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

Things I've been seeing:

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

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

Rev it up

Ok.  I've got an adventure on the boil, and it has a lot of co-conspirators.  It's not flashy or intercontinental, but I'm going to get in the car and drive, all by my lonesome, to a friend's wedding.  I'm leaving a full week before the wedding, and I plan to meander.  Stroll, if you will.  I've got a couple of points to hit, and each one has a friend in the center of them, and I am glad.

I need it.  I just need a change of scene.  I got a taste of it last week with a family vacation, which was great.

But now, now I'm going to saddle up and ride out alone.  I suppose I might head off and get tired of all the solo driving I've left myself to do, but mostly I'm looking forward to singing too loudly with the radio and daydreaming about everything I want next.

Things are not turning out the way I'd like right now, but what's funny is I don't mind.  I'm surprised that I don't mind - I find it shocking, in fact, but I don't.  I think it's going to work out in the end.  This just isn't the end.

Also, this post is a terrible example, but I'm looking forward to listening.  To strangers, to friends, to the radio.  Driving home, I'm bound to see things and people that surprise and delight me. I'll try to write about some of it, to prove that I notice things outside of myself.

And there's something else I'm hoping to get back to.

One time I drove 13 hours home from a friend's wedding and I ended up crying the whole way home.  I know that sounds as if I'm exaggerating, so I'll clarify and say that yes, I would stop for minutes at a time.  But I'd always start again.

What was that about?  Well, I'd met someone I really really liked, in a different way than anyone else, and I had very specific hopes about what would happen, although the facts of the case were not bearing me out.  (This was at least eight years ago - maybe longer.  I just know I hadn't met my husband yet.)  Anyway, I was trying to describe my hopeless infatuation to a friend's husband at the wedding, and he just gave me a look that said, "You poor, deluded fool..."  In that look, I realized, even if he didn't know what he was talking about, he happened to be right.  I was completely kidding myself.  It. was. over.  It had, in fact, never begun.  It was like that moment when you finally understand that the deed you're holing in your hand that you feel so proud of did not actually purchase you the Golden Gate Bridge.

Oddly enough, I wasn't crying about him for 13 hours.  I started crying because I twisted my ankle, and I couldn't stop, and I thought, hang on, I can't possibly be this upset over an ankle, hang on, that guy's not this upsetting either what the hell is up with me??

Maybe you've never done this, but sometimes I'm upset and I can't quite find the true origin of it - not the catalyst, that's not the same, that's just a starting point, I can't always find the ROOT.  So I say sentences out loud to myself, and I see what resonates.  Which set of words rumbles through my brain and matches the serration in my heart?  That day in the car, ankle throbbing, I started testing phrases.  I waded through all the little stuff before I started to get brave and lead with the gut.  I started with things like, "I don't like that he doesn't care about me..." which got me nowhere, so it wasn't about anyone.  It must be more personal.

Paydirt a few minutes later.  "My greatest fear is no one will ever love me."  Instantaneous waterworks.

Yep.  That'll keep a girl in tears for 13 hours.  Yes, every time I got calmed down, I said it again to myself and discovered it still had power.

The happy ending?  I'm not afraid of that anymore.  I found it, articulated it, and eventually, found a way to put it to rest.  I can say that aloud to myself now, and it can't hurt me, because I know that it is bullshit.

So, in the weirdest of ways, I'm looking forward to the moment where I whisper something aloud to myself and finally know what the hell my problem is.  If it makes me cry, so be it.  Maybe this one will make me laugh instead.  Or worry.  Or stew.  Doesn't matter, I look forward to saying that magic sentence out loud and finally understanding something new about myself.

Because when I figure it out...then it's just a matter of time before I annihilate that motherfucker.

Elsbeth and the Road: the Epic Adventure.  Coming to a town near you.

Glum

We've got poinsettias in our window.  Our landlord brought them home from a Christmas party in December and drunkenly handed them off to us on the stairs, clearly glad to be rid of them.  Of course by now the red leaves are very nearly gone - just five remain on one plant, none on the other.  But both have out out a significant collection of green leaves.

Do you know how poinsettias get to be red?  It's to do with being shut away in the dark.  Poinsettias require at least 12 hours of darkness 5 days in a row to turn their leaves red - but lots of sunlight in the remaining 12 hours to make the color vibrant.

I don't know why I have to attach an emotion to a biological reality, but the idea of forcing poinsettias to turn red seems sad to me.  My aunt and uncle ran a greenhouse for years, and of course poinsettias were big business.  At some point all of them had to be forced into red growth by shutting them away in the dark for appropriate lengths of time.

Why should this feel sad?  I don't know.  But I look at the green growth and wonder, would I shut these plants away on a time schedule just to make them red again?

Yes, I know.  Not everything is a metaphor.  It just feels that way sometimes.

In praise of the bop

"bubble gum pop songs lakeshore drive summer simple gorgeous"

I wrote that string of words the other night around midnight after riding home on the lakefront listening to really inane pop songs.  It was a note to myself that I wanted to remark on the simple pleasure of the ridiculously catchy and stupid pop song - particularly prevalent in summer, but always great.

Now, I like "real" music, yes.  But there's a case to be made for the summer hook, the completely pointless lyric, the repetitive na-na-na-na of a really great ear worm kind of song.  I want to go on record: I know the words are either stupid or non-existent, the tunes are simple and repetitive, but there are a BUNCH of super poppy songs out right now that I can't bring myself to spend money to own, but when they come on the radio, I turn it way up and dance in my seat in the car.  Or in my living room.

[Side note:  apparently I have a bit of a problem with spontaneous dancing.  A friend noted once that I will dance with hardly any provocation.  I do, it's true, and often badly, but with enormous verve.  Does  my sheer need to groove make up for the fact that I'm bad?  I hope so.  If you've ever witnessed one of my break-outs of dance, I probably should apologize, but I enjoy it too much, so FTS (the shit in that one=me apologizing).

Oh, you thought I forgot about FTS?  Nope. ]

All right, so I'm not a music snob, and it's not hard for me to enjoy a stupid pop song.  I appeal to all of you out there who think you're too good for the summer jam: give it a chance.  If it's really hot outside, go get in the car, or plug in your headphones, turn on the radio, and wait for some CLEARLY INSIPID song to come on.  Then bop for all you're worth.  Lean into the da-da-da-da-da-da.  Head bang a little to the beat.  Dance sideways.  Throw in a boy-band-brand outstretched hand at the end of a big phrase.  And I'm betting you'll discover it's silly, but damn fun.  It is the junk-food of the music world - I KNOW the calories are empty, but every once in a while, isn't it great to have soft-serve ice cream?

Yes, I'm including both "Call Me Maybe" and "You Don't Know You're Beautiful".  Both songs are indeed entirely subpar as songwriting goes.  BUT AWESOME SUMMER JAMS.  Find your own.

FTS

So often on this blog I'm all whiney-whiney, I-didn't-get-this, or I-miss-this, or here's-my-endless-essay-on-longing-because-that's-what-I'm-good-at.

Well, today, all four readers, I'm instituting a new catch-phrase, a clarion call: Fuck That Shit.

True, I haven't booked a job lately, even been released from a few holds (which means I had the excitement of thinking I had the job and THEN got passed over).

Fuck That Shit.

Yes, I lost a few people this past year, and I still feel their absence.

Fuck That Shit.

It's true I had really really hoped to take a short road trip this weekend, but it turns out I don't have the money or a good destination that I can reach in the limited time I have.

Fuck That Shit.

I spend too much time worrying about what I don't have, about missed opportunities and rejections.  I'm drawing a line in the sand.  This is now, I need to relish it.  Will I still get upset sometimes?  Sure!  If so, I have to relish that too, because who knows, maybe something cool will happen and I'll never be unhappy again.

But to let despair be the top-note of my personal perfume?  I don't have time left for that nonsense.  Fuck That Shit.

Now, I'm going to paint my living room instead of whining.  And if I have to play music really loud to shut off my brain, so be it.  If I have to call a friend to get some company, so be it.  If I have to meditate to dump any and all negative thought, my mantra will be, over and over: "Fuck That Shit."

Though I think I'll just abbreviate from here on out: FTS, man, FTS.

Need to sleep

Tonight I miss something that didn't ever exist, something I can't even really remember, and yet it's still keeping me awake.  It's an unreal dream pieced back together from slivers of half-formed images.

The sensation resembles missing a character I played - not the idea of a person I was but a person I pretended to be.  Wait, that's it entirely.  I don't miss this situation or those people, I miss the person I got to imagine myself being while I was in that situation.  And frankly, I cannot imagine a subsequent situation where I can return to being that person.  So I remain disappointed that I cannot find a single day to day entry point to this part of me I really enjoy but cannot conjure up on my own.

It's a loss that makes me want to throw things, to whine, to rage and storm.  I had a fit this evening about something quite irritating but fairly minor, and I suspect this disappointment is partly responsible.  I want to find an open space and rail at the sky, call down curses and weep and generally make such a nuisance of myself that the gods themselves grant me a favor just to shut down my caterwauling.

My only defense against this inconvenient yearning for fictional situations is to measure the disappointment on a scale larger than today.  Take the camera back to a wide shot, and I'll have forgotten all about this.  Or so I tell myself, and so history supports.

Except that I will always miss this part of me I don't get to be anymore, until the day comes I forget I was capable of ever being that person.   Will that be better, to have forgotten I was capable of something else?  Or will it be better to remember her, knowing I cannot be her ever again?

I suppose it's like asking, is it better to forget how to open the door or to forget there was any way out?

Native

I went to see a play tonight about the Civil War - no, a play about General Sherman's march across Georgia and the Carolinas to burn and pillage.

Now, I was born and raised South Carolina.  And tonight it was brought home to me how much that statement might ring differently for different people.  Here's more or less where I stand.

Myself, I have complicated feelings about the Civil War.  No, I do not believe any population of any race should have ever been enslaved.  I believe that was wrong.  I believe it is possible that there were slave owners that were kind to their slaves, even though I'm betting those people didn't treat their slaves as equals and therefore were of course still contributing to the larger problem: that pretending you own another person is disgraceful, dishonest, and demeaning.

But I also think the Civil War had other causes and issues in it besides slavery.  And despite the fact that I do not support the "Cause" that many southerners were upholding, I still have pity and sympathy for the many people who were caught up in that fight and were destroyed systematically along Sherman's way.  I do not find it hard to understand that some of those people were good people who believed their way of life was righteous and supportable.

Fast forward to my experience of living in the South in modern day:  yes, there is closed-mindedness there.  There is bigotry.  There is insularity and misplaced pride and among some a devotion to a lost cause cemented by being mindless and impractical.

Having said all that:

The South is so beautiful, truly beautiful.  There's a care taken that comes from being a part of a place for generations.  Spring bursts from pear trees like someone throwing confetti.  Ginko trees bleach gold in fall and shed all their leaves in one swoop of an afternoon, like a lady flicking off a golden dress.  People smile and ask after your father and mother.  Back roads have decaying barns and cotton fields.  Houses have porches and rocking chairs, lawns have tractor tires.  Snow is a blanket that halts all activity and frees everyone for snowballs and snowmen, but rarely lasts more than a day.  Ocean sand is an open palm into a warm, friendly sea.  And the old houses...so beautiful, corinthian columns and dental work and gingerbread and turrets and wooden floors and fourteen foot ceilings and detail and workmanship.

And the people, the people can be unspeakably beautiful, can bring food to a funeral or help a neighbor in need or feed the neighborhood because a storm knocked out the power and all the food in the freezer would go bad otherwise.  Your family can be odd and crazy, because it's a heritage in the south, craziness, and we cherish it, we encourage crazy, it makes life interesting, and we like things to be interesting.

Above all, the south is haunted by history, buoyed by history, choked by history, hampered by history, obsessed by history, emboldened by history, nurtured by history.  It kills us and frees us all at once.  It's a ladder and a shackles.

I miss the South.  I long for it.  I have it with me all the time.

I need to drive through it soon.  I need to go...home.

Now fog

Last night, I got on the crowded bus last, so I was forced to stand up right at the entrance, right next to the front window.  I put all my bags down and plugged into my iPod and after one last stop, the bus drove express for six miles up Lake Shore Drive, the lake spread out dusky blue in twilight off to my right, apartment and office buildings rising up to my left.  A storm was rising over the city, but streaks of daylight remained out far off the lake.

As I rode, my music raging, I could forget anyone else was on the bus, I could look out the glass ahead of me and just see the cloud creeping closer and closer, lightning splitting the sky like a grin.  It felt like flying, or maybe like being at the prow of a ship (without the crippling seasickness I get on the water).

I owned the city, and I made that storm, and I coaxed it out over the tall tall buildings and I unleashed it, flying low and fast along the avenue that is Lake Shore Drive.

When I got home and was safe inside my house, the rain became hail and battered the house, as if to rebuke me for being so capricious as to tease it out and then abandon it while I retreated to comfort.

I listened to the intensity of its desperation fondly.  From safe inside.  And I didn't go out again.

Today the city is encased in fog so thick I can't see buildings 100 yards away.

Don't worry, nature, I want to say.  I can't escape you.  If you want to crack open my house, shower me with rain, pelt me with hail, or sweat me out with heat, you can.

All my safety is temporary.

All's Well

All continues well.  I can watch theatre without a burbling resentment of the people who got the chance to tell those stories, while I did not.  My next story is on its way, though I don't see it yet.  So I can live and let live.  I can show up with myself in hand to audition, and shrug off the fact that I am not anyone else.

Everyone's still mostly younger and prettier than I am (well, I'm vain enough that I think I'm still marginally pretty, and therefore I beat out the more lumpen and pale ones, but I don't admit that out loud, for fear of being completely wrong), and they are certainly thinner and often have better credits on their resumes, but not a single one of them has my me-ness.  Just me.  I grant you, my me-ness has not been in demand, perhaps, but it's what I've got and no one else has it, and there are days it catches someone's eye and then someone lets me tell a story.

The more I concentrate on my me-ness and on the fact that auditioning is really a great chance to do the thing I love, i.e. sing and act and tell stories, albeit really short ones, the more happy I can be.

And I have a stack of 16 books that I got from the big library downtown.  Ahhh.  I read a whole book tonight, end to end, without skimming!  Actually two - I read a one act play AND a whole book, devoured both with the glee an absorbed reading attains.

So, yes, I am still astonishingly ok.  Again, I thought I would miss the awesome project more.  I loved it, but there are new things to do next instead, even if I don't know what they are yet.

Set your stopwatches, folks.  How long until my internal chemistry betrays my cheer and tips me into some imagined sadness?  Or do I dismiss my own own resources?  Is this mood the delight of living in single-minded pursuit of the next awesome project with no doubt that one will eventually appear  or a result of enough Vitamin D?

Stay tuned, I guess.

Well, this is working out fine

I am a little shocked, and I don't want to jinx it, but everything is going really well.  My show closed, I don't have anything booked, a few other things ended forever, and I am actually pretty chipper.  It's been a good week.  I had the good fortune to book a tiny little commercial - it'll be 15 seconds, and it'll play online and in local movie theatres, so of course it's not an enormous sum of money I'm making.  But it's fun, and I think I'll get a kick out of the end product, and I BOOKED SOMETHING.  I BOOOOOOOKKKKED SOMETHING, HOORAY!!

So it's been a super busy week, and I'm having lots of fun, and every single day this week I get to do something that reminds me I'm an actor.  Not a teacher, an actor.  Auditions, readings, bookings, voiceovers.  I won't get any of it until much much later, but I will earn a nice chunk of money this week from being an actor.  And I'm auditioning for stuff that would pay lots more if I could book it.

It feels great.  I want to stay like this forever.  And in theory, I should be able to keep this going through this summer because a vo/print project I worked on back in Oct/Nov/Dec is being extended through this summer.

And all at a time I thought I'd be depressed.  Thanks, universe.  I'd love a raging success, like booking the next awesome project or becoming the spokeswoman for something, but in the meantime, I am thrilled to be happy with the smaller achievements.  And with sunny weather.

Now, I understand that the person I would say this to will never see this - trust me, I get it, but here it is:

I'm just fine.  My demons and my disappointments are my own, not something done to me.

Byron put it better than me:

"There is that within me which shall tire/ Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire."

Wow.  Maybe I'm turning into a winner after all.  I'd enjoy that.  Come on, universe, I can take it, smile on me.  I won't waste a minute of the joy on offer.

Nuns and Mardi Gras

Today an 80-something year old nun gave me and the rest of an audience an auditory tour of New Orleans at Mardi Gras.  She had white hair pinned under her short wimple and kind, kind eyes, and she said she loves wearing her practical, modern habit because when people see it they know she's there for them, she's there to be of service.  She told us how to get to New Orleans from Chicago:

"Well, you take the Amtrak, it goes right there.  You ride all night, you can sleep through the night, the chairs let you put your head back and your calves up, and my sister and I take food in our baggage, we have our little home right there with us!"  She gestured to her side as if she had an imaginary rolling suitcase alongside her seat.

"When you arrive in New Orleans...well, we head straight for the convent, most of the other people head for their hotels.  But I have to tell you, hotels will charge you twice as much during Mardi Gras, so it's best to have friends there.  Mardi Gras starts about two weeks before the day, when the King of a Crewe takes a bouquet of roses to a young girl of about 18 - that's how she knows she's the Queen of his Crewe.  Then there's a parade every day for two weeks!  Every Crewe has about twelve to thirty-six floats in the parade, and everyone lines the streets to watch, families and everyone.  It's really a family affair.  Everyone always wants their picture taken with the nuns, they say, 'Oh, can we take a picture with you so we can prove that Mardi Gras isn't that bad?'

But of course, in the French Quarter they have some things that Christians probably shouldn't be looking at!"

It made me want to get on the train with her and go to New Orleans immediately.  IMMEDIATELY.  Even though Mardi Gras isn't going on at all.

That sinking feeling

Ok.  The awesome project has closed.  I feel like my stomach is a balloon that just got a tiny puncture, and the air is leaking out, slowly, ever so slowly, but no matter what, the air is seeping out, and deflation is imminent.

Right now, there's just enough air that I'm all right.  I've got a lot to do tomorrow, I'm trying to focus on that.  It'll be a busy week after all, and I might try to go see some theatre, start catching up on talking to friends and exercising and, of course, work.

I don't want it to end.  Of course, I do in a way - I want a new challenge, and new people to meet, and even a few weekends off to go visit people and do something different.  But I don't want working to end, and that's what's hard - I don't have a next show booked, and it feels so tentative, just having to keep auditioning.  Will I ever be one of those people who move from project to project??  There's no way to know.  I have a LOT to learn about my craft before that happens, I'm afraid.  In a way, working shows me my limitations far more than my strengths.  But I want to keep working so I can try to develop beyond my limitations.

I'm not sure I'm making enough sense to keep typing.  I wanted to note some of the awesomeness of the awesome project - that it was a lovely group of people working on a story they could believe in, and that I was so so so lucky to be one of them.  I don't mind that it has to end but I want more experiences like this, and I don't know how long I'll have to wait until the next one.  But I'm so pleased and gratified and grateful to have had this one.

I'm honored.

Easter

Don't miss out on Easter just because it seems like such a mish-mash of bunnies and crucified men and pastels and white shoes again. 

 

Easter is the BEST holiday, and it's easy to miss because it's so multi-layered it's difficult to know what to pay attention to.

 

Taking away what may or may not have actually happened, and remembering that when a story gets retold enough, it reshapes itself into something elemental, something deeply satisfying, we have what is the best fantasy the church has.  (Maybe that should read the "Church".)

 

We have the end of everything good, we have the tragedy of having killed it ourselves, of having taken this amazing prophet who got down in the muck and lived with the murderers and the prostitutes but remained alight with love, we have a mob of people losing themselves to suspicion and hatred and killing their God.

 

Everyone wakes up and realizes that means there's no God left.  No one to make sense of it all, no one to give comfort and clarity, no one to be the bedrock of what is true and decent.  The mooring is gone, the anchor unchained.  We are adrift.  We've killed what is best about ourselves and we have to stay alive without it.  We've snuffed our own candle and what's left is darkness. 

 

So in the midst of the worst possible version of being alive, the being alive with no meaning or joy or laughter, and with our only companion a pain of our own making, we follow these two broken women to a grave.  Or men - it doesn't matter who it is that finds out first.  Because what they find is such a relief.

 

Because what we find out is beyond religion, it's beyond magic, it's beyond our capacity to make up.

 

Life comes back.  We get God back.  We get daffodils and roses and lilys back.  We get babies who look like our dead mothers, we get white dresses and white shoes to start over again with, we get jokes and comrades and sunny days.  We get roads that lead somewhere, we get brand new Ikea furniture, we get blank pages that will soon be filled with something charming and delightful.  We get back the person we destroyed, even if it's ourselves.  It turns out that person was walking along the road with us the whole time, even if we didn't recognize him or her.

 

We get it all back, dancing and laughing and meaning, we get MEANING back. 

 

A light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

It doesn't matter if it didn't happen to Jesus.  It's happening right now to the world, because it's spring, and this is one way we can tell ourselves that story.

 

So go buy yourself a daffodil, or a chocolate bunny.  Or eat an egg.  But don't miss out on Easter. 

 

You don't have to believe it for it to be a true story.

Note to self

So, it's been a week of setbacks.  I've overreacted to some things, and underreacted to others, and generally been a mess, as per usual.  (I hope something magical happens to me someday and transforms me into a person who has a handle on things, but somehow I doubt it.  Ah, depression gene, hello again.)

But tonight, at least, I went to do a show at an awesome theatre with a truly lovely cast.  And for at least these last few weeks, I remembered something important: I am still a winner.  Right now, this moment, I get to go do something I love almost every night.  Sure, it's nearly over, and that breaks my heart because I don't have the next project booked.  Of course I'm terrified.  What if I never get to do this again?  When I'm not doing a show, it's like living in exile.

So tonight, I was surprised and pleased to concentrate on the task at hand:  do your job, it's the exact one you wanted.

I got a job I really, really wanted.  And I love doing it.

Now if only, if only, if only....I can get another.

Bad at it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just settled down

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

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

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

Spring flowers should not contain so much pollen.

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

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

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

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

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

"Gone to Patagonia."

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

Bunnies

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

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

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

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

A little calmer

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth?

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

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

If you're offended, fuck off.

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

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

I want to exit stage left.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If I don't start getting it...

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

Quibble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Cool Breeze

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

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

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

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

Working

Hey!  My tactic is working, sort of!  I've had MORE rejection news, and so far I seem to be able to leapfrog over it.  I just ignore all the "oh-I'm-worthless-and-talentless" noise that usually accompanies the act of being rejected, and I go to work every night doing an awesome project.

It's not failsafe, but it's much more entertaining than getting completely bogged down in my own lack of ability.

Because, when I face up to it, I don't have that much talent to start with.  Some, sure.  But I'm no genius.  I'm not being negative, seriously.  Of course I wish I were a genius, but I think if I were, the acting road would probably be a little easier.  I'm right in the middle of the road, and I hope as time goes by I'll get better.

So, I don't really care whether or not I'm a genius or not.  I love acting.  I love telling stories onstage.  So I'll keep trying to do it.  Since those facts are true, why even bother getting upset when evidence of my inabilities comes around?  Surely I'm better off focusing on either the facts that support my choices (for instance, I'm currently working, performing 6 shows a week at an awesome theatre in an awesome cast of people!), or, when those aren't in evidence, trying to improve myself in some area.

This sounds really easy, and cheerful, and like something I should always do and should have been doing all along.  Ha!  Too true.  I think it shows how truly powerful having work can be.

I have a lot more to say about this, mostly so when I succumb to despair later I can come back and remind myself that I'm being an idiot, but I have to go clean my house - I have guests coming!  Ya-hoo!

Struggling

So, yes, I got bad news.  I got the kind of news that slaps you in the mouth, draws blood, and then laughs at you while you try to keep it together.

I'm not going to lie.  Without getting specific, this news hurts, and it will hurt for a while.  As my husband says, getting dumped always sucks, regardless of who has dumped you for whatever reason.  No one likes being told they aren't wanted.

(Oh, just so you know, this is professional.  My husband is still awesome, and keeps me sane with gifts, love, cuddling, and emotional security.  If he dumped me, I wouldn't write about it, I probably wouldn't be able to function.)

So, bad professional news.  I feel shitty about it.  But in the past months I've thought a lot about the bitterness I carry around and how it feels like bitterness itself is holding me back - not the things that happened to cause it, but my especial, sometimes overwrought, reaction to said events.  I dated someone for 6 weeks once and he dumped me and it took me SIX MONTHS to get over it, and I didn't even like him that much.

At some point recently I stated that I want to put the bitterness down.  To a large extent, the awesome project has let me do that, albeit temporarily.  Now I want to take it one step farther.  I want to avoid the bitterness altogether.

Something happened and it's painful.  If I look at it too hard I will see the message is that I am wasting my time trying to be an actor, that I do not have any talent, that I do not have the ability to tell a story onstage.

I am going to skip this message by no longer looking at this bad news.  I'm gonna skip it completely.  I'm going to find ways to lie to myself about what happened if I have to think of it at all.  If I have to, I will drug my psyche with books to shut the thoughts off.  When, unbidden, this news or news like it comes into my head, I plan to repeat the phrase "let it go" over and over and over until something distracts me.

I don't know how it will work.  But it seems worth a try.  If you need me, I'll just be sitting here on this sofa crocheting and reading Game of Thrones until something good happens.

Much worse

Just when things seem to be looking up, something happens to remind you you're completely worthless.

You can try to figure out how having four years of work rejected can be interpreted in a way that leaves you even a sliver of self-respect.  Good luck.

Much better

Sometimes, you just need everyone to go away and work through some stuff you've left undone for weeks. Then you do the dishes and crank the music up, and life just gets juicer and more vibrant.  You've added the metaphoric equivalent of half and half instead of skim milk.  You've used butter instead of margarine.  You've started listening to soul instead of smooth jazz.

Ahhhh.

I like being alone.  I feel vaguely re-set.  I have a lot of doubts about what I want and how I'm going to get it, even though on the outside, it appears nothing has changed for about twenty years.  I am definitely doubting my ability to function in the world in a relaxed yet purposeful way.  Then I just let the music hit my skin like light and sing along, careless, unworried, and I remember something important.

I know joy.  I know it.  I know where it lives in me, what parts of me are activated by it, and the activities I need to pursue to obtain it.  And more or less, everyone I meet and talk to either helps me find it or obscures it, and I'm not always smart enough to know which is happening at what moment.

But if everyone just goes away, and I'm left to my own devices, I can clear some of the detritus out of the way and get the path really open and clear.  Music helps, as does travel.

Ahhh.  Better.  I'm going to finish the dishes and spend some time alone, and I'm going to love it.

Shoulda

I'm reading Moll Flanders, in which the main character has had three husbands before page 100, and is making increasingly more sketchy choices as the narrative moves forward: crime, prostitution, who knows what she'll get up to next, there's nearly a hundred more pages of this stuff.

I find it fascinating that a) the book was written in 1720ish, and is pretty frank about how much she has to sleep around, though not entirely graphic, and also, b) that Moll's basic defense is simple - she is driven to all these extremes to stave off poverty.  She says, over and over, if she could have worked for enough money to support herself, none of this would have been necessary.  I think in terms of the 18th century, that is absolutely fair enough.

But I look at my own life, and the questionable choices I have made/continue to make, and what drives me to those conclusions?  Nothing so immediate and supportable as survival.  Nope.  It keeps coming back to vanity.  I want to be important, prized, valuable, funny, attractive.  I want to be right.

I could use a self-importance diet.  I'll think about that and get back to you.

Grumpy

There are some days when everything hangs together, people smile at you, the weather clears, parking spaces open up magically, you can laugh at everything, you're open and all the choices are yours.

This was not that day.

So there are also days when you miss all the cues life is giving you, and you're a half second late for everything, jokes, buses, lunch.

This was that day.

On the plus side, there are those days when everything you touch disintegrates, when you are a walking bulldozer, when you make every possible mistake and some extra ones no one knew were possible.  During those days, I can't justify my existence because I'm just plain screwing everything up.

On this plus side, this was not that day.  Not today.

Like celery

So my basic metaphor was going to be that I like celery, but some stalks taste sort of bitter and sharp, while others are deliciously sweet and crunchy.  I think you can see where that was going.

But it may not fit the point I'd like to make.  I noticed something in the first big snow yesterday.  Wait, back up, I gotta let you in on where my head's been.

We're in tech for the awesome project.  It is literally the longest tech I've ever been a part of.  We've been in tech for a solid week and haven't finished teching the show.  If that all sounds like Greek to you, tech is the part of rehearsing a play where you add the technical elements of a show and rehearse how that changes things - lights, sound, in our case, tv projections, quick changes, and...well, I don't want to ruin the surprises.

It's taking for-freakin'-ever.  Because this show is chock full of technical elements.  The down side to how slow tech has been is that I no longer have any conviction in the show, or even any idea how it fits together.  I am positive I will have forgotten nearly everything we decided by the time we actually run the show again.

It is tiring.  Tedious.  There is no excitement or glamour in this part of the process.  I can even safely say I don't love this part of the process.

But yesterday it snowed.  I had the good fortune to have booked a voiceover gig which turned out to be in an office overlooking the Chicago River.  I looked out of the window into a great white beauty, the peaceful silence that snowfall brings.  And that evening I went to rehearsal and sat around and made jokes with my incredibly lovely cast mates, and went drinking with them.  I woke up to go to a meeting about teaching.

I felt something lovely all through yesterday and today.  It's not the same kind of pure, unalloyed happiness I felt at the beginning of this process - actually being in this play has its own worries and insecurities and frustrations, and that's life, that's the nature of being engaged with the world.  But the details don't niggle the way they once did.  I feel...I feel like this is the life I'm supposed to get to live.  I can't eliminate sorrow or need or irritation or indeed anything negative, but I can live my life in such a way that the work I get to do makes those things palatable.

I think I'm content.  Not that I have no ambition or hopes for the future, but that this moment is a good one, even with its tedium.  I will take this tedium, because I know it leads to something I care about.

I wrote a poem a long time ago that started like this:
"You are like a snow that will not stick, and I love snow."
I remember the poem fondly, as if it were a beautiful and brilliant poem - if I ever found it I'm sure it would be embarrassing instead.  But the poem was about how as a southerner, I'd always loved snow, even though logically I could imagine all the irritations that actually getting snow brings.  Just like love, you see.

It was nice to look out at the snow and remember that despite the coming slipperiness and cold and grime, I still do love snow.  This snow, this snow is sticking.  Thanks, universe.

2012

Year of the Dragon.  I'm tired - we're going through tech, and it's painstaking.  This is an exceptionally tech-heavy show, and some of my love for it is just dialed in right now because everything is taking a really, really long time.  Like we're doing the play in molasses.

I'm a little bit bored, to be honest.  More because tech is a boring process than anything else.  I have a book but my current one just isn't very absorbing.  Hmm...that's a fair point - I was enjoying tech much more when I was reading a more exciting book.  Maybe I should stick to trashy novels until we're out of this phase.

I'm still just astonished by how nice everyone is.  Interesting, too.  I will spend the next 3 months with these people, so that's a happy discovery.

I wish I had some deep insights for you (and me), but most of my energy is being spent making sure I can help and not hinder this process.  And trying not to get frustrated because everything is ssoooooo slllooooowwww.

Blow it up and start again

This is post number 200 for me.  I liked the idea of ending the year on a round number, so I saved it for today.  I'm just not sure how best to use it.

I don't have any regular readers - though I do have a handful of incredibly sweet intermittent ones, of course, to whom I am grateful.  But mostly I keep this as a journal - mostly I keep it for myself, I suppose.  The blog's original purpose was to flirt with someone without appearing to flirt with him, then it became a nice outlet for some frustrations of working with a specific group of people, then morphed into a way to use downtime at an office.  

But as soon as I started using this space to complain about anything I realized I could never really publicize it - I wanted to be honest about how I felt but not hurt anyone's feelings, and while I don't use anyone's real name, I think there's probably enough info that someone could work out certain details.  So I can't tell anyone it's here lest I've said something that will offend, or I could tell people it's here but then never say anything truthful again.  As for my possible offensive comments, I've just been blowing off steam - I don't have any lasting rancor for anyone, honest.  I'm capable of wishing everyone happiness and joy, no matter what.  

Anyway, I lost the desk job, and didn't post anything for a long time.  I got caught up on the fact I had so few readers, who would care if I wrote anything?  I love my 5-6 readers, but I am pretty sure I could call each and everyone one of you up on the phone if there was something I really needed to say to you.  But finally I realized: clearly, I only post things I am trying to work out for myself.  So I got busy trying to work some stuff out, and here we are at 200.

Am I working things out?  Does the effort of writing things down help me process and transmute those events?  Is it just a really really long-term flirt...as in, someday, out of curiosity, my original reader will return and be blown away by my charm, wit, and insight?  Ha!  Funny, I'm capable of wishing for that (though it's not my conscious purpose).  I've gone from thinking I'm kind of a nice person to realizing I often behave like an insufferable know-it-all driven entirely by the wish to be right and the only partly submerged desire to be gorgeous.  In other words, I'm realizing I'm vain, petty, and condescending.  

But I'm not mean-spirited.  And yes, writing things down has been helping me.  

So I'll probably rack up another hundred posts this next year.  Maybe the writing will get better.  Maybe the insights will get deeper.  Maybe the life I'm describing will get more entertaining.  

Thanks for stopping by.  Comments are welcome.  I'm not asking you for anything, but I'm very grateful for what you've given me without being asked.  

Happy New Year.  This one...this one's going to be amazing.

Enveloped

I just finished reading a novel and eating a bunch of tasty food, including lots of chocolate.  Ah, holiday.  Now I'll need to put all that slothful indolence behind me and get busy refining myself.  I'm looking forward to it, actually.

I'm looking forward to everything right now.  It's been a strange year, plenty of setbacks and trials, naturally lots and lots of mistakes.  Mine, I mean.  And some loss - people dying is no fun, even if it is a completely natural part of life that we all have to face eventually.  Doesn't mean we long for it.

I feel hopeful, though.  Like I'm closing in on something, and when I get there, it will be good.  I got a good breather in here with this awesome show I'm working on - I can keep going for a lot longer with this under my belt.

To everyone who made my life better and not worse: thanks.  I'm cheering up now enough to notice how lucky I am to know you.  Wow, I'm really lucky sometimes.  Thanks.

Gifts

Oog.  The one thing I do dislike about being relatively short on cash is that Christmas sucks because I can't afford to buy anyone gifts.  I know I sound holier-than-thou or disingenious, but I really like giving people the "perfect" gift, and though yes, the perfect gift might not be expensive, it does take a certain amount of money to get EVERYONE a perfect gift.  Or more time than I currently have.

This is why I've begun to prefer Thanksgiving.

For Later

Things my future self should know, or might need to be reminded of:

• It might be a while before you get cast in something as awesome as the awesome project again.  Don't despair.  Don't stop trying.  You love it, you love it more than all of the other things people tell you to love - it's the closest you get to storytelling, it's the closest you get to God, it's the closest you get to some sense of purpose.  You inhabit yourself those rehearsal rooms, on those stages.  Don't give that up because you get tired of waiting.  It's yourself you are waiting for, not the next job, because you truly live in the plays.  Feel free to find a better way to amuse yourself in between times, but don't stop trying.  You love it in a way that means it should be your job - because you'll care about it.
• Try to relax.  You're only going to get older from here.  Try for dignity and grace.  You've spent a large part of your life sad and disappointed about all the things you're not.  LET IT GO. There are a lot of things you are not.  But inherent in that is that you are something.  Concentrate on that, meditate on that.  You are something.  Distill it if you can.  Transcend it if you can.  But start stepping on the stones that are there instead of mourning the ones that are absent.
• Honestly? You're bad at giving things up.  At letting them go.  Think of it as habitual lateness - you need to set the clock ahead a bit to accommodate your natural inclinations.  It will take extra time to let some things go.  Go ahead and accept that.  
• You're still going to be a complete fool.  No matter how hard you try, how much you mask it, you heart is bigger than your brain.  You pretend it isn't, you spend a lot of time hiding one behind the other.  Good luck with that.  I'm not sure how that's going to work out.  I'd say let's blow it wide open, future self, let's just love as hard as we can, but there's a lot of pitfalls there and if I knew how to avoid them we'd be somewhere totally different by now.  I guess you should just get more comfortable with the idea of being foolish.  Settle in.  
• You're going to need some more luck for everything to work out the way you want it to.  But if you stick with doing the things that bring you joy, things will work out.  It's like wanting to be at the table where everyone is laughing - spend your time with the joy, and you can't regret it.  

When in doubt, look for some joy.  If you find it, that's where you should be.  All right, future self.  I hope you're reading this and thinking, oh, yes, that was the day I figured out how to get here, and you look around at your sunny kitchen that always has good music, good friends, and good food, pets and maybe children hanging around the kitchen table (the one you've had sex on), and you think, yes, I got here, finally.  Now smile and go make a cup of tea.  Here's to being something, finally.

Rethink

I'm getting the feeling that I have a consistent amount of idiocy no matter what I try to stop myself from doing - if I decide I'm going to quit doing one stupid thing, I inevitably end up doing something else stupid. As if instead of losing weight I'm just using a corset to shove the extra stupid around.

Well.  Hmm.  I'm working hard to be a grown up here, and it's worrying to see regression instead of growth.

But (hang on, my metaphor isn't dead yet), doing stupid things is a lot like eating junk food - empty calories, of course, but so tasty and irresistible.

Side note - if every unhealthy choice had a healthy choice sitting right next to it, for instance, the counter of Little Debbie Snack Cakes had a container of celery sticks right next to it, could you/I/one go ahead and do the "right" thing more consistently?

It may be that when I was younger I tried to avoid doing stupid things, and for the most part I did ok - of course I did some stupid things but overall I basically wasted the part of my life where people expect you to do stupid things.  I spent it trying to get things right.

Now I have certain things right and it's...it's...   Well.  Being right isn't always very interesting.

It's as if I worked so hard to color inside the lines, and look, I did!  And what I have to show for it is a really neat, uninspired set of drawings that anyone could have produced.

Oh, sorry, in case I haven't mentioned it, I am also still deliriously happy to be going to rehearsal every night.  It's awesome.  It's terrific.  It is NOT in any way stupid or drawing inside the lines or...in fact, it's the one thing everyone probably thought I was stupid to pursue and it's the very best thing there is, which may be why I'm questioning everything else.

Ok, I'm going to try to pretend to be a grownup.  For a while.

Notes from Nirvana

It was like I'd died and gone to an actor heaven.

Last night, first rehearsal for the big awesome project.  It was...blissful.  Terrific. Inspiring. Enriching.

It was like sitting down to a meal after wandering in the desert for weeks.

It was like finally sleeping after a forced march.

It was like curling up under the covers with a great book and nowhere to be, when you can't imagine a single place better.

It was such a relief.  To be in a room with maybe 40, 50 people, and all of them want one single thing: to tell this story as well as humanly possible.  Everyone's excited, everyone's looking forward to it, and some of the best brains in the Chicago theatre were in that room.  It was fantastic.

It felt like home.  Home.  Home.

HG, grad school has nothing on this.  This was like bringing the Titanic up from the ocean floor and restoring her to all her glory.  This was like finally getting every single strand of Christmas lights to work.

This was great.  I am sooooo lucky.  Buckle up, all four of you.  It'll be five months of this much excitement and more.

And maybe, just maybe, if some star is positioned just right for me, this is the beginning of the life I always wanted to have.

Deep Breath

So, tomorrow is a big day.  I start rehearsing for a project I can actually believe in, with people I highly respect.  I get to be one of the people I'm always jealous of.  I get to play with people whose careers I want to model, I get to work on a play I am excited to be a part of, with people who blow me away.

I'm scared, of course, and grateful, and thrilled, and god I hope I have whatever it takes to play on this level.  Because I'm not a gamer kind of gal, but this is most definitely a level up.  Level. Up.

Naturally, I want to spin some kind of imaginative direct bee line from tomorrow to me accepting some sort of Tony or Emmy or some nonsense - and I say nonsense not out of false modesty, but with the acceptance that the trajectory I'm currently on just doesn't logically follow to those points.  But that doesn't even matter.  I was thrilled to audition for this play, and I tried very hard to prepare myself for not being cast, since numerically and historically, my acting career (and to some degree, my life) has been about trying to withstand disappointment.

But, and I'm not even embarrassed to say this, I'm nearly teary-eyed with this, TOMORROW IS A DAY ABOUT GETTING WHAT I WANTED.  About being the person they chose.  About finally catapulting over the endless judging and auditioning and rejection and instead being able to focus on the WORK.  Because I got work, folks.  I got work at a theatre I adore with people I revere and I couldn't be luckier or happier.

I got the work I wanted and I cannot wait to give this theatre my entire life for the next five months.

I know I whine a lot here.  I bitch and moan and cry, and when I read the things I wrote, I feel petty and small and weak.  I wanted to write this post to remind me and anyone who ever drops by that I know how to be happy, wickedly happy, joyously happy.  I'm even pleased tonight to realize and remember that I've felt like this before, because I've been lucky enough to get cast in plays I cared about before, even if it has been a while since that happened.

I'm still worried about my Dad and anxious about money and I yearn for the people who made me smile that are missing from my life.  But at the same time, starting tomorrow, I am the luckiest girl in the world for a time.

Now, let's see if the next five months of posts can reflect that.  Heh.

When You Can't Justify It

When someone else gets something you want (or has something you want), does it make it better or worse that they deserve it?  When you can look at them objectively and see that the object of your jealousy may be smarter, more talented, heck, younger and prettier (or simply more attractive), more creative, nicer or all around a better person...does this make it easier or harder?

If, for instance, someone gets cast in something I wish I could have done...if that person isn't good in the role, then I can comfort myself that a mistake was made.  But if they are not only great, but better than I can imagine ever being, I might feel worse, but at least I know justice was done.

There's someone I feel vaguely jealous of, and as I clicked through to find out more about them I could hear my own voice saying, "Why are you doing this, this is a wretched, stupid thing to do..."  And by then I'd done it, and couldn't undo it, and was trapped.  It wasn't even painful, just eye-opening, sort of like the sensation I imagine people who cut themselves have as the blood wells up from a slice but the synapses haven't communicated any kind of hurt yet.  The way people describe being shot, and looking at the hole where the bullet went but shock blocks the comprehending of any pain.

Smarter?  Check.
More attractive?  Double check.
More talented?  Obviously.
In every way a better choice?  Yes.

And I don't even mean this as a self-pitying rant - I have good qualities, I have talents, I have a modicum of intelligence and I'm attractive in my own way.  I'm not saying woe-is-me.  I'm just wavering between whether it's easier or harder to let an idea go when you know you didn't ever deserve it in the first place.

I think I'm leaning towards harder.  Because it's one thing to lose.  It's another to realize you don't have the talent to win.

As Iris Murdoch wrote: "One must perform the lower act which one can manage and sustain: not the higher act which one bungles."  I too have failed accurately to estimate my own resources.

Holiday

I love my family, and they are great.  I just wish I could handle them better.  There was one really great line in "Winter's Bone" which I watched the other day, something about the dad being an informant: "he didn't and he didn't and he didn't, and then one day, he did..."  That's not an accurate quote but I feel like that about snapping at my family.  I can handle it, I can handle it, I don't mind the backseat driving and constant correction...and then I do, and I lose it, and I regret it.

Because all I want them to know is that I love them, not that they also make me want to tear my hair out.

Un-fraught

I was going to bend your ear about sadness and elation and worry all fusing into some electric dance step today, with a score of kick-ass music behind it.  I was going to steal outright an idea from someone's tumblr about the fact that you can be wandering around in a store and some schmatzy, old-school song comes on (for me the other night it was "On the Dark Side" by Eddie and the Cruisers), and without preamble you are teary-eyed with longing for a past you barely remember.

I was going to try to break your heart.

But instead I've realized I am hungry, and I'm going to just put everything I wish I could have and don't on hold and go make some dinner.

Because despite what I tend to give off, underneath the wild aura of fervent drama lurks a pragmatist.  A girl's gotta eat.

Old

Tonight I was asked if the 23-year-old with me was my daughter.  I have recently been feeling (and vocally complaining) that I look and feel old.  Now it is absolutely confirmed that apparently any youth I had is behind me and never coming back.

I wish I could tell you I'm ready to be homely and wrinkled and not care about age, but instead I'm about to hole up in my bed and weep.

What makes me really sad is that I bet there are times in my life I've been really attractive, and times I've actually felt that I looked attractive, but any time I feel I look pretty the photographs prove me wrong, and any time the photo of me makes me think, hey, I look kinda nice here!  I know at the time I felt ugly and unattractive.  Why can I not synch these up better than that?

And why do I have to care at all?  Why can't I just embrace getting old and having lines on my face?

Why must I be so very vain?  It's annoying.

Wish

If I could have one wish, tonight it would be this:  to live free of superlatives.  Better than, worse than, best, last, these words ricochet in my head endlessly, and I would love to be free of them.  Even when I don't want to be thinking about it, some part of my brain is always feeding comparisons back to me, like a personal ticker tape:  that girl is younger than me, that one is prettier, that one is fatter, that guy writes better and that one is cooler.  That one is much much nicer.

And these comparisons nearly always stop me from doing whatever I'm doing.  Because there is ALWAYS someone better.  No matter who you are, what you do, there's better out there somewhere.

I imagine what it would be like to be wholly freed of superlatives, not to think that you were better than anyone else but just not to think about where you are in the scheme and strata of experience - not to be so very aware of what percentile of knowledge or beauty or wit you inhabit.  I think it would feel wonderful.  I think I would listen more.

Every so often I find a little space where no one else is, or at least where no one invokes this sort of petty classification of myself, and I just get to be.  It's not the same as just being alone.  I can be alone and still unable to halt my mind from its endless rifling through who's-better-who's-best.  Like tonight, when every clever thing I read just strikes the gong in my head saying, "Yep, you'll never be as clever as that."

It's true, I won't.  But maybe someday I'll pick my way past caring and just be me and that will feel like enough.

I suspect it will still take a while.  Maybe you should check back in a few decades or so.

Wow.

So late.  Must sleep.  Here's what I find out when I stay up late at home alone: I am an idiot.

Why, oh why have I put on the most appealing nightclothes I have had on in weeks, when I am in my house alone??  And the best I could hope for would be a phone call?

Makes no sense.  I am an idiot.  Or I want to give my neighbors something to look at.

I suppose one could argue that if I do wear sultry clothes to bed on nights I wasn't alone, I don't end up wearing them very long.  In that sense, I see why the night I'm alone is when I'm wearing them long enough to notice I'm wearing them.

Further proof I'm an idiot:  pretty much everything else on this blog.

I finally accepted something very obvious: the people who arrive at my blog by accident when searching for the terms "torture time" do not stick around to be charmed by my oddball voice.  Nor does anyone stumbling across it when looking for a blueberry pie recipe.

So the four of you, sometimes five, I think all of you can be trusted with the info that I'm home alone, attractively clad.

Now I'm going to bed.

No way that person on tv uses that product...

I'm tired of being constantly sold to on television - sold to with young, pretty people.  I'm finally realizing that I can't even pretend to be young and pretty anymore - that ship sailed, and I missed it.  I'm starting to resent the very sight of the young and pretty.

Instead, can you sell to me with...hmmm....I don't know...

Tigers?  I like tigers.

How about graciousness?  

Or some good old fashioned whimsy - I'd buy things sold with whimsy.

Of course, there's the problem that I'm not the target for any of this advertising, because not only am I not young or pretty anymore, I have no money to buy things.

Just a little disappointment

Every time I ever go up for a SAG ad, I mentally spend the money I would make doing it.  Fortunately, it's only mental - and technically spending is the wrong word, as I mentally assign the money to my various savings accounts.

Hey, what's a SAG ad?  I hear some of you say.  SAG is the Screen Actors Guild, and it's one of the unions that controls television advertisements.  Like any union, it sets certain minimum payments a company has to give you for certain kinds of work.  So if I were to book a SAG ad, I might not be a member of the union yet (it's complicated), but the company would pay me based on a certain scale.

I confess, I find that scale wildly confusing to follow in written form, so I really have no idea how much money I would make for any of these ads.  But I know a friend made $20,000 for a SAG ad once.  I don't know how often it ran and in what markets and for how long (all of these effect what you get out of it), but she had enough to make a down payment on a condo.  So secretly, ignorantly (and presumably incorrectly), in my mind every time I go audition for one of these ads, I think of myself making $10,000, and mentally change my entire life.

Because I would go on exactly as I do now if I made an extra $10,000, but a lot of the stress in my life would be magically lifted.  Firstly, just the very fact of making that kind of money doing the thing I love to do would be a personal victory.  I would have justified a LOT of the time I have devoted to this profession.  Second, I would immediately fund my entire Health Savings Account (and my husband's).  Hey - for someone who basically pays for all medical expenses that would be an exciting event.  (Yes, we have health insurance, but since we have it as individuals, the plan we can afford forces us to pay for nearly everything.  In my world, there is no such thing as a co-pay.  But if something catastrophic happened, we'd be covered.)

Third, and this may sound funny, but I'd pump up my savings accounts.  I have been making ends meet in a time of economic disaster, but my savings have suffered.  I want them beefy, not lean.  I haven't cannibalized them, but I'm tired of having them erode a tiny bit every year.

I'd pay off some debt.  Duh.  (But honestly, I'd still fund the HSA before anything else.)

I'd throw some money in my car account so that I could pay next year's insurance without even wondering how.

Finally, if I could spread some money around all those places and feel like there was any left over, I would do as many of these things as I could afford:

1.  Go to Macy's, give a personal shopper a chunk of money, and have her bring me scads and scads of beautiful clothes.  I would then buy:  three beautiful skirts, two tailored shirts, three tops of some lovely description, two sweaters or jackets that I adored, three pairs of really amazing trousers (one black, one pinstripe, one whatever I like best), three pairs of shoes and one pair of boots, and a dress that I felt drop dead fantastic wearing.  Maybe some belts and necklaces.  If there was enough money.

2. Buy a plane ticket to somewhere I have a friend I haven't seen in years.  Spend some time there.

3.  Get my engagement ring fixed.

4. Buy something terrific for my husband and my best friend.  (That's two separate people, sorry, all you romantics.)

5.  Get back to eeking out the rent a couple of paychecks at a time, but with a great deal of satisfaction.

If you've read this far, you can probably see this coming.  I was up for a SAG ad this week - and I even got called back for said ad, which means there was an actual possibility I would get it.  The callback was a blast - I had so much fun, and the woman I was auditioning alongside was phenomenal (I really really hope she got cast in at least one of these spots).

But I didn't get this one.

*sigh*

Last nice weather day

I think I would give up all the things I owned if I could go hang out with all the people I love instead.  This sounds easy to accomplish - it is not, as many of the people I love live far away, in other countries, perhaps.  And seeing them would involve some other costs.

It strikes me that in a way I want to visit all the other people I've been, and that may be true, but I genuinely  want to find out how everyone else is doing.  I want to sit and drink red wine out of my friend's heavy goblet wine glasses - they're odd, as if they are props and not meant to drunk out of - and I want to ask her how she finds her life these days and hear her call me "Lizzie."  I want to go see another friend's brand new adorable baby.  I want to go and harass yet another friend until his deadpan face cracks and he actually laughs at something I say.  That could take days, but if I could manage it, I'd be gleeful.  I hope he still has the dreadful piano scarf, though I doubt it.

I want to see my best friend, and do something ridiculous with her that no one else would ever bother doing - put on costumes and go on an adventure, go prom dress shopping (no intention of prom dress buying, just shopping), camp, sit at the Waffle House, consult the I Ching or make up fake potions to help us through our lives.

I want to take HG back to London and find Fran!!!  We'd jump back in time and clean house together and then have jacket potatoes for lunch, gossiping all the while.  Hmmm.  Come to think of it, just to move into the present, I want to visit HG in Italy next year and force her to have some adventure she'd never have thought of...possibly involving wine, but perhaps not.

I'd like to have dinner with a friend I never get to see and see them.  Ask questions, argue, persuade, laugh, remember, and plan.  No, not plan, plot.  I need me some new horizons, and I'd like to have old friends on them with me.

I can't think of a single object I own than I wouldn't give up if it meant I could do this.

Some thanks

So, if you haven't ever met me or noticed from the inevitable return to this subject, I have trouble believing that anything I write here could remotely interest anyone else.  Yet I'm still driven to try to communicate, I still find I want to say something, and I want to believe I can do so effectively, even if some worm within me always convinces me otherwise.

The worm has been winning recently.

I'd like to thank those of you who have stopped by and made a supportive comment, and I'd like to thank those of you who stopped by and didn't make a negative comment.  I'm really grateful.

I keep hoping I can leapfrog over this impenetrable insecurity and get beyond it to something magical, and yet it never seems to happen.  I believe I can lose 15 pounds, too, and that keeps getting put off as well.  The me I think I really am always seems just out of reach.

A friend once told me about some tree that grows something like 15 feet every 5 years.  But it grows maybe 1 inch for 4 years, and then shoots up 14 feet 11 inches in the last year.

I keep hoping to reach my 5th year.  I think it could be coming.  I think there's something in me unexpressed, something ferocious and necessary.  I don't know what it is, or if I can ever find it.  Maybe I'm too old and off center, too plain and easily dismayed, too vain and too analytical.

But thank you for checking up on me, because inherent in that is the idea that I might have something to say that will be useful.  I hope some days I come through for you, and me.

I believe, help my disbelief.

Today it is sunny outside and I drank two cups of cappuccino, and I'm going to go running.  Maybe I should stop talking and try listening.  Call me if you want to take advantage of that intention.

As others see us

I had someone critique me recently as an actor and a human being, and I can't shake how uneasy and uncertain it has made me feel.  First, a caveat:  the comments were absolutely true - I recognized myself without fail in what this person was saying, and I recognized that the advice I was getting about changing my behavior was sound.

But what I was forced to acknowledge about myself made me feel...I'm not sure how to put it...sick to my stomach.  I never like making mistakes, even though I realize intellectually that making mistakes is the only way we can possibly learn anything.  So part of this dread is realizing I've been making mistakes.

The other part is that while this person didn't speak for anyone but themselves, I'm sure to have exhibited this behavior elsewhere.  Which leads me to this possibility - do I fail to get work as an actor because I am a nightmare to work with??

That's a terrifying thought.  Horrifying.  Debilitating.  It can't be universally true, because my actor/director friends would treat me differently if it were.  But it is doubtless absolutely true in certain situations.  Which is keeping me awake at nights now.

More and more I feel my vanity is in my own way.  And I'm bored by it!!  Aren't you?  Wow, I wish I didn't waste any time at all worrying about being good or pretty or right.  Someone will always be prettier and better and more right - probably more often as I age!  But I don't know how to do without it, or how to circumvent it, or how to retrain it.


Hmmm.  This is where I desperately need to reinvent myself because I've become an utter bore even to myself.
Maybe that leather miniskirt/taking up smoking thing needs to happen right away.

Maybe I just need habermasgal and tee to move to town and have weekly dinners with me.

I'll cook....we don't even have to spend money...

Always take the weather with you

I spent yesterday lunch with a friend who recently got engaged, and yesterday dinner with another who is currently getting a divorce.  Whew!  Talk about running the gamut.

What struck me in both conversations is how hard most relationships are.  I'm thinking more and more about why we make any attempt at all to have a permanent bond with just one other human being.  It's such a tricky endeavor, and takes so much work, why do so many of us sign on?  (And if you haven't signed on, you most likely have felt the pressure to do so, even if you haven't buckled under to it.)  I am beginning to feel the same way about having children - not one single parent has ever told me having kids is a complete romp.

It seems like it doesn't matter who you are or who you pick, a relationship gets hard at some point. (Although clearly it's possible to pick someone wholly inappropriate and have the relationship always be a complete nightmare...we've all done that.)  Someone shifts in an unexpected way, or doesn't shift when you do, and a balance is thrown off.  People behave in unpredictable ways.  One may find oneself behaving unexpectedly.  No one knows everything about oneself at the beginning of things, or even at the middle of things.

Because the problem/beauty of it all is, things change.  We work so hard to find a place of safety, a place of continuity, but in the end, that's an arbitrary decision - "this place is safe and will not alter" - you can say that, but you can't make it true.

I think about a couple I know who have been married nearly 50 years.  They bring each other equal parts comfort and irritation.  Is the irritation as comforting in its constancy as the comfort?

I also listened to a radio program recently about quitting, and that's having an effect on my musing.  As a society, we're bad at quitting, though sometimes quitting is the best thing we can do.

Except when it isn't.

Wanting to be right all the time is another form of vanity, and boy, is vanity turning out to be my stumbling block.

I'm going to think about this more and get back to you.

Coming soon...a new look

Yesterday, I'm roaming the farmer's market in my neighborhood when I see someone standing at the door of Starbucks waving energetically to me.  "Yo!"  It's R, with whom I was in a sometimes questionable show earlier this year.  He just broke up with his girlfriend, moved to the neighborhood and is meeting our friend J in a minute.  We chat.  It's wicked fun.  He tells me during his move his car got stolen - while full of stuff.  The cops found it that very night, stripped of parts, but most of the stuff was still there.  The thieves left credit cards and checks he had in there, but took all the cleaning supplies he had just bought at Target.  Naturally, we thought of terrible puns - "Dudes, we cleaned up on this robbery!"  (etc.)

J showed up (late, of course) and I started telling them about my new plan to change my image.  "I'm thinking of taking up smoking," I told them, "I just feel like I need to be more of a bad ass."  

"Shit, who you kidding?" R flatters me, "Girl, you're already bad ass - why you think I was calling to you from the door?  I was thinking, who is that hot chick...oh, man, I know her...and damn, she's already married."  

"Whatever, kiss ass.  I'm really looking fine, rocking this socks-with-shoes look.  I need a hair cut, and maybe a miniskirt..." 

R interrupts - "A leather miniskirt..."

"Please, you know I don't have a miniskirt, leather or not."  

"Just go home and grab any skirt, we'll cut it off for you, no problem."

"Or what about a face piercing?" J chimes in, helpfully.  "Tongue?  Nose?"

We continue being ridiculous until we decide that I will find a leather jacket, a leather miniskirt, get my haircut, buy some cigarettes, and somehow get a facial scar in a knife fight.  Then the two of them will come over and we'll do a photo shoot with me leaning out of the window of my new (not cool) car, smoking.  And post it on facebook.

This morning, J emails me that she walked outside to go to work and discovered her car had been stolen.   

I have two responses:

A)  I WISH I could go check to make sure my new car is still there, but I'm already downtown at work, and

B)  I better make this photo shoot happen stat before the car disappears.

Oh, that's right

I was running on the lakeshore a few days ago right as the sun was setting.  I tend to keep my eyes ahead or on the lake, but I happened to look back over the skyline - the sky was that gorgeous yellowy-orange-pink.  The airplane exhaust trails shone silver against it, like jewelry in the sky.  And I was happy.  I didn't need to be anywhere else for that moment, or have anything, or be someone else.  I was glad to look over my shoulder and see beauty and call it home.

I started rehearsal for something else that same day I had that view, something short and simple that will finish up before I really get started on the next exciting project.  It's not an accident that I had a moment of total satisfaction the day I started rehearsal for something.

How do I forget this?  I mean, I have been through this cycle so often you'd think I would know by now:  I love plays.  I LOVE them.  More than people, on occasion.  (Or if you feel less loved by me reading that, think of it this way - I love you by way of plays.)  And there is a part of me that just isn't alive if I'm not working on something.

It's literally like flipping a switch and connecting more circuits of my brain.  

I remember the moment I figured out I was doomed to work at this as a profession.  I was temping by day in an accounting department and could not figure out why the other workers were so stressed and fretful that numbers weren't in the exact right place.  "Who cares?" I thought.  "Why does it matter?"

At night I was interning at a theatre - one of those nights, my job was taking notes during a run of Once Upon a Mattress.  The finale came, the entire cast was on stage, they struck a final tableau, there was a pause...and the director nudged me to take a note: "Make sure Charles in the back moves about a foot to the left."

And here's the crazy thing.  I could see immediately, SEE, why that was important.  Why moving Charles a foot to the left would make a difference, make it better.  The minutae of this process, while just as pointless, made sense to me.

So why am I ever ever even slightly bewildered if I feel grumpy and restless and depressed when I'm not working on a show?  Why on earth don't I get it by now?

Facebook

And now for a mood change (bring those lights back up!):

There are things people do on facebook that drive me nuts - no, wait, that's too strong.  When I'm in a good mood, certain comments make me roll my eyes.  When I'm in a bad mood, they drive me nuts.

I'm frequently tempted to grouse about it in my status update, but then I resist because people are largely well-meaning and it's really my problem, not theirs.  But here are some things that I could do without as regards facebook:

• Couples who use facebook status updates as a conduit for pillow talk.  Hey, folks, get a room, or at least, how easy would it be to send that in a private message?  Do you have to have the "I was just thinking about you, pookie-bear..."/ "Awww, tinsel toes, I can't wait for tonight!" conversation IN MY FEED?  I'm not trying to eavesdrop, peeps, you're making me eavesdrop.
• The person who is always, without fail, absolutely, first to comment on any and everything I post/my family posts/anyone posts.  Especially the things that have no bearing on his/her life.  I could post, "Going to Zimbabwe!" and this person would comment within seconds something like "I've always loved places that start with the letter Z!"  Uh, great.  Thanks for your input.
• People who post about their awesome, amazing holidays in places like France and Cabo.  Sure, it's nice to tell people you're going on vacation, but there is a different between commenting on a fun time and lording it over the little people.  I guess a better way to express this is:  is it in good taste to brag to the homeless man outside your office about the seven course meal you had last night?  Know your audience.
• My exceptionally religious friend who either takes me to task for not being godly enough or willfully misses that I am often joking.  Sweetie, you know I am not the same religion as you.  Why on earth are you continuously commenting as if we have the same goals and tactics in life?  Oh, wait, it's because you're convinced that if I don't believe what you believe, I must be doing it wrong.  Wow, I can't imagine why that would irritate me.  Especially if I happen to complain about something in my life and you pretty much tell me it would have all worked out if I had just prayed harder.  Yeah....

In contrast, I love when people post about their kids (kids are cute!), and put up funny pictures and say witty things.  Hooray for all those people who make facebook entertaining.  I love looking at people's wedding photos and new houses and trips to fun places and general success.  So if we could just clear up these few pesky bad habits, it would be so much better for all of us!

No?  Ah, well....