technically, I guess my luck shifted two years ago, when someone called me up out of the blue and said, hey, can you be in this show?  We needed you yesterday.  Nope, you don't need to audition, we know you can do this, just show up.  It was the boost I needed to get myself back in the game - it wasn't easy, but I started showing up to auditions with a more positive attitude and the faint hope that I had something to offer.

Then a stroke of real luck came my way - a shockingly awesome project - a big step forward in terms of my resume, my experience, my realm of contacts.  And as any of you who might be following this will remember, I also really really enjoyed it.  I enjoyed the hell out of it. It changed the way my brain worked, I enjoyed it so much.

There's no getting around the fact that I was lucky to get cast in that project, and in everything that's come my way since then.  So this New Year's, I resolved that there was no place for any bitterness in a life that has this kind of luck in it.

Recently, I went to see a play I was not in, and I watched someone play a role that I couldn't help thinking I could have played.  I wasn't falling into bitterness, though, I was just noticing it, clocking possibilities.  After the show, I was hugging people I know and genuinely praising everyone's work (it was a lovely production), when I ended up in conversation with that actress and a few other people.  And that actress made the comment that anyone could have done her track, and shortly after that, someone else mentioned the show I had done and how lovely that production was, and I made a similar comment that lots of people could have been cast in my track as well.

It finally struck me: all the time I spent being jealous and bitter about roles I hadn't gotten, someone out there was probably thinking (and rightly so) that they could have done the roles I did get better than I did.

Some of those actresses are right - they would have been better than I was. (And occasionally I am right and I would have been better than they were.)

So is there really an objective rhyme or reason to every casting decision?  Is it really the most talented person getting the work every time?  Maybe, but there are a bunch of us on about the same level up for a finite number of roles.  I finally realized, it's such a waste of energy to be worried about the ones you didn't get.  Let those go.  I won some of them.

This is easier to say when you do win some of them.  But I have, and as much as I always want more, I want to move ahead cheering all of us on, believing that my turn will come if I keep my best self out there.

So, Year of No Bitterness.  At the very least, I'm much more fun at parties.

I should be clear - I don't think this attitude makes me any better than any one else - it just happens to make me happier, and I hope, more fun out in the world.

Anniversary

Right.  I don't ever do what I'm about to do.  But I drank cappuccino this morning and my edit system is awash with caffeine.

There's good stuff and bad stuff happening, and maybe five years down the line the narrative of my life will look different in retrospect.  Today, this is how it looks: today is the fifth anniversary of my wedding.  (Full disclosure - I was nervous as hell at and during my wedding. I was not your typical thrilled-beyond-belief bride.  It was enjoyable in parts, but getting up in front of people and making promises that I am still not sure I can keep forever was terrifying.  I didn't (ironically) love being the center of attention (even though my spouse did a great job of carrying some of that load).  I didn't love having to say things to another human being that I just cannot predict.  Do I hope I love my husband forever?  Absolutely.  Do I know enough about the world to understand that I can't control exactly what happens to us?  Yes.

Today, we've been married five years.

Yesterday, I had a chance to go audition for exactly the kind of project I want to be doing.  Will I get it?  Who knows - I have to say the chances are slim, because the director could pick any actor in this whole town and as well as other towns.  But I was asked to be part of the pool, and that feels terrific.  I liked going and auditioning more than I want to buy a house or have a fancy car or have tons of money.  And I looked at my husband across the table this morning and thought about how every time the choice is: money versus what I actually want, he encourages me to strive for the things I actually want.

Joseph Campbell talks about following your bliss:  "...if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. [...] I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."

Look, if your bliss is owning a house, or going on trips, or awesome gadgets, or softball or movies or hustling pool, more power to you and I hope you are following that bliss.  I'm not judging anyone else's choices with what I'm about to say about myself.  I'm just grateful today that I married someone who pushes me to be the person I really want to be instead of allowing fear to decide what I think I am capable of doing.  Am I afraid I'm never going to be good enough to work consistently on the level I want?  Unquestionably terrified.  Am I worried I can't keep the wolf away from the door long enough to keep trying?  Absolutely.  Are there things I want out of life that I'm anxious I can't have if I stay on this path?  Truth.

How lucky am I that when I turn to my husband and my fear says out loud - maybe I should quit, maybe I should give up and get a job that pays consistently instead of chasing this crazy impossible dream - he always says, no, I believe in you, stick with it.  We'll make it work.

Five years.  I feel lucky.  Ask me again at ten, but I feel pretty lucky.

I don't really know how that went

I had a fantastic time today at an audition.  Now, I was also very nervous, and I admit fully that even if I showed off my best self, there's a significant chance my best isn't good enough for this level.

But I had a really nice time auditioning in a completely beautiful room overlooking all of Chicago, and with a lovely bevy of people watching.  I can't tell you how I did, except I didn't blow it.  It felt pretty good - I'm obviously not sure what everybody on the other side of the table thought but they were kind, and laughed at my choices (in a good way, in the sense that I was attempting to be funny and it produced the noise of laughter), and asked me to sing something additional.

And one of my favorite people was behind the table, someone I like unreservedly, just because he's both talented and really enjoys what he's doing, no matter what it is.  I can't tell you how often you run into people at the top of their careers who sound really put-upon with all their success, as if getting what they want is a burden.  I know everyone's life has a little rain, but come on, we pretend things for a living, and sing songs.  It Should Be Fun, at least most of the time.  (Everybody's got bad days, I get it.)  Anyway, behind the table was someone who always seems to be having a good time.  The sheer joy makes me happy.  I pretty much want him to work forever, in anything he wants.

So that person is working on this project!  And whether or not I get to be involved after today, it helps knowing awesome people are working, and that I've worked with a bunch of them, which means I might get to work with them again.  If not this time, some other time.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

Wow.  And then sometimes, something cool just happens.  You don't deserve it, necessarily, or maybe you do, but SOMETHING COOL HAPPENS.

Like getting an email from the biggest theatre in town asking you to come audition tomorrow for the biggest director in town.  Ok, fair point that the director probably won't be there tomorrow, it'll probably be the casting director, but still...

THE GATEKEEPERS TO WHAT I WANT ARE ASKING ME TO COME GET WHAT I WANT.

Y'all.

I'm freaking out right now. And there's no one I can tell but you.  You, dear reader.

So, stay with me here, I'm gonna tell you a story:

When I finished drama school in the UK, I had to move back to the States, and I chose to move to Chicago to start trying to act.  I arrived in mid-October.  It sucked.  Or rather, it was a very difficult transition.  I was exceptionally sad.  I thought a lot about how much easier it would be to just be dead.  I didn't want to commit suicide, per se, I just thought a lot about how, since I was now away from all the people who cared about me and I was desperately unhappy, being dead seemed like a really great alternative and that seemed like a good time to do it - no one would miss me any more than they did anyway, and I would be free of feeling like everything was meaningless and impossible.

For Christmas, I asked my parents to buy me a ticket to the UK to see my friends for New Year's.  They were sweet about it, but they refused.

I let that refusal sink in for about 24 hours, then I just charged the flight and went anyway.  I had no idea how I'd pay for it, and I was not a person who ever bought things without money to pay for them, but I needed to go.  So I went.

And it was glorious.  It was outrageously fun and happy.  I was gleeful to see my friends, it was a joy to be in the place I'd felt so very happy, and it was a relief to understand my unhappiness was temporary.  I wasn't stuck in it forever.  It was situational, and could still very well have been chemically influenced, but if I could find one way out, then more existed.  That trip kept me going for a long time after that, the way you can endure a prison sentence when you know it will end soon.

Let me be clear - Chicago was not the prison sentence.  The sadness was the prison sentence, and it would end.  I would survive it.  It was a thrilling lesson to learn.  (I worked 7 days a week for the next 6 weeks to pay for it - one of the first balances I ever carried forward.  Within 2 months it was paid off.  Worth every second of work and every penny of interest.)

I tell you all that to tell you this:
I think I need to learn the same thing about being in really cool projects.  Every time one ends, I worry (rightly so, because actors can't depend on anything) that I will never do another, that I will never, in essence, be happy again.

Y'all.  I just got an email asking me to audition for the biggest project in town.  Will I book it?  Oh, who knows, I haven't auditioned yet so I can't tell you how I did.  BUT THEY ASKED ME.  I am a person they ask to do these things.  I'm not sure if my recent audition there is why they asked, or one of my favorite people might have recommended me, or maybe they just saw my picture in the file and said, oh, she's the right age...I don't care why it's finally happening, I just know that for once, a really cool project is asking me if I want a shot at it.

I.  DO.