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.