Meorow.

Just to clear up any confusion, I'm considering getting a tattoo (you win, SteveMatt) on my forehead that says:

NO, I'M NOT IN CATS

I am NOT in the musical Cats that is currently showing at this theatre where I'm working. I'm attempting to have a good attitude about it. I was sad back in Junewhen I discovered I wasn't cast in it, for a couple of reasons. My parents won't get to see me in a show here (they can only visit during Cats, having missed the three nice roles I was given in the first three shows). I feel pretty stupid sitting in the pit, just singing along with the people who are actually in the play. I feel pretty useless.

I having been trying to master these negative demons (see last post) and look on the bright side:

1) I don't have to wear the Cats costume, a cotton unitard under a spandex unitard painted with stripes and with strips of knitted "fur" snapped into place at intervals, and a wig of synthetic hair in odd colors.

2) It's much more fun to watch Cats than actually have to dance it myself. I'd be certain I'm pull a muscle from trying too hard.

2a) It's very fun to watch my co-workers in Cats - they are really pretty amazing.

3) Come on, it's Cats!! How ridiculous is it that they're doing Cats?!?! Thank god I'm not in it! There's no plot and the music is derivative (if frighteningly catchy)!

And various other justifications to make myself feel better for not being in it.

But, people, really, people, do I HAVE to endure the patron comments? Do people who see the whole season HAVE to make conversation with me about how I'm not in the show? Don'tcha think it could be a sore point? Maybe you could go lightly? Be a little tactful?

Apparently not. As I said in the last post, our photographer's already had a go at me. But one's not enough!!! After I responded to his "so, you're nothing" comment by saying that might not be the most tactful way of putting it, he greets me now, probably permanently, with a new nickname, "Hey, it's Nothin'!"

And now the folks who work in our Friday/Saturday coffeehouse are on the bandwagon. A nice older gentleman stops me and says, "So, you didn't get a part in this one at all, then?"

*sigh*

"Oh. My. God! You are right, sir! I have been just offstage in a unitard for the last THREE nights of the show and I just could not figure out why I never heard a cue to enter!"

or, maybe

"No, actually, I play ALLL the cats in the show, different makeup every time, you know, but they wanted to give credit to some other people, make them feel needed."

Or

"I have been wondering why my butt hurts - ooooo, I see, it's because I spend the show SITTING on it!"

or

"Sorry, no, I WAS in the show, but I made everyone else look bad, so they took me out for the good of the whole."

Or even

"It was against copyright law for me to be in it. Oops. Shouldn't have said anything. Oh, no - you hear that siren!? I shouldn't have told you!" *in a flash of smoke, she disappears*


But in the end, all I've got is:

NO!! ALL RIGHT? NO! I AM NOT IN THE SHOW. APPARENTLY I AM A TERRIBLE DANCER AND THE DIRECTOR WOULD RATHER NEVER SEE ME DANCE AGAIN. YOU HAPPY NOW? WHY NOT ASK ME HOW MUCH I WEIGH OR IF I EVER GET MY EYEBROWS PLUCKED? WHY NOT ASK WHY I'M NOT MARRIED SINCE I'M SO OLD ALREADY? I GET IT! I'M NOT IN THE SHOW! I NOTICED! I'VE BEEN SITTING IN THE CORNER TRYING TO BE SMALL ENOUGH THAT YOU WON'T EVEN SEE ME AT ALL, IS THAT ENOUGH?

*Sigh* Days like today, I think about packing it in. Maybe people will start reading my blog in droves, and I'll become a cultural phenomenon and I'll get a book deal out of it. Damn that Julie/Julia Project, creating false hopes.

There's always the lottery for that.

CATS!!!!

Well, I'll be damned. As of tomorrow, we really will open a production of Cats. I am stunned it has come together so well, although my vantage point is somewhat limited. I am not in the show at all, but an ever-changing group of people are singing off-stage at any given time. "Pit-singers", we're called, but we are not actually in the pit at all - there's no room. We're set up in the lobby, where we have: 1) a microphone to sing into - the sound guy mixes us in with the rest of the audio, 2) a monitor so we can hear what's going on onstage, 3) a tv screen with a view of our music director to watch for tempos and cues, and 4) a tv screen with a view of the stage.

When the stage lights are on, all the colors get washed out and everyone on stage looks like a white blob, so it's hard to tell how well the show is actually going, but you can get a feel for it. We've been teching the show for two days (Tuesday from 2pm to 1:30 am, today from 1pm to 5pm before an 8 pm show), and until this evening, we had never run it all the way through without stopping. I thought it might be a train wreck, but it was pretty amazing, at least as far as the white blobs go.

It leaves me with mixed feelings. Yeah, it would have been nice to be in the show. It feels awkward, being here as an actor but apparently being a poor enough dancer that they couldn't find any place to use me in the show. Well, I think the decision also involved the postage stamp that is the stage and how only a certain number of people fit on it when dancing, as well as the ornate and extensive costumes in the show and the impossibility of the shop making even more than they had calculated. But also, I'm not a very good dancer.

So, I've wallowed in a little self-pity about that over the last week or so. Yesterday and today I found the silver lining, which is that I DO finally get a moment to breathe. I have been reading David Copperfield during tech. I did my laundry during the dinner break. I don't have to wear a fuzzy, furry, knitted costume in 90 degree weather. I don't have to apply intense, complicated makeup to look like a cat.

Of course, I get comments like this (from the theatre's photographer): "So, you really are nothing in the show, hunh?"

I can weigh that against the fact that a couple of people tonight said they missed seeing me in this show after the last three, so those kind of comments equal out.

I guess it doesn't matter. I am NOT in the show, no matter whether I feel happy about it or depressed, so I will, as far as possible, choose to be happy.

The really fun part has been the opportunity to sit outside of the show and watch it, and to watch so many of my great co-workers being amazing in it. I may wish I could have been in it somewhere, but it is great to see some people who have been in the background playing small roles suddenly spring into a full life. I have a renewed respect for everyone I work with. Even a couple of people I had secretly decided were terrible have suddenly become incredible with a leotard and some fancy makeup. They are, god forgive me, in it to win it. I'd love to be part of it, but for the moment, I will take the extra rest that comes with singing a handful of numbers and helping with a few quick changes. It is partly a relief to relax into being unimportant.

And hey, I'll have more time to write posts! And they'll be about Cats!

A Glass of Whine

Sometimes, I have discovered, a drink really DOES make it all right. Stunning, isn't it? I have been in a tailspin recently, as we're rehearsing Cats, which (see below) I am not in. I expected to at least get some time off, but it was not to be. I am assigned to understudy someone, so I have been at all the rehearsals anyway. Except that I am in the current kids show.

I'm not sure I can even describe the isanity that is trying to rehearsal and put on a children's show on TOP of the 8 show per week and rehearse the next one scehdule. But I can tell you that we lose a series of dinner breaks because we're having rehearsal. The theatre then buys us pizza as recompense. Then you get the run up: on Thursday, you miss rehearsal from 1pm to 4pm to do all your technical stuff. Then that evening, after a three hour performance, you slap on your kids show costumes and do your dress rehearsal - a dress rehearsal that doesn't usually begin until midnight. THEN, when you finally finish the dress and gets notes, and drag home to bed, you have to get up and be at the theatre at 10 am for an 11 am show. You then rehearse from 12:30 to 6, and go into your hour call for the Friday show, which ends by about 11 pm. Then on Saturday, you do the kid's show again, rehearse 12:30 to 4, and go straight to call for the first of your two shows on a Saturday - a 5pm and an 8:30pm. So Saturday you're called at 10 am and you're there until midnight, a day full of fourteen hours of rehearsing and performing. Then what is funny is that on Sunday, when you finally don't have a kid's show, you actually still have rehearsal at 10 am, and your day runs all the way through strike, which for actors lasts until 1 am.

You can try the math any way you want, but it's not really possible to get enough sleep on that schedule to make it possible to get through a rehearsal of Cats.

Last night I got back to the incredibly hot house at about 1:30 am (we have no air conditioning, and we've had a series of 90 degree days - it's hot), someone had made margaritas for a birthday girl (not me, I didn't tell anyone when it was my birthday, a stupid move, let me confess), and offered me one.

I had been on the phone the entire trip home, crying about how I lack any kind of talent and no one likes me and I should just give everything up because what I've learned is I am incapable of being entertaining. "Oh," I sniffled at last, as I came up to the steps, "They made margaritas."

The wise boyfriend, a better drinker than I, said, "Go drink one. Now. Get off the phone and go drink a big one. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

An hour later, things were looking rosy, and indeed, I newly loved everyone in the house, especially the birthday girl who had me polish off her drink, too.

Apparently, much of my anguish over the years comes from not drinking often enough. And the lovely boyfriend may be right after all - this may be the summer I learn to drink.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Well, Fiddler is done and packed away, and we are on to Funny Girl. The Funny Girl in question has come in just to do this one show, and is a peach of a nice person, open and kind and very excited to be doing the role. Also, she can tap her face off, which is not as usable in the show as one might wish, but she and her tap partner do a really jaw-dropping tap challenge in the second act, in a number called Rat-tat-tat-tat (appropriate, no?). I have been sharing a dressing room with two people who are long-time favorites at the theatre, and have felt very solidly out of place between their endless stories of the past and bizarre rituals and stretching-back-to-high-school history together. I'm thrilled the funny girl is moving in - she has also been at this theatre before, but she never makes me feel like "One of these things is not like the other...." She just treats me like a person.

The dressing room is a volatile place for me, because I do feel I don't belong there. It's the "star" dressing room, and was made into a sort of in-club that I don't have any interest in being associated with - I'd rather be mixed in with all the rest of the "first-year" girls, in what I have come to think of as my place. Sure, I did have a couple of big roles and could use the space for a show or two, but now I really would like to be with my own kind.

It's interesting - the politics here are probably going to get out of hand soon. I hesitate to write about this, because I'm working so hard to keep my opinion to myself. If I were discovered hanging it out on the internet, it would be unfortunate. I think one of these girls acts like a high schooler, instead of an adult several years out of college. She's created a group that she clearly sees as the in-group (those in the know), out of the people who have been at the theatre in past years. They save each other seats at dinner, they go out to dinner together, etc. My perception (possibly wrong) is that the high schooler needs to control this group and who does and doesn't belong, to make up for her lack of success in other areas of her life. You've all spent time with personalities like this - the small person who throws their weight around to prove how important they are.

Up to now, this in-group concept has had little effect, because those of us in the out-group, with a very very few exceptions, have pretty much ignored it and gotten on with hanging out with each other.

But here comes trouble: with Cats rehearsals beginning, we add two more people who have been here before, people who will land firmly in the "in"-group. Which will make that group much bigger and I have a bad bad feeling will change the dynamic into more of a tug-of-war.

To me, you'd get more out of a summer if you could start afresh with the new company each time, build new memories, use the fresh blood to give you new ideas. But then, I try not to shore up how I feel about myself by making other people feel smaller - that just seems a waste of time. (Not to sound high and mighty - I'm certain I've done that in my time, but I TRY not to.)

So, I'm afraid of the new group dynamic on its way. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy Funny Girl and my new warm and gracious dressing room companion, and then hopefully I can keep my head down and my mouth shut through Cats. Maybe then I can escape the summer alive!

A Quickie

Much better mood today, but as a side note to yesterday's post (and by the way, I have always truly loved Becky Meisenbach and owe her a huge email, which I hope to rectify soon...), I came up with a mini list.

CATCH PHRASES I HOPE NEVER TO HEAR AGAIN AFTER THIS SUMMER

(keep in mind most of my fellow workers are college-aged)

1. "He's in it to win it."

This is usually referring to someone's acting. What, exactly, are we trying to "win"? Me, I was trying to tell a story, I wasn't aware we were running a race of some kind. And in other uses, why on earth would you be in it without wanting to win it?

2. Anything being "fierce".

Really. Very little in summer stock musical theatre is that "fierce."

3. "I'll cut you."

Really, does anyone warrant "cutting" when your offense is that you might forget to hang up your apron or shawl?
(As a side note, I still enjoy a good "The Mailman's Got a Knife, He'll Cut You." Much more original.)

And that's enough for tonight. I'll be back tomorrow after losing my home and two of my daughters in Fiddler on the Roof.

Day Off

So we get one day off every two weeks. Always a Monday - it was yesterday. And it just made me incredibly crabby, because when you realize how short a day is, it's depressing.

I like acting as a primary profession, don't get me wrong, but I'm finding it difficult to eat, sleep, breathe, and choke nothing but this theatre and these people. To have just one day to "yourself" and to be dependent on someone who has a car to do something entertaining with that day gets pretty dreary.

I miss my autonomy. I am supposed to be a grown up, able to make my own decisions, but I have little power here. I'm dependent on a ride for anything more than getting to and from the theatre (and even there I need a ride when there's a downpour!), nearly all of my time is allotted throughout a day, and because I live with 11 women in a decrepid old house, it is impossible to keep my living space clean. Neat, sure. Clean, not possible. We don't even have a vacuum cleaner in the house. Of course, I live in the only carpeted room.

So today I am dissatisfied with everything and everyone and I've been snappy throughout the day. All the things you can imagine a gaggle of actors doing have been PISSING ME OFF. Let's have a bullet list for a moment, yes?

-People listening to musicals on their earphones, but singing aloud to them, because of course, you clearly want to hear what they are hearing, which is why they are wearing HEADPHONES

-People telling me how good I am at playing old women. Thanks, really. When I'm 60 I'll actually have work. Great.

-People who can't stop talking - often about something I clearly have no interest in. One girl took 15 minutes to convince me her sorority was the best ever and not like any other sorority and she was very Important in it. I AM 31 YEARS OLD. I WILL NOT BE JOINING YOUR SORORITY AND I DON'T CARE HOW IMPORTANT YOU ARE IN IT.

-The college kids who have no idea life exists outside of college. Someone was all hot and bothered the other day about what shows the college was doing this upcoming year, and I tried to explain that in 5 or 10 years, none of them would be able to REMEMBER what shows they did in college, but it's impossible to convey that the world might be bigger than that.

-The 20 year olds who have already planned their wedding. Sure, it could work, sure, they could be with their current partner forever. It's possible. But likely? No. You know why? Because you probably haven't even begun to know who you are yet.

-The tiny, beauty pagent winner who has a constant diet of sugar. Tonight, chocolate chip pancakes. I have enough trouble not hating her because she's beautiful - throw in the parade of things I like eating but shouldn't (she eats them without a change to her seemingly surgically altered figure - I don't that it has been, but that's how stupid perfect her tiny little body is), and honestly, I am thinking more and more about snapping her body like a dry twig by sitting on it.

-I am really over the fact that we only have one working toliet in a house of 11, soon to be 12. The plumber came to fix one of the two we had, but found that the floor was so rotten that until the floor was repaired, he couldn't replace the toliet. That was last week, and we've had a big gaping hole in the floor ever since. We covered it with a garbage bag because it was unsettling to see the basement through the floor.

-All the people reading who aren't making smart-alecy, Elizabeth-you-know-you're-right comments! I'm stuck here, people, if you have a minute, put your two cents in and say hello! (I know who some of you are, too...)

I should go to bed. Another day, another day to self-medicate the irritation with chocolate and Cheez-its.

Daaaarrrllliiinnnngggg

I think actors are funny. Now, I know I'm technically one of them, and so to class myself outside the bounds seems self-delusional, but I do make a distinction between actors, and "Ac-TORS" (stress on the second syllable). For me, there's a difference between someone who works as an actor and tries to do it well, and the thousands of different combinations of diva and look-at-meism from another kind of actor. I've been lucky in Chicago to work with a lot of the former, people who genuinely want to tell a story. I work with both types here.

Most of the time, I don't mind. Ac-TORS are funny, as they are usually revealing every insecurity they have with every word. The part that has bothered me in the last month is that the people I work with are lavish in their compliments, but I can't trust them. They mean well, but do they actually mean anything at all? I've no idea. I doubt they even know. Much of it is a knee-jerk reaction to working alongside each other - the compliments are because I'm standing there, and they want to be nice. I try not to do the same, I try to say nice things to the people I truly am impressed with, but I have fallen prey to it as well. Sometimes you're stuck in a room with someone and not telling them they are fabulous makes you look like a jerk.

I'd prefer to hear nothing to hearing suspect, possibly empty praise, only because the praise confuses me. I had 10 days of rehearsal. I'm turning out passable performances, not brilliant ones. The constant diet of "wow, you're so talented" bugs me because I know those comments are empty calories, and however much I try to ignore them, there doesn't seem to be much sturdier fare on offer: I don't know if there is anyone here whose comments I could actually trust.

I should be grateful - at least I'm being complimented consistently. If they thought I was dreadful, there would be a suspicous silence. I do get useful criticism on rare occasions as well.

Interestingly, we had a scathing review of Fiddler. The reviewer was a woman who publishes her reviews online, and who had mostly positive things to say about South Pacific (which I though overall was a worse production than Fiddler). She hated our Tevye, thought none of us managed to be "ethnic" enough, and complained we all seemed to be acting in different plays. Teyve was a standup comedian a la Bob Hope, I was playing Golde as Mother Courage, our Lazar Wolf playing in a realistic style and the rest of the children were turning in shiny Broadway performances. It's hard to take this reviewer seriously, a woman who will make such statements as "First and worst don’t rhyme for nothing." In a completely different review, mind you. But somehow, I think she may be right about Fiddler's shortcomings! So it confuses me how she can see the show and hate it, but all we hear from audience members is how good we are.

I guess it's a question of audiences. Our audiences are old. Exceptionally old. And we are churning out a season of live movies for them. Someone backstage complained about not having originality in a show, and I couldn't help saying, "That's not what this theatre is about. That's just not the gig." We're here to give people a live version of something they've already seen. It makes them happy.

And I'm left wondering, is the fact that we're keeping audiences happy enough?

No, really, he's on the Roof, he's a Fiddler

We're already opening Fiddler on the Roof, and it has been quite a ride. Our director, who continues his frightening resemblance to Corky Sherwood in Waiting for Guffman, has been an odd and perniskety guide. The tricky part is that most of what he says is most likely a complete and utter lie, but his direction, though confusing, seems right on target. He'll gesticulate:"I've done 23 productions of Oliver - about ten years ago, I got a call to play, once again, the Artful Dodger [he would have been 50 ish then] and I said, there is not enough clown white to pack under these eyes to do that anymore." And he will give seemingly conflicting advice. Last night: "You don't need to add a character walk for any of these people. Just walk." Tonight: "They've got to be working people, they should walk like they've been working all day. The posture is here [he hunches over]."

Also, he tends to tell you something as if you've been doing it wrong, except he's just never bothered to tell you that before. Night before last I waited around on an entrance because, unbeknownst to me, he'd cut my cue line. Handy to know that, really.

That's the frustrating part - we've had 10 days of rehearsal, all while playing another show, usually twice a day, and tech was nearly the first time we'd ever run the show. So tonight at dress rehearsal when we were doing the show for really the second time ever, still grappling with costume changes and props and just getting things on and off stage, I got a ton of notes about detailed scene work I should be fixing.

But the kicker is, I should be fixing it! It's so frustrating, I don't actually have enough time to absorb all the things I'm being asked to do, I'm barely hanging on, and I feel worried and sad about all the moments I can't yet make work. I wish I could be happy I made it to the stage at all, but I'm not built like that.

I am grateful for several things. One, with the two week schedule we have, there is a scant four days in which we are only concentrating on one show - these are those days, and I am passionately grateful. We start Funny Girl on Friday. I'm also grateful South Pacific is over, over, over, and I never have to be touched by my creepy co-star ever again. Hurrah. I hate to hate him so much, but he was sleazy as well as a bad actor, and I'm happy to be rid of him. The older man playing Tevye is actually really lovely and has been a great joy. It's true, I don't kiss him at all, and that's part of the relief, but I think I would find him easier to kiss because he's at least a nice man trying to do his job well, without endless extraneous comments. I'm equally grateful to be feeling semi-well again. There's still a lot of phlegm of a morning, but at least my throat isn't sore. Singing Nellie twice a day after long rehearsals was wearing me down.

It also occurs to me I'm grateful to be here at all. Now that the evil co-star from hell has gone, I work with nice people putting on shows. Fiddler is a lovely show, great music and a moving story, and it's a pleasure to be doing what I love, even if I still feel I'm doing a sub-par job.

And with that, I head into opening Show Number 2! After tomorrow, two down, four to go!

Fiddler on the Roof

Grrr. Or Yaaayy. Depending on your point of view. The next show is Fiddler on the Roof. I've been cast as Golde, the mother, wife of Tevye (the man who wishes he were rich). This made me quail utterly, for three reasons:

1) I have no free time whatsoever. This woman talks a LOT. When exactly am I going to learn these lines?

2) I am playing Nellie for 8 shows a week while rehearsing Fiddler. Today, for instance, after 4 hours of music rehearsals and 2 separate 3 hour shows of SP, my throat is fried.

3) SSSIIIIIGGGGGHHHHH. I was soo looking forward to shucking off this ridiculous older man playing Emile who is such a dreadful dreadful actor and such an irritating man. And now I am saddled with the next older man, who at least seems much nicer and more talented. I'm told he has notoriously bad breath, but I don't think Golde and Tevye ever actually kiss. It looks, so far, like a much better deal. But there's no getting around the fact that I'm trading one old man for another.


In other news, I ended up in a disturbing conversation today with a different bizarre cast member. I made a comment that he wrongly interpreted as a compliment (it was merely a comment), and he felt duty bound to return the compliment and started telling me that his friend came to see the show and completely bought into the romance between myself and the older man. He says the older man talks in the dressing room about how great I am, which led to "Bob" telling me that when someone feels something in real life, it makes the onstage romance so much more believable.

UUUGGGHHHH. I cannot begin to express how creepy I find the implication that my fellow actor has any excess feeling for me. Kill me now. I want to find more charity in my heart, but when I allow it, I AHBOR that man. And he's telling people in the dressing room how easy it is to look into my eyes....I'm appalled.

Best to stop thinking about it.

By the way, I made a massive error. When I found out I was Golde, I had a minor fit, trying to figure out how I was going to handle learning the lines. This led to the stage manager taking me aside to make sure I was all right, and me generally feeling like a fool. Clearly it's a nice opportunity, and all I did was whine? Sometimes I am stupid like rock.

We met the Fiddler director today, and that made me heave another large internal sigh. I still wish I were just in the company and could escape his attention. He is short, in his sixties, gay, Jewish, and apparently a pathological liar. When he talks, you think you're seeing a cut-rate version of a Broadway gay, high-strung choreographer. His speech to the company today was strewn with highly suspicious embellishments and pointless condescending "advice". He claims his bar mitzvah was held at the Wailing Wall and 100 family members flew over to attend. He claims to have been the actual Fiddler on the roof in a production directed by Jerome Robbins. He tells us that we are getting paid to do what we would do for free, and being rewarded by applause. People with 8 figure bonuses never get that, he says. (I don't think that's true.) If you want to know who you are, look at the people who love you, but if you want to know if you're good, look at the people who respect you. (I'm not sure that's exactly true either, but it does sound nice - like he's got an aphorism notebook somewhere.)

I spent the whole time rolling my eyes. Clearly, there's no room for anything in the room except this guy's ego. I'll let you know how I manage to survive. Or if.

Photo is from the show (if the upload works) - me as Nellie (in Honey Bun) with the rest of the girls who are fabulously dressed, and I hope will all play leads before the summer is over.

And just to brag, I date the cleverest, most lovely man ever - he sent me a package of mix CDs - one for each week we've been apart, each themed. Week one has songs about missing someone, week two (opening night) has a dozen songs about roses (including a truly unique version of The Rose by Conway Twitty) and week three is about travel: he's coming to visit.

He's the greatest.

More drama as it unfolds.

Opening of South Pacific

So much happens so quickly when you put a show up in ten days. The last few nights, I have chosen to go to bed at 2 am instead of updating here, but here are some highlights I'll have to abbrevaiate (tonight I'm staying up an extra 30 minutes for this!):

We have one house member, who I'll call Lulu, who is utterly, mind-bogglingly young and dim. This girl couldn't find her dishes when we put them in the cupboards. No, really: "Has anyone seen my colander? It was in the drying rack...oh, it's here in the cupboard?" She's only 19, I think, and clearly wants a lot more attention than any of us have the patience to give her. We all want to slap her. During tech, all the girls got into their "playtime" costumes for SP's "wash That Man" number. These costumes are very 40's and very cute: bathing suits with super squared off legs, little patterned tops, one girl has a leopard print belt with matching leopard bandana and sunglasses - completely Hollywood! Everyone looks adorable. Lulu is, I'll grant you, in a pink bathing suit with her hair in two braids, but she was so entranced with this costume that she had the poor taste to say, OUT LOUD, to all the other girls:

"Oh, look! I'm the cute one! I didn't know they were going to make me the cute one!"

I should take bets on how long it will take before someone actually does physically injure her. Some day ask me for my impression of her explaining how she fell off the stage the other day during a dance number.

To change the subject, I am ambivalent to report that the cast list for Cats went up early, and my name appears no where at all upon it. As in, currently, I have no role whatsoever in the show. There are rumors of "pit singers" - I am one of about 4 or 5 company members missing from the cast list, so we're not sure what they'll do with us. I admit, it's a blow. (How clearly can a choreographer put it that your dancing sucks if not to sinply leave you out of a show??) But on the other hand, I don't yet know what kind of nightmare I'll be avoiding by not being in the show. So, the jury's out. More on that two cycles later, when we actually start rehearsing it.

Tomorrow the cast list goes up for the next show: Fiddler on the Roof. I am hoping to have a small role so as to be able to concentrate on Nellie in SP, but we'll see. The rumors have been flying. Our director from SP calls these casting days "Black Fridays" because so many people are disappointed.

SP is open. We did two performances today, the afternoon to an audience even older than I could have imagined. (We have slots for wheelchairs, and we ALWAYS use them. ALWAYS.) Sadly, I think I killed one of the audience in a blackout, while hauling a crate offstage. The show is fine - I feel a little wooden about it, because the guy playing Emile really is not my cup of tea. (Twnety+ years in sales explained a little of that to me - you can imagine.) I want to be good enough to act beyond him, but he gives me very little to play against. Even our director has been heard to say he plays the role like Captain Kirk. He's gotten a lot better, and he still sounds beautiful singing, he's just very condescending, which for me ruins the romance of Nellie and Emile. She says the attraction is that they are the same kind of people - well, if he's busy winking at her and thinking how "cute" she is, it's more like he's looking for a daughter and she's looking for a father. Creepy. I want to be able to think past his performance, but I just can't seem to find the emotional depth I'm looking for. It's all mechanical. Shame. It's not bad, it just lacks life, and as much as these audiences may not notice the difference, I know there is one and wish I could make the leap.

And yes, he does wink at me on stage, despite childishly denying it to our director during notes yesterday. People are crazy here.

I have a ton of good excuses for my mechanical performance: Emile's dreadful, we've only had ten days, blah, blah, blah, but they are excuses. I wish I knew how to get beyond them to a fuller performance. Maybe I'll discover it over the 2 week run.

In the meantime, I need to get some sleep if I have any chance at doing a good show tomorrow. More dish then, and more of the ridiculous backstage snafus that have been going on. Plus, tales of the Turnpike, the dive bar down the road we go to on opening nights. Until then, g'night. Acting advice will be welcomed if it doesn't involve pretending to be a tree.

IV

Our director is incredibly useful and switched on - everyone seems to love him, partly because he is friendly and doesn't take himself or the play too seriously, and partly because his notes are practical: "Make your voice higher there," or "Make sure you plant so you have enough support for that line." He doesn't tell you how to feel, he gives you help on what to DO, which helps shortcut a lot of confusion when you have a whole 10 days to put a show together.

I thought I was the only one getting irritated with the leading man. He's clearly talented, and has a beautiful voice, but he spends so much time apologizing or giving explanations for a mistake that I would love this to be a play in which I slap the man silly. He's always full of wind blown compliments that I just can't take seriously, and on top of the hemming and hawing, adds a lot of useless, "Oh, we'll make it work," and "That's our job, to give you directors what you want!"

For instance, in the middle of a scene, he might break character and turn his head and say, "What's that line? Damn, I can never get that right, I don't know what my problem is. I had it last night, but now it's just gone. Well, I'll get it. That's my job!" Then we can finally continue with the work. EVERY mistake gets some variation of this palaver.

So our director, bless him, mentions today that if we forget something, we should just stay with the moment and call for a line. Great, I think, wonderful. I am not the only person who noticed this. I was sitting nearby when maybe 5 minutes later, we got yet another oh-so-sorry monologue, and I could hear our director mutter under his breath, "God, Sam! Just stay with the damn scene!!!"

It's nice to find you aren't alone in an irritation.

SS III

Why, oh, why, Lord, is this theatre doing Cats? I know, I know, it isn't until later in the season, but still. Have I explained the season? Two weeks each for the following:

South Pacific
Fiddler on the Roof
Funny Girl
Cats (!)
Guys and Dolls
Gigi

Except Cats gets three weeks. THREE weeks of misery - what are they thinking??? Oh, they expect to sell tickets, I'm sure, but I can't be sure it will be worth it even to them...the costume folk began sewing for Cats in April. April. A trillion actors are coming in just for Cats. Ugh.

In other excitement, we've managed to block and choreograph the entire show (South Pacific) in six days - or will if we finish it off tomorrow. Oh, did I mention we're working in the round? The stage is a square surrounded by four banks of seats, each slightly stacked. We fly along, setting up moves and then running scenes over and over to get the moves to sink into our brains. The dance sequences are murder because after the dance call last weekend (see SSII), I feel terribly self-conscious about my dancing, yet I'm forced by the play to dance for seemingly interminable sections by myself. So the worst dancer in this crew is left to her own devices to prance around making an idiot of herself while everyone else just sits back and snickers behind their hands.

My fellow cast members are sweet, actually, they never noticably snicker, and I've heard from several of them that I make an "adorable" Nellie. I'm pleased to hear the compliment, obviously, but we're actors, after all. Truckloads of salt are needed whenever we tell each other anything complimentary:

"Oh Darling, you were wonderful. I couldn't take my eyes off you."
Transalation: I was mesmerized by your true awfulness and why on earth did you get that role when I would have been much better.

"My Precious! You were divine!"
Translation: I can't wait until the dreadful review of you appears in the papers: I plan to clip it out and frame it.

In yet other news, I witnessed a mild meltdown today by our truly lovely hair and wig person, who was both embarassed and tearful at her sudden inability to do my hair for a photo call. "They're gonna yell at me," she sniffled, and it was heart-breaking, really. She seemed so thrown by the situation, when usually she's a brash ball of attitude. I guess the brashness covers the fear of being yelled at - I tried to talk her down, because my hair just didn't seem that important and I hated to see her so upset for a trifle. I guess theatre does attract "dramatic" personalities but gracious, people, we're not doing surgery here.

It's just a show. And it goes up in a week. Eeek!

It is an education to work at this speed. I'll report back after our first run-through...

Summer Stock II

Days one and two are complete, and were completely different. Sometimes you fear the worst and are pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Sometimes you grit your teeth and decide whatever happens, happens, but when it happens, it's horrifying.

Day one. We still weren't very well informed, but we were given some rules, a cast list, scripts and some musical review. It's a start. I was worried about the wordless judging that goes on the first time you hear a lead actor sing his or her role. I'm not above such judging: I will size up whoever is cast in the next show (Fiddler on the Roof), , so I know everyone has their ears open to see if I deserve this, if I should be singing Nellie in South Pacific. I can't lie - it was scary. I can only sound how I sound, I can't make them like or dislike my voice, but I wanted to feel I was good enough to do this. I have been ignoring the fact that this is my first lead role in a musical, ever. I've been in tons of musicals. I've had solos in quite a few of them. I've played the lead in non-musicals. But I've never had a starring role in a musical. I am trying to pretend that fact isn't true, because it will only make me more nervous. I don't want to tell people it's my first lead in a musical because if I say it before the show, it sounds like an excuse, and I think excuses are a waste of time.

Especially beforehand.

So it was my own opinion I was curious to test as well. When I sang, would I sound good enough to deserve to play this role?

Happily, I can report I did. I sound pretty good, and while of course other people sound just as good and sometimes better, I'm pleased overall with the singing. I sound ok, I have pretty good control over what's coming out of my mouth, I can follow direction. I am at least somewhat off book (that is, memorized).

Sadly, all that good momentum got shot to hell today, with our dance call for Cats.

We had a two hour audition with the choreographer for Cats, during which we learned three combinations and performed each in groups of 3.

(Oh, yeah, later in the season we're doing Cats. Complete with ridiculously complicated dancing. I say ridiculous because the stage is maybe 10 feet by 10 feet. )

I know I'm not a dancer. I did not expect to suddenly become a dancer today. But I can't help being saddened by the fact that I SUCKED.

I'm a perfectionist, true, and hard on myself, and I'm not sure what the choreographer thought, I'll admit, but there's just no getting around the fact that I have no extension, no flexibility, and a distinctly muddled understanding about how the moves I'm seeing should be communicated to my feet.

It makes me sad, because I like dance but I'm clearly not trained or good at it. I truly fear two things that may happen from this audition: I won't be allowed to be onstage at all in Cats and, much, much worse, I won't be allowed to be a Hot Box girl in Guys and Dolls. The Hot Box girls are so fun. They get to sing nasal, whiny choruses and do a strip tease - who wouldn't want to be a Hot Box Girl?!?

Ah, well. I am trying so hard to be a grown up, to accept that I won't always be perfect. I am trying not to let my self-confidence plummet just because I lack the ability to change direction on a maxi-step.

I hope I'm good at something else in recompense. Flossing, for instance, or taking care of lepers. Something to make up for the lack of dance in my life.

I hope whatever thing that is, I find it and think of it throughout Guys and Dolls while I'm in the Salvation Army instead getting to be a sexy, stripping Hot Box Girl. "Floss, floss, floss," I'll be thinking, banging that bass drum and singing Follow the Fold.

Look for that expression on my face. That'll be weeks 11 and 12.

Summer Stock

Ok, people, I have crossed over into an alternate universe. Everyone plays show tunes, in their car, in their stereos, in their iPods. All the boys are gay, and fabulous dancers. There is a definite atmosphere of summer camp, and everyone is engaged in that I-must-tell-you-my-life-story dance that goes with meeting people for the first time. I've heard the phrase, "we're going to be best friends" at least six times.

I am doing summer stock. Now, don't get me wrong, I like these people, and I am fully prepared to enjoy myself. I think we're going to have a great time. But I also see people already giving themselves away and it is cracking me up. Some classic first sentences from these folk:

"Look at me, I'm already yelling in the house!"

"Charlie was the first gay man I was ever in love with."

"We brought all of Hannah's hair..." This last was said as a large, see-through box of hair pieces and wigs came out of the minivan. How does one end up with such an assortment of personally owned wigs??

The minivan contingent made me laugh anyway - girls arriving flanked by relatives and ensconced in massive vehicles filled with their things. We had the mother, grandmother, brother combo, also the mother/brother duo, and a very gruff father that did all the heavy lifting. These are people who brought with them boxes of canned green beans, George Foreman Grills, extra microwaves. It is a madhouse of people who have not all made the break from home.

To be fair, a lot of these folks are still in college. Enough said.

When I say all of the boys are gay, I mean they are all boys, and ALL gay.

Oh, and the house...

I am also living in a Scooby-Doo episode. The house is a rickety, spider-infested firetrap of an old house with a scary attic and creey basement to boot. It's a charming old house, and with some work, would be a gorgeous place to live, but it was bought run-down and years of only being lived in during the summer has left lots of dirty corners and vermin. The boys live in the equally run-down carriage house in back. We've got 11 girls in 8 bedrooms with 2 bathrooms. Hmmm.

I got in by myself at about 1:30 am the other night. No one had told me that someone was IN the house, and no one had told that someone that I might be coming in late, so I basically gave her the fright of her life. I was in the midst of a phone call: "Yeah, honey, I'm fine, it's just that the house is really old and creepy and there's no one here, and... YAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!....*click*.

It was fine. It was just I'd given one of my roommates a heart attack as I wandered around checking out the house. She thought I was an intruder and hid under the covers hoping desperately that I'd just go away.

It was quite an introduction.

In the meantime, don't let all this gossip fool you. I have my own insecurities that I'm sure show as much as the ones I'm noticing in my compatriots. But I'm trying to keep my mouth shut and watch everyone else.

Gotta go - more stories to listen to - more people to figure out.

Tales from the front will follow.

Change

The hard part about trying to change your life is what to do when it actually changes. I went trotting off to these auditions in NYC looking for a change. They were, quite frankly, depressing on so many levels, but they went well, and I got several offers. I've actually taken one of the offers, Memorial Day to Labor Day, 6 plays in 14 weeks. With any luck I can take my computer and give bulletins from afar.

Work is what I wanted. I got work. I get four months completely free of an office, working my butt off as an actor, which is EXACTLY what I wanted. So of course, now I am petrified. And I don't want to go.

Actually, that fear is a good sign. I always get it before good experiences. I dread them, I fight against the oncoming growth and excitement and long to burrow my head in the sand and do nothing. Then the thing I am dreading almost always turns out beautifully. But that doesn't stop me from dreading and fearing it, NO!

I remember the moment I realized I must secretly like change. I was waiting for a train, watching the pigeons flirt with the red and green ceiling, thinking about how much I hate change, when it dawned on me how much change I had forced myself into over the years. I had been bouncing from place to place, trying new lives on like sunglasses, always moving forward to find the next part of my life. Wow, I thought, if I really hated change, surely I would have just stayed in one of those places and tried to make a go of it.

In a way, I've done that in Chicago, with success, stayed put and tried to make things work. But now I'm restless, and rather than just suppress the restlessness, I'm going somewhere new to meet new people.

I know I'll learn, but, boy, I hope I have fun.

Cocktail Party

I got an invitation yesterday. A lovely watercolour of a white front door with red flowers blooming around it, overlaid with see-through paper printed in a refined font with lots of flourishes, invited me to a cocktail party in honour of my cousin and his fiance, who are getting married in June. The party is in South Carolina, in a little town called Trenton. Trenton is only about four streets wide by three streets long, and that's not an exaggeration. It's where my great grandmother held court until she was buried at the Ebeneezer Baptist Church. She likely had some reservations about being buried in the Baptist Cemetery, as she was a loyal Presbyterian, but according to my grandmother (her daughter), somehow all the cemeteries are Baptist.

I can't go to this cocktail party, but I wish that I could. A longing came to me like a flock of birds settling in a tree. There's something about that place that seems to own me. The streets are named for my ancestors, the town is full of my distant cousins, and even forgetting those connections, there's something necessary about celebrating a family event. I may exaggerate the historical significance of the place, since I didn't grow up there and have very few memories of that community, but the fact is that the nucleus of my mother's family is there, like the hub of a wheel.

My feeling of identification with the location is, I'll admit, Romanticizes. Another cousin was a teacher at the high school in this area for years - a school that until very recently, held separate proms for black and white students. I find that idea mind-boggling, but that's part of the reality of that community. The South is a complicated place, and I love its complexity, but I can't deny I am naive to much of its limitations.

So I have an acknowledged advantage when I think of home - I think of the fine and the beautiful things. I may be hundreds of miles away, I may live in a much more liberal place, but I appreciate a community that throws parties for its young brides and bridegrooms, and I appreciate that my family has been a part of that community for a very, very long time.

And while I may not agree with everyone's politics, I sure wish I could fly down and have a drink with those people.

Other worlds

So I'm broke. What else is new? What's new is that I shouldn't be broke. There are checks for work I did over three months ago that should be in my hot little hands. But they aren't. I can see the downside to non-equity acting. I am beginning to believe that no one ever gets paid in this business, that all agencies simply prey on your willingness to take crap because you "have to start somewhere" and if you finally make noise, they replace you with another eager young thing.

But I have to admit, the sums of money coming to me seemed massive at first, until I realized the very prosaic uses to which those sums must be put - debt, savings, health insurance. Depressing. I don't even have credit card debt, the way so many of my fellow 30-somethings do - I should by all rights be ROLLING in money! I live within my means! I give at least a paltry sum to charity!

The biggest problem with the three-four month wait for money you make on acting gigs is this: by the time the money comes through your door, you have spent it in imagination so many exotic and fabulous ways that having to put it in safe and reasonable places feels anticlimactic. You've had endless time to think about that money, to make plans for it, split it into happy sub-monies that will make so many accounts bigger. You've cut the pie over and over, trying to work out how to feed all the many, many guests.

Of course, some people have literally spent the money before it comes. I've only sort of done that. Heh.

Domesticity

Mardi Gras: so Hank made me gumbo and we played Scrabble last night. Frighteningly domestic - I might as well be sixty-five. I lost at Scrabble. I'm a better loser than most people - games are games, it takes special circumstances to make me feel bad about losing. I feel bad about failing in life, but not losing a game.

I can't help feeling a little guilty at how much fun something simple like our evening was: kick-ass, slow-cooked gumbo (chicken, sausage, AND shrimp), and a friendly round of word jamming. It is actually word jamming, since we play on a Travel Scrabble, which makes you snap the tiles into place so sudden movement won't jar them.

Part of the fun of the evening was allowing myself to eat. I am dieting - back on the wagon today - because I head off to NYC for some auditions in late March and want to look my best. I don't consider myself fat, not at all, but I'm trying to be as trim as is possible. It's a cattle call - I refuse to be dismissed for an extra five pounds. So the poundage is on its way off. I took a break in the diet for Mardi Gras, however. While I was at it, I made sure to eat pancakes yesterday, too. It was heaven. I've been making supremely healthy choices for about two weeks now, I can't tell you how gratifying it was to eat without compunction. Raaaahhhh.

So now I'm back to being good for the next three weeks. It's not torture, I don't starve myself. In fact, it's nice to put the brakes on for a change. Then, when the diet is lifted, food tastes so scrumptious, so decadent.

I'm looking forward to eating bacon again. Apologies to the Jews and Muslims, but bacon is delicious.

Time Flies When You're Being Evicted

Goodness. It's been two months since I spoke a word here at all. I have indeed been pushed out of two places to live in the meantime, so if anyone was wondering where I've been, I've been itinerant.

Today I'm sitting in a ghost world.

I work with a law firm - I fill in for secretaries when they aren't here, among other tasks. I dislike it, and I dislike the firm more and more as time passes. When first started here, I was full-time, and I worked for two lawyers, mainly, with some extra tasks thrown in by other people. One of them was the reason I was hired here. I temped for Ric for two days in December of 2001, and as I hadn't done much legal work, I kept my mouth shut and tried to follow his corrections. He was an graying, bespectacled man given to wearing bow ties and his fedora, and his bookcases were full of Best Short Story collections or philosophy books or new fiction like The Life of Pi. Not law books. I thought he was very business-like and serious but couldn't help making a sidelong comment about the case we were drafting documents for - two brothers in an all-out fight for control of the family company. Ric was at the marble counter by this desk, and he stopped for a second and looked at me, with an impish grin, and said, "Oh, yes, the furniture is FLYING."

And eventually, months later, he talked me into coming to work for him, which I never did like, not even a little. But he turned out to be a very interesting guy - well-read and interested in people, and taking all of life with that wry sense of humor that a man who wears bow-ties must have. I quit a years or so into it, but needed the money enough to keep working at the firm on a part-time, flexible basis.

I never missed his frantic pace or his incessant waste of paper or his occasional stress blowups, but I missed chatting with him day to day, and he always had a sly smile and a joke for me when we crossed paths in the office. He was one of the few lawyers who was truly good to his secretary on a daily basis, even if he rarely put much effort into secretaries day or Christmas. He spent time on pro bono cases, did favors for friends, threw a surprise birthday party for his wife, doted on his only son. He had a sense of humor, and a feeling that the world was much much bigger than his law office. He did not compromise who he was but he was willing to learn and grow and experience something new.

A year ago, he died of a heart attack, quite suddenly, while on vacation with his family. He was 57, I think. His son was 21. The partners of the firm called us into the conference room and told us what they knew, and a week later we all went to the visitation and funeral. He'd been cremated and his signet ring and glasses were on the table behind his wife. I told her I used to work for Ric and she immediately exclaimed, "Oh, you're the actress!" The idea that he'd gone home and told his wife about the secretary who was really an actress was touching.

I find it much harder to work here without him. But today, of all days, I'm back at my "old" desk, which is right outside his old office. His elegant, tasteful furniture is gone, and the room is piled with extra files and chairs and cabinets that the office doesn't have any other place for, but from here I can only see the edge of the door, like always. I want him to be in that office, and come out with yet another draft for me. No, I don't, not really. Because I don't like working here and if I were to wish him alive, I'd give him the option of retiring. But I do wish that he could be here on earth somewhere, so that when I spy a fedora or a bow tie, it might be him after all.

Strange to see your story end

I rode the el train last night from Harlem to the city sitting in the front seat looking through the window. It was beautiful - dark patches of unpopulated streets intermittently punctuated with sparkly Christmas frippery. I used to ride the front seat of the top layer of the London buses in the same way - walkman plugged in, unwinding a soundtrack of love and loss and all the while, riding the sound, riding the streets, I was high above it, myself and everyman. London is doing away with doubledecker buses, so I won't be able to do that again.

But last night I was blissfully alone. The Green Line out to the west is nearly a straight line, and using it to inch closer and closer to the city you can feel the activity of the Loop like a homing device, or a planet drawing you into its orbit.

I love that the tracks are elevated. It lends a superiority to mass transit, that as you wait, you stand above the milling, confused commuters in cars. It's far better than being plunged deep in the earth for having the temerity to use public transportation.

Now if it weren't so dishearteningly cold, it might have been a perfect evening.

Polygraph

I ran out of things to read on the train the other night, and the only thing I had instead was a journal. (Those of you who know it can insert the Oscar Wilde quote for themselves - it's Make Your Own Allusion Day here at t&t) I keep an exceedingly fitful journal, sometimes months or even years pass with nothing making it onto a page.

The bit I read the other night started in April of 2004, and so much has shifted since then. But here's the strange thing - it's like opening a series of Russian dolls, as I move farther along, I discover the things that I seek, and yet the real need is just beyond that discovery. Or maybe it's more like Super Mario Bros. - when you master a level, there's a new level just beyond that, with completely new quirks and secrets and skills to gain.

In keeping with the simile, I have jumped up to a new level, and there is hardly time to celebrate without realizing that this level has a brand new set of issues and goals. It's exciting, though, because in making discernible progress, I suddenly feel all goals are achievable with time.

What makes me Miss Pollyanna all of a sudden? In the midst of realizing I don't want an acting career at the expense of having a family I care about (and I use the definition of family loosely - pets, boyfriends, friends, stray relatives, etc.), I booked my first national voice over commercial and was asked to be in a show in the fall without an audition, strictly on the merit of my recent performance. I feel...and I hesitate to call it this, because pride goeth before a fall...I feel...successful. It's euphoric.

Success is in the eye of the beholder, and I have a lot farther to go, but this is still a big step forward for me. I'd love to make more of my money from commercial work. You have to start somewhere and I have finally started.

That's how I described it yesterday. I can start living the next part of my life, the part where I am doing more of what I want and less of what I don't want.

Acting is a strange business, and there is no job security, so I may book this and then go straight back to obscurity - that's possible. But I feel the power of what I can do, and I believe I have enough work ethic to get more work. I'm not sure I'll ever win a Tony but I hope to be a dependable actor, a journeyman.

So I read my journal from April 2004. A lot of the things I longed for then are now part of my life. Time to set up a whole new set of goals. And this time, I know achieving them is a matter of time, not talent.

Surge

I'm broke. My quasi-regular job has just assigned me the equivalent of those impossible tasks you read about in fairy tales - collect the feathers of a thousand birds, or find the one silver straw among millions of, well, straw-coloured ones. I need to make friends with mice, or rabbits, or some other helpful work source. Although with this task, I need mice and rabbits that READ.
I am tempted to up and quit today. I am suspicious that this task has been created to make me do that. But, see above, I'm broke. So, I must begin the task. Maybe after lunch.

I am less broke than this morning, however, in that I now have money to pay my rent and other bills that are coming due right now. This morning, I had $58. Total.

Part of the broke-ness is waiting for money that has not yet arrived. Part is a committment I made to put money in responsible places for a while (like, say, an IRA, or towards a debt I have).

I do feel fairly sunny and positive, however, and I think that's because being broke is not the drain being in debt is. Being broke is a bummer. It keeps you from doing things. You cook your own meals from things you have had frozen for months. But being in debt can make you lose sleep, or your hair (which, frankly, you can't afford, I've seen your pillow of a morning), or your ability to think about anything other than the debt.

So, I'm happily broke. It could be worse.

Ten Women. Two Days. Toffee.

I managed to have an adventure a few weeks ago. I did a two day industrial shoot for a product that shall remain nameless. The shoot was set up in a single family home - the family was away in Africa on vacation, we were told, and although they left behind the furniture and most of the furnishings, there was very little clutter, which made it seem like a model home and which led me to suspect some of their personal belongings had been moved off site while a film crew invaded their home. The shoot was set up like a gathering at someone's home, with a total of ten women involved.

Now, I could detail the shoot, and how much waiting around there was, and how the catered lunches were wonderful and how it was a really fun experience to be paid for being an actor, put up in a hotel room and given per diem and things like that. I could talk about that, but what was really fascinating was the people! However, I may have crippled my ability to do so, because the first day involved a massive, massive error on my part:

Ten women are wandering through the upstairs, lounging on the beds, examining the furniture, and generally making small talk to move the day along. (This could be the beginning of a fabulous murder mystery.) One of these women has her laptop out, which leads to a desultory discussion of blogs and websites (we range from "I update my blog everyday" to "I never could see the point of having an email address until very recently....computers are greek to me"), and I say, "I have a blog, but it's not a big deal. I think maybe three people read it."

"What's the address?" she asks, perky and interested.

And I told her. As well as a couple of other people who were in the room and who asked later.

Now, that's not a huge problem. But for the most part, I have been content with my small virtual space where I could say what I wanted and no one would be looking. I'm not so obnoxious as to imagine any of those women are checking this page regularly, but the very idea that they COULD, that they might stumble back upon it, leads me to an unhappy conclusion.

I can't write down exactly what I thought about it all. Because it's work, and I could run into these people again, and it's unwise to bite the hand that feeds. Not that I have much to say in the negative column, but I can't even make fun of them! It would be rude!

So I've been stymied as to how to talk about my adventure, because I have to come up with a edited way of approaching it.

I'm beginning to see why so many people turn to fiction.

Maybe it was good I wasn't there

My Love Biscuit was away for a wedding this past weekend, which time away I enjoyed, though I wish I could have been at this wedding, as it sounds amazing. (Crepe station at the reception, anyone?)

His friend who got married was the last of his high school friends to marry, and at they are all in their late 30's now, he got a lot of prodding about when HIS wedding would be. He's the only single one left, you see.

Now, to be fair, he is hepped up on the idea of marriage. I am the one standing in the way. My friend Michael suggested I have a t-shirt made that would say "I'm the Problem" to wear to events like this. True, true.

Anyway, I have been completely ruined by a photo taken of us at another wedding this summer. One look at the photo (above) and the whole group of his friends nodded their heads, as if one person, and said, oh, yeah, let us know when your wedding is.

Damn photo. If we didn't look so bleedin' happy....

Forward but not upward

I have a headache. Because I've been eating tons of chocolate. Otherwise...
Overall, I'm grumpy. I would like to be working as an actor, or if not, something to do with acting. I am still working, currently 4 days a week, in an office. I am working a lot in an attempt to hack away at a long outstanding debt and to throw money into an IRA, but there is nothing challenging to do here. Yet I can't leave, because who else would let me write my own schedule?

Part II: This week, being here pays off, because I booked my first ever industrial two day shoot and I was able to say, hey, I'm not coming in for 2 days next week. I won't make a ton of money, but it should be worth doing, and it will be a New Experience. I need one desperately.

I guess progress is being made, but it feels sooooo sloooooow. I don't need "drama" in the classic sense, but I do need challenge, and that has been in precious short supply. Watching "Joe versus the Volcano" the other night, I noticed that line about how most of the people in the world are asleep. I've been feeling like that. I mean, this has been my workplace for THREE YEARS. But again, it allows me the money and freedom to GO on auditions and yet still get paid. Right now I have the freedom to work 4 days a week because I have a show on Friday. It's incredibly flexible, and I won't get that anywhere else.

Except for the fact that I dislike it intensely, it's a great job.

Romantically, everything is healthy and happy and fine. My (what do I call him? Sweetheart? Love? Smootchie face?) paramour and I talk about getting married and I just don't know. He's super fun to date, he'd be a great person to go through life with, but I can't see into the future. How long will my life be like this? Will it change into something more artistic? We're both poor - how could we ever have children? Heck - we're both poor, how could we ever have INSURANCE?

The more I analyze the kinds of worries and problems I'm having (and it's me, so clearly I do this often), the more I notice a pattern - the "rest of life" looms, and I don't feel equipped to move into it. I haven't made money, I haven't established myself in my chosen profession, I haven't married into a place in life. How do I get older without achieving anything visible? Or rather, how can I be content to age without seeming to move forward?

Outside of it all

On the train, after a stressful situation was competently handled, I relax reading Simon Gray's The Smoking Diaries. It's lovely - irascible and unapologetic, Gray simply writes down whatever he needs to. He has turned 64 and seen his friend Ian Hamilton die. Within the first twenty pages, Gray has dinner with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia (Fraser, the writer and biographer), and Pinter announces he has cancer.

I don't adore Gray's plays - I saw the critically trounced Cell Mates in London on its debut, Valentine's Day, 1995 (or 94?), and remember being seriously underwhelmed, even before the reviews did their dirty work. But this book, in which he putters along, speaking of his famous writer friends and looking kindly but honestly back at his youth and wishing he'd studied Anglo-Saxon more thoroughly so he'd know more about the origin of the word shiffen, this book soothes me. I think it eases some fret in me that he is an intellectual and feels no need to apologize for that. That he can argue about Auden not being a good poet without anyone taking him to task for his elitism. It is a world I miss, and yearn for, and, truth be told, am not really smart enough to belong in. I like Auden, and know barely any Latin, much less Anglo-Saxon.

The book eases my malaise so much that when a man sits next to me in the train, I have enough room in my brain to notice the wonderful smell of his coffee - clearly a flavoured roast, hazelnut, perhaps, or almond. He's studying a book about foundations, the page neatly blocked in diagrams.

The otherness of a life spent studying foundations further soothes me, like a french window into a new idea sliding open to allow a breeze.

I wish I could go to college again. Now I'm ravenous for knowledge, now I care less for the grades and more for the sheer knowing grace of grappling with the new idea. I'm still more at home arguing plays and poetry than philosophy, but I'm like to branch out into anthropology, biology again, maybe buckle down at a language. Who am I kidding? Languages are my stumbling block, and ever will be. C'est la vie. I'll bet - I'll hope I'm spelling that wrong and proving my point.

I love reading. I feel very sorry for people who don't or can't read, because I feel I have entry into whole worlds they deny themselves or are denied. I'm extroverted in company when the occasion allows, but some child in me longs always for a quiet space and a book to ride into the wind. When I read I become engrossed, so that conversation directed at me has to penetrate a thick haze ("I'm sorry, what?"), and any interruption aggravates, even sleep. Last night I made up my mind, after losing yet another whole night's sleep to a book, that if I ever have children, I will enforce lights out with an iron hand - all flashlights will be confiscated! As a child I found any loophole I could to keep reading whatever was at hand, thus beginning a habit that keeps me sleepy by day. Like all parents trying to root out the parts of themselves they dislike, my plan is doomed to failure, I should think.

In closing, I have the impulse to apologize for the last-post-but-one. I catalog the impulse, but I do not apologize. In the calm of another day, my rightness (or wrongness) is not as important as my shock that so few people even try to get things right - not intrinsically right, per se, but at least as right as they can. I deplore the thought that a person's objection to my personality could obscure the possibilities of my ideas (i.e., your smartness threatens me, therefore I will dismiss you as being too intellectual), but my own tantrum at not being respected reflects the same kind of thinking. I must decide I have something I want to say and say it, then whether or not people listen is external, and secondary.

And I still think I'm right

I'm frustrated. A friend of mine wrote a play, and I'm involved in a reading of about ten pages, and last night we had a rehearsal. I have very strong views about this play, though I have a sneaking feeling I have no objectivity left in this friendship, and thus my views are suspect.

I've read most of my friend's plays, and I think he's a good writer, but I've known him about five years now, and I have formed ideas about what he's trying to say, as many of his plays have similar themes and characters. (That's not a criticism - so does Chekhov, so does Tennessee Williams, so do many great writers.) I admit to feeling a little on the inside of his work, as if I know more about it than an outsider. This, I have realized, may or may not be true.

I went to the rehearsal with very clear comments and criticisms, and first, found there was no forum to air these, as my role had gone from "well-informed friend" to "reader of scene controlled by director", and second, found that the problems I had with the play were not universal, as several other actors disagreed with my views.

I'm shocked that not everyone shares my aesthetic for clarity. And I'm shocked that because I want clarity, there's an inference that I think I'm smarter than the rest of the group. This infuriates me, because I then waste time trying to play low status to make my point in a non-threatening manner, a ploy that probably doesn't work. I am thrown back to a college professor who graded a play journal of mine and wrote the comment: "It makes me sad to see someone so young have such strong opinions."

This comment and others like it have shut me up and haunted me for years. I have been told over and over again than no one wants to hear what I think, and certainly no one wants me to talk about myself. And I have accepted this as true, because it is. Even this blog is an effort, because I can't imagine what I might have to say that someone would find enlightening.

I am angry. Enough. When do I get the right to speak? When am I old enough to have opinions? Is there a day when I get to stop apologizing for having some thing to say and people will just listen to me say it?

Yes, maybe it's me. Maybe if I could train my ear not to be upset by this kind of comment, perhaps I would command the kind of respect I'm looking for. But the lesson has been hammered in for too long by too many to just shrug off.

The title of this post does not refer to the fact that I think my comments are unarguable, inherent. But if I say, this is unclear, I didn't know what this meant, don't fob me off with, well, people speak unclearly. Of course they do. But if you're trying to tell a story in a scant two hours, you need to chose every piece of information that goes into that story. If you PLAN to confuse, fine, that's a choice, but don't pretend your laziness makes you more authentic.

Someday, I will bear down on some script like an angel of the apocalypse and there will be no mercy. Of course, in a just world, that script would be mine, but as we've established, no one is interested in what I have to say.

An adventure

I'd like one, please. An adventure. 'Sfunny, I spend about eight hours every weekend playing out someone else's adventure, and yet I'm surprised as how much I want my own. I've always threaded the line between the responsible and the devil-may-care, but I've been trying to feed more money, time and energy into responsibility lately. I'm sure it's very grown up and forward thinking, but I'm feeling very trapped. Ugh. I feel an escape coming on.

To be fair, I don't want to escape acting. I like acting. I like the commercial auditions and gigs as much as the high-toned theatre acting. It is an adventure, and it changes all the time. It's just that currently, I spend a lot of time in the office to give me the opportunity to eat as well as audition. And I'd like to escape the office. It seems ironic that so many "creative" people have to pay for the chance to be creative with truly mind-numbing days. I suppose there's a nobility to earning your right to success, but I feel like I've been slogging away for four years - I'd like some success now, if you don't mind. Sadly, my life has never been run on my time line.

So in the meantime, I'm secretly planning an adventure. Hmmm.....it should involve derring-do and disguises. Also the judicious use of code words, and probably some interpretive dance. I'll report back with the mission is completed.

Insaniquarium

So I've been playing this game online called Insaniquarium, a complete waste of time when I should be putting mailings together to casting directors enjoining them to come see my show. Oh, the reviews, the ones I was worried about - the Tribune put it in the paper Monday, the Sun-Times on Tuesday, and the newest Time Out Chicago brought out an issue on Wednesday with a blurb. All were positive, all enjoyed the show, all feel the show is a massive fun romp with no substance. (Well, it is.) All three reviewers compare me to Emma Thompson.

This is flattering, certainly, if somewhat unnerving. Do these reviewers hang out in the reviewer bar afterwards? Do they phone each other before they publish? Did one of them watch the show while the other two slept, and so were forced to copy each other's notes?

The only problem with being compared to Emma Thompson is the shocking number of people who have no idea who she is. I'm sure that an overwhelming majority don't know who Edith Evans was, or Ralph Richardson or Gielgud, but Emma Thompson? I mean, even if you didn't see it, surely you'd be aware of Sense and Sensibility from 1997? Or have seen the Harry Potter movies, at least, that's just last year. It's not like she's an obscure British stage actress, like Victoria Hamilton or Joanna Riding (I can't stand the former, and adore the latter).

There is just one more problem. My character is described as insouciant, and I do know what it means, but apparently no one else does. So they all make little "insouciant" jokes throughout the day. YAAWWNNN.

So I should be putting mini press packets together and mailing them to Important People to tell them to come see the show. But instead I'm mildly obsessed with this odd game. You have to feed the fish regularly or they turn yellow, and eventually die. Sometimes the tank is teeming with fish, turning odd colours and requiring you feed them immediately.

Last night there was some bad news - a stroke in the family, not my family, but my sweetheart's. And I feel powerless, and guilty to be doing so well, and I have nothing to say but "I love you," over and over again, and that doesn't seem like enough right now. And I held this person and tried to sleep, and in the back of my head behind my closed eyes, animated fish swam. They rose in my dream state, turning green and yellow and orange again, shifting colours incessantly, wave upon wave of fish rolling around my mind.

I guess I'm lucky I haven't been playing Grand Theft Auto.

Pop Music

The air has that leaves-brittle-and-bright-as-confetti feel, and I want to go driving with pop music playing and the windows down. "I'm not strong, and you'll find out, how the girls love rock and roll..." I wanna warble. I want to be on the way to a high school football game, and be sitting on the winning side. I'd like to wear a scarf but no coat, and corduroy trousers. I'd probably look a little like a Sears ad.

What is it about pop music? Well-crafted pop music is like a tapeworm: it sneaks into your brain and devours you. You can't help being manipulated by it, and you like it, although you feel guilty. Once it takes over a moment, it's like a watermark, you can't hear the song without triggering the memory, and you never have the memory without thinking of the song.

Some pop songs end up being tenaciously enduring, but you can't predict that beforehand. Some are amazing songs but become dated, while others have some timeless groove, so the song sounds as if it were just released. Personally, I think one of the most perfect pop songs of all time is "You Can't Always Get What You Want." I think that's a hard song to hear without wanting to do a huge head-bopping dance that will encompass bystanders and perhaps even nearby dogs before you're done. It is hard to be completely unhappy after hearing that song.

Anyone else? Got a timeless wonder? Whotcha fancy?

Autumn

The weather is perfect. I love being able to put a jacket on, and extra covers on my bed. For some reason, autumn always seems so cozy. It would be nice to jettison my wretched day job and begin a round-the-world journey (funded, of course, by a grant that would allow me to live without worrying about money), but even without such a plan, autumn holds that kind of adventure and promise.

Who knows, maybe it will come to that. I'm opening a show on Friday, and for once, I'm actually in it enough that my performance will be reviewed with the show. There's no squeaking by without a mention now, no peripheral character. I'm glad, of course, but it's overwhelming. I'm not used to getting what I want. I love this play. I love being in it, I love the people, I enjoy spinning out the scenes and building up the story bit by bit. I adore getting a laugh, I do internal dances of joy when we get to the happy ending (complete with a big romantic kiss - yay!), I even relish the bits where I get beaten up. I also love fainting and being carried up the stairs. The show is a great big swashbuckling romp of a delight, and no matter what the reviews say, I will enjoy it.

But I feel exposed. As a perfectionist, I don't like criticism, as I will obsess and worry about all the things I got "wrong". The possibility exists that the reviewers might not enjoy it, and no matter how grown up and mature I am about that, I will be disappointed. I want to spend my life working as an actress - it's a nightmare to think reviewers will tell me I should scurry back to my day job.

Logically, the reviews won't matter. I love the show - I'll still love the show, no matter what gets said. And I doubt I can stop acting for long, no matter how discouraging a review may or may not be.

But isn't it about time I'm forced to accustom myself to getting what I want?

A True Story

My grandmother and I are negotiating the kitchen of her snug farmhouse in the middle of South Carolina peach farming country. She is nearly ninety, her white hair set off with a bright blue outfit, and she is very pleased with herself, because despite the fact that she recently had a hip replaced and should not be doing any more than absolutely necessary, despite the fact that I made it absolutely clear that I wanted to take her out to lunch, she has foiled this plan by having lunch already prepared. It's the South - you haven't visited unless you've been fed. In addition, she is meeting my boyfriend, and because we live in Chicago, she is determined to give him a "real taste of the South". Of course, he grew up for the most part in Pensacola, Florida, so he's tasted the South before. (When she discovers the Florida connection, she exclaims, with a big smile and note of relief, "Why, you're not a Yankee at all!!" Sigh.)

Grandma hobbles and I bustle. She has at least cheated the meal by buying most of it at a barbecue place, but she has made two gleaming, golden pecan pies with her own hands. We are in the midst of reheating barbecue and slicing tomatoes when there is a knock at the door.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. Maurice said I should come by about noon, twelve thirty for my gun." The older gentleman wears a hunting cap and a shirt with a nametag, "ROY". My uncle Maurice repairs and makes guns, and Roy has had some emergency work done on his gun so that he can go dove hunting this afternoon. The season starts today. I don't know what Roy does with his days, but his skin is reddish from being outside often. His deference to my grandmother seems genuine. Does it stem from shyness or respect? No matter which, it pleases her.

"He's not back yet, but he told me you'd be by, he should be here shortly. Roy, son, would you like a slice of pecan pie?"

"Oh, no, ma'am, I don't have no bottom teeth." He smiles just widely enough as if to be showing his gummy lack of tooth, but you can't see much. "I'll just go out and pick you folks some peaches."

In about fifteen minutes, he is back with two enormous shopping bags of peaches - the bags are full, and the peaches themselves are massive. By the time he returns, Maurice has brought Roy's gun home and everyone wanders off happy. My mother and I are sent home with one of the two bags of peaches to divide between us.

We haul softball-sized peaches on and off of planes and buses and finally into my apartment. All this hauling seems like trouble until the gluttony of peaches begins. Every time I eat one, I think of Roy, and how proud and ashamed and glad I am to be from the South.

And for the record, the pecan pie was amazing.

And I am

listening to Kanye West, and feeling hip and urban. (I am, actually, very hip, and urban.)

It leaves me fretful, though. I dislike such a liberal use of the n-word, but issues of race are touchy. I do (illogically) feel some burden of guilt for the evil of slavery, as a Southerner. If the inequality the system of slavery introduced into the New World had been eradicated, maybe I could separate myself entirely from what is in the past. It isn't.

And I find myself really intrigued by African-American culture, and yet I think to participate in the culture would make me the target for scorn, suspicion, and hosility. I don't think I'm allowed to have opinions about that culture. I grant you, my exposure is on the sidelines - I'm addicted to watching "Girlfriends", I'm listening to Kanye West, I think Taye Diggs is hot. (Well, he is.)

I guess really every individual is different, and the truth is I'd like to know a few who are very different from me. But human nature being what it is, befriending the different remains a threat for both sides.

Peace out, brutha.

City Girl

I went to get my hair cut yesterday for free at a shi-shi salon. Exposed brick, funky decor, and a gaggle of stylists wearing flip flops and sunglasses and anything that would generally make them look as if they had walked out of a fashion magazine. And of course, every one of them had feisty, layered, stylin' hair. The girl cutting my hair was a petite, dark-haired beauty sporting incredibly shiny lip gloss and slightly preoccupied by her upcoming move to Lincoln Park - she's moving in with a friend she grew up with in the suburbs.

I grant you, having your hair wet down and plastered to your head while someone cuts it is rarely a good look for anyone, but I started to feel a little insecure, surrounded by these uber fashionable girls wearing the latest tube tops and gossiping about movie stars and Eva Longoria. I hate wearing flip flops. I've got too much chest to keep a tube top in place. Lip gloss is wasted on me as it inevitably ends up all over everything but my lips (my hair, my fingernails, papers I handle...). I have, in barber's chairs, a large neck. It distracts me. Also, a wide face. Somehow, outside of the salon, things blend and never bother me, but when I'm having my hair cut I worry about my tremendously wide neck and face. Bye, bye, Hollywood, you wouldn't be able to use this sagging flesh. I have lines on my forehead nowadays, too, which I suppose is normal for someone who is 31, but those lines are still a shock, every time I see them.

The two stylists I can see very clearly in the mirror behind me (who have been gossiping about their drunken night on the town) have clearly come in early so that one can dye the other's hair. The application of the dye looks truly complicated, all these small sections wrapped intricately in tin foil, and then more dye applied to the straggling hair that escaped the sectioning. And wait - I suddenly notice that the woman whose hair is plastered against her head with dye looks dreadful - that indeed, she appears to have a very large neck.

It occurs to me that I am in Chicago. Probably most of these women are from the suburbs, and have moved into the city in a desperate attempt to wash that Middle America right out of their hair. I'm making a big generalization, but I'm guessing not all of them went to college, that they've never lived anywhere except Aurora before moving to Wrigleyville. They HAVE to dress like this, and have their hair cut wildly and use lots of styling products, they have to use glamour to remove themselves from the average, colourless existence they left behind.

I'm originally a small town girl myself, I admit it, but I've lived in a series of difference places of varying size, and Chicago isn't the largest. I am, at this point, a City Girl. No matter what I wear. Or how my hair is styled. I don't have to work at it.

Although, with a little product and a blow dryer, I have to tell you, it looks FABULOUS. I might start wearing eyeshadow. If the next issue of Cosmopolitan tells me it's still cool.

Don't skip TIWRBD

I almost hate to write something more current than Things I Would Rather Be Doing, as I don't think I get a lot of traffic here and what there is tends to read to the top, but it struck me that one of my least favorite things is to be frantically busy, and then get morose emails from people saying:

"It seems like we never see each other anymore."

Things I would rather be doing

It's true, when I work in an office I am making money, and that money allows me to do things. Barring that benefit, it seems like a spectacular waste of time. And mostly, it's because I have created an environment where I don't have to work that hard, even though I'm a person who thrives on challenge. However, I don't want to waste my energy being challenged to make copies or some such nonsense. Hmmmm. A quandry and no mistake.

One of my co-workers has been with this office for thirty-one years. Maybe it's thirty-two. This boggles my mind. Oh, yes, I know everyone is made differently and just because I hate it doesn't mean it isn't ideal for someone else. But this person doesn't seem in any way happy to be here. How can you stay somewhere for 32 years without planning an escape??

Me, I'd rather be:

Sailing down the Ganges.
Hiking in the Andes.
Riding a camel in the Sahara.
Scouring the whaling museum in Nantucket.

I'd rather be on a train taking me to a place I've never been before.
I'd rather be talking to someone who is an expert in some particularly fascinating field: psychology, foreign relations.
I'd rather be watching Open University, or Call My Bluff.
I'd rather be trekking across open fields armed with a very good map, a bottle of water, a sandwich and perhaps some gingerbread.
I'd rather be creating some kind of whimsical and bizarre plan with Tee, something involving disguises and word play and giggling.
I'd rather be cooking something, maybe fresh fish with white wine and lemon, or a pasta salad with herbs I cut out of the front garden.
I'd rather be talking to Anna and Maeve.
I'd rather be cleaning my apartment, a really deep-down clean that smells citrus-y and makes me feel I can control at least the dirt.

And with that, I have given myself a reasonable goal. I have the day off Friday, I shall try to clean. With loud music playing. Singing at the top of my lungs. And mayhap I will make pasta salad for lunch.

That's better.

A Mystery

Why is it that my family can painstaking slather sunscreen on ourselves and yet inexplicably end up with subburn patches? Stray sections of skin that escape the sunblock and get beaten by the sun instead. After a week of lying on a beach every day, I ended up with strange red markings on my knees, a small patch of red near the elbow on my right arm, and a few stray wisps of burn where suit meets skin.

Once, my brother couldn't find anyone to put sunscreen on his back, and just slapped his own hand across it, only to find the next day that his back was entirely red, save for one white handprint.

I never notice such extra tan sections on other people. Maybe it is genetic.

Interruptions

Don't tell anyone I work for, but I'm dreadful at multi-tasking. One-track mind, that's me. Can I accomplish many things at once? Yes. But not if you keep (that was one right there, someone had a question) interrupting me.

I really hate being interrupted. Watch, it will happen again before I even finish typing this sentence. . . ok, that time I got away without one, but (oh, there we go - had to send someone a fax) it won't last (and, as you note, didn't).

On the up side, today a school kid who came to see my children's show liked the show and gave me a purple rubber bracelet that says "Heluhelu" on it. What does that mean, I asked this very sweet girl. "I dunno," she said, with the classic kid I'm-not-supposed-to-know shrug, and then her friend flashed a sneaky little smile and said, "But it means you need to read eight books over the summer." Done. I was tricked into it but I'll make that commitment. I wonder if I can manage it without trying or whether it will take a little effort.

Bring it On

Ok, people, I'm ready. I can handle it. I will even welcome it. Go ahead and . . . post a comment. When I started this shindig, I was doing it much like a bad yet enthusiastic dancer risks a few tentative shimmies in a dark corner of a crowded floor. I thought, I'll write myself a few snippets and hope no one ever goes looking for them.

But I find I like the comments. (Thanks to the two of you - I know who you are.) So, if you are one of the handful of people who ever take a look at this page, I invite you to join the fun. I will even challenge you to a) come up with your own Missed Connections ad, b) Offer your own personal rant subject, or c) write a haiku praising your favorite food. I had a co-worker who had a sideline in Spam haiku, see if you can top that.

Try it, people! Hey, I could ask you for money, but I just want your thoughts. So much cheaper.

(Also, it's very uncool, but I still love Oasis. I can't help it. I try to stop but the backbeat gets me. Please don't tell anyone. Well, anyone else.)

I'm not addicted, I'm not

So I'm reading craigslist again...but this time I Know When To Stop! It's almost immediately, before the poor grammar or misanthropy get to me. I thought I would love the missed connections section, as that's a favorite of mine in the Reader, but no, somehow today it doesn't strike me.

I love Missed Connections. There's something so desperate, yet so hopeful, about it. I doubt anyone finds the person they are looking for, partly because I suspect most missed connections are completely forgotten by one of the parties said to be connecting. If you're as hot as the ad claims, are you combing ads to see if someone noticed you? Do you remember the geeky guy/girl that tried to catch your eye but was TOO CHICKEN to say anything?

But if you come across the Missed Connections section, there's a part of you that can't help looking for yourself, to see if you made an impression on someone.

I used to laugh at the ads that gave very little information, as if the connectee were fortune telling, keeping the edges vague to ensure the info could be interpreted multiple directions. "We were on the El, I wore a black jacket, you had on a hat. Call me." ?? But it occurred to me that many people don't even mind if they find THE person (there might not be a person), they're just looking for people, casting their fishing line out upon the waters, and missed connections is their excuse.

The most memorable one I've yet read was a study in transparent pretense. "I missed your ad a few weeks ago. You said you look like Juliet Binoche but what really interested me was that your favorite movie was North by Northwest." Riiiiiiigggghhhttt. So if she'd said she looked like Ann Widdicombe* or Janet Reno but still liked NbNW, you'd still be trying to find her?

The ones I love the best are so specific that either the writer really did see someone or they're working really hard and constructing their perfect person, either of which I can appreciate.
"We met at a party - you were wearing a purple ribbon on your belt loop, I asked you what prize you had won. I wore glasses and a shirt that said "What Would Jesus Do for a Klondike Bar?". You told me your favorite flower was daffodils; I grabbed some out of the neighbor's yard for you. We talked about Jack Russell terriers and Jane Russell, but I was distracted by the shine of your green eyes. You rushed off at midnight but lost one of your sandals. I have it. Wanta talk some more?"

You can believe in an ad like that, that indeed, a connection was made, and that maybe both people wanted more and didn't get it, and perhaps this ad will be the way that they find each other and regret will shift to elation.


* As I researched Ann Widdicombe to make sure I had spelled her name right, I see her image has improved vastly. So this seems a touch unfair. Apologies to you Widdicombe fans. The blonde hair is quite attractive.

Eventually it palls

So I made a mistake. I can admit it. I started reading Craig's List "Best of". Yes, it's fairly amusing, and yes, I'm certain reading it as opposed to reading a whole category of posts weeds out a lot of crazy rantings and poor grammar. But eventually, I came up against people who, while I support their right to be as different from myself as possible, I just wouldn't want to spend any time with.

Particularly troubling to me this afternoon are the incredibly mysogynistic men. Really, for them, women aren't individuals at all, merely variations on a stereotype that has been cobbled together from all the women who wouldn't have sex with them at the exact time and position they desired.

Now, I'm trying to be fair here. (Why bother? you ask. Because I don't want to become the thing I hate.)

I know, I should have a sense of humor about it. But I always think the gender war is largely constructed. No, I don't want to argue that men and women are exactly the same. But isn't it a huge disservice to all to assume men merely want to hit things and have sex every moment (hit things and "hit" things, I suppose) while women just want to cuddle and put on lipstick? Couldn't we all take a moment to remember that individuals exist? After all, who in their right mind actually wants a picket fence? And yet that's the symbol of the stereotypical American dream. But hardly anyone has them! (They're a bitch to paint and it's easy for kids to steal the pickets, so your fence is like a smile missing teeth.)

There are a lot of people out there who don't fit your idea of who they are, and thank goodness. How boring would it be if everyone did? So, thank you, mysogynistic man, for showing me that people can be mean, petty, lacking in self-awareness and devoid of empathy for anyone else. Because the moment I realized that, I was grateful for the kind, sexy, caring men I have encountered, one of whom I currently date, and who allows me to be whatever I wish, whether it fits into his stereotype or not.