Bad at it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just settled down

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

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

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

Spring flowers should not contain so much pollen.

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

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

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

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

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

"Gone to Patagonia."

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

Bunnies

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

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

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

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

A little calmer

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth?

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

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

If you're offended, fuck off.

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

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

I want to exit stage left.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If I don't start getting it...

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

Quibble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Cool Breeze

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

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

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

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

Working

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

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

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

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

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

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

Struggling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much worse

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

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

Much better

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

Ahhhh.

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

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

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

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

Shoulda

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

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

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

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

Grumpy

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

This was not that day.

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

This was that day.

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

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

Like celery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2012

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

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

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

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

Blow it up and start again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enveloped

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

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

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

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

Gifts

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

This is why I've begun to prefer Thanksgiving.

For Later

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

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

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

Rethink

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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