I've got about 3 minutes left on our ten minute break. The only trouble with this show and this experience is that it's so fun I cannot believe it is happening to me. I am working with such talented people that it's hard to imagine I have anything I can bring to the process that will be of value.
I'm trying to ignore that idea, because even if I'm just taking up space, I'm the one that got this job and I might as well damn well enjoy it.
Because it's awesome. Today I'm sitting around for 6 hours of rehearsal in order to learn one crossover, which could be an irritating concept but it's so fun to watch the show get blocked and choreographed that I don't mind at all. I don't have anywhere I'd rather be.
Wow. It's pretty rare to be able to say that, all in all. I don't have anywhere at all I'd rather be. I might want to be a better version of myself in this place, but there's nowhere I'd rather be.
Back in. Hooray.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Wow
Ok, so my self-doubt is creeping in steadily - it is difficult to face a dance mirror next to a crew of dancers and not desperately want to lose about fifty pounds immediately, BUT I'm still having a fantastic time. Everyone else is, too. It's magic. It's so lucky. When you gather a whole group of people to tell a cracking good story, and the place you are telling it has the money to make sure you have beautiful clothes and fair pay and amazing working conditions, when your director is fascinated with how to help you all be genuine and immediately throws away any idea she brought in that doesn't feel right, when your fellow actors are cheerful and cooperative because they know their own ideas will be valued and the ideas they are given will be solidly playable, it is blissful.
You know, I write all that, and it sounds untethered, a checklist of happy working conditions. But that's not the real joy. Happy working conditions are fantastic, obviously, but actually, I just love the tinkering that goes with working out how to tell a story. We blocked a big group number today, and that involves tons of tedious incremental movements combined with choreography that shouldn't look like "dance", and it was slightly painstaking and repetitive and I loved it. I couldn't stop smiling at myself in the dance mirror. I think that's what's so hard about the losing weight thing - I'm so happy, I love every minute of it, and I think I therefore must somehow be radiating joy out of every pore, that there must be some physical manifestation of my extreme engagement, and I look up and instead I just look sort of lumpy, pale, and overly wide.
But of course if there were no dance mirror, I would go on thinking I look completely amazing, so perhaps once the show opens I won't be aware that I tower over everyone else in massive fashion!
Still, getting to do this is lucky lucky lucky, and I am trying to love it hard enough to have it soak into my skin so I'm only ever this person from now on, the one who gets to do this, even if I only get to do it sometimes. Oh, and of course, I think while I do the show I will magically lose fifty pounds. Ha!
Also, every rehearsal makes me laugh. A lot.
You know, I write all that, and it sounds untethered, a checklist of happy working conditions. But that's not the real joy. Happy working conditions are fantastic, obviously, but actually, I just love the tinkering that goes with working out how to tell a story. We blocked a big group number today, and that involves tons of tedious incremental movements combined with choreography that shouldn't look like "dance", and it was slightly painstaking and repetitive and I loved it. I couldn't stop smiling at myself in the dance mirror. I think that's what's so hard about the losing weight thing - I'm so happy, I love every minute of it, and I think I therefore must somehow be radiating joy out of every pore, that there must be some physical manifestation of my extreme engagement, and I look up and instead I just look sort of lumpy, pale, and overly wide.
But of course if there were no dance mirror, I would go on thinking I look completely amazing, so perhaps once the show opens I won't be aware that I tower over everyone else in massive fashion!
Still, getting to do this is lucky lucky lucky, and I am trying to love it hard enough to have it soak into my skin so I'm only ever this person from now on, the one who gets to do this, even if I only get to do it sometimes. Oh, and of course, I think while I do the show I will magically lose fifty pounds. Ha!
Also, every rehearsal makes me laugh. A lot.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Like Staying in a Dream (Don't Let Me Wake Up)
Not that life isn't still full of stalled traffic and bad weather and colds and occasional irritation, but doing a show like this, none of that matters for long. Last night I went to see the show that's closing in this same theatre where I'll be performing the current awesome project in a couple of weeks. It's enormous. It's gorgeous. It's magnificent. It has been refurbished and it glitters and shines.
Also, did I mention it's enormous? It's alternately jaw-dropping and scary as hell that I'll be on that stage in a couple of weeks. Eek! I spent the whole show thinking about how strange it is to see a show in a space like that, with production values like that and an audience size like that (it seats 1500), and realize that will be me. I'm not a large part in this show, but I AM in it, and you won't be able to miss me - I have lines and everything.
Last night I was also blown away by some performances, and all I could think about that was: I have to get better. Not, I don't belong here or I have no talent or I'm a charlatan (though of course those ideas travel through my head at times as we rehearse), just, I have more ability that I have currently developed and I have to get more solid at it.
In the meantime, I just watched what might as well be a Broadway show, and realized the next thing on that stage...is me.
Also, did I mention it's enormous? It's alternately jaw-dropping and scary as hell that I'll be on that stage in a couple of weeks. Eek! I spent the whole show thinking about how strange it is to see a show in a space like that, with production values like that and an audience size like that (it seats 1500), and realize that will be me. I'm not a large part in this show, but I AM in it, and you won't be able to miss me - I have lines and everything.
Last night I was also blown away by some performances, and all I could think about that was: I have to get better. Not, I don't belong here or I have no talent or I'm a charlatan (though of course those ideas travel through my head at times as we rehearse), just, I have more ability that I have currently developed and I have to get more solid at it.
In the meantime, I just watched what might as well be a Broadway show, and realized the next thing on that stage...is me.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Amazing People
So, one of the great benefits of this particular awesome project is that I am working with one of the most talented directors in this city. She is...she made a fifteen minute speech about the play on our first day and it blew my mind. This is a play I have known the soundtrack to backwards and forwards since I was about 8, and she said things about it that are completely true, but that had never once occurred to me. (In an effort to make myself feel like less of a doofus, I see why my 8 year old self probably didn't think about the themes or character motivations of this play, and that older selves skipped that kind of thinking because the piece is so familiar - the way you know exactly how to get from your house to the store but don't know any of the road names, you just know.)
The quality that makes this director so great is that she makes sure every piece is about something. These lovely older musicals are so frequently regarded as chestnuts, with all their ideas intact from previous productions, but this director goes back to the script and score and figures out what it's actually about, then tries to get to that. It's thrilling to watch, and probably a lot harder than it looks. She makes it seem easy because she has this amazing ability to balance having her own idea with accepting and receiving ideas from the cast. (Usually you get one or the other in a director, rarely both.) But think about any story you know really well. How hard would it be to go back and just read the actual words, strip away your favorite performance of it or the way your mom read it to you at night or the significance the story had to you at a certain point in your life? How impossible would it be to try to see the story just and only as it is, and not through the layers you've loaded on top of it?
She does, and when she does, she makes really really great productions of plays people want to see but have forgotten why they wanted to see them. She reminds you of what they mean.
The quality that makes this director so great is that she makes sure every piece is about something. These lovely older musicals are so frequently regarded as chestnuts, with all their ideas intact from previous productions, but this director goes back to the script and score and figures out what it's actually about, then tries to get to that. It's thrilling to watch, and probably a lot harder than it looks. She makes it seem easy because she has this amazing ability to balance having her own idea with accepting and receiving ideas from the cast. (Usually you get one or the other in a director, rarely both.) But think about any story you know really well. How hard would it be to go back and just read the actual words, strip away your favorite performance of it or the way your mom read it to you at night or the significance the story had to you at a certain point in your life? How impossible would it be to try to see the story just and only as it is, and not through the layers you've loaded on top of it?
She does, and when she does, she makes really really great productions of plays people want to see but have forgotten why they wanted to see them. She reminds you of what they mean.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
First Day
This is the first day of rehearsal for an awesome project, and I feel so lucky and happy and manic I hardly know how to behave like a grownup. I want to dance around, I'm so thrilled. I just had a wig fitting and the woman doing the wigs was gorgeously interesting - Canadian, warm, dog-loving, complimentary, clearly amazing at her job. How cool is it to be able to walk into a first rehearsal and immediately know I'm working among some of the most expert people in my profession?? It feels like yes, it feels like being awake, it feels like going to a school you already like and can't wait to get to, but when you get there it turns out you are also going on a field trip somewhere awesome.
It feels better than having lots of money. But it does feel like being rich.
These are the days I do it for - and this isn't even an award or an opening night or the sort of praise and adulation we actors often assume we are doing it for - this is the first day of WORK. And I love this work. I'm going to walk into a room and figure out how to tell a story in the next two weeks, and then a bunch of people are going to come watch that story and be highly entertained. They might learn something about themselves, they might just be cheered up in a cold snowy night to see a charming musical, I don't even care. Most people will walk out happier than when they went in - it's that kind of play, and we're going to be really really good at it.
What else is there to do? Yes, yes, there's tons of other things out there to do, all worthwhile and useful and often more momentarily necessary than telling a story. But none of those things make me feel like this, this combination of excitement and happiness and deep interest.
So, you can probably tell I drank some coffee. But even if I hadn't, this is an amazing, fantastic, Christmas miracle of a day. Thanks, universe. It feels really great to win this one.
Now let me finish reading the script....
It feels better than having lots of money. But it does feel like being rich.
These are the days I do it for - and this isn't even an award or an opening night or the sort of praise and adulation we actors often assume we are doing it for - this is the first day of WORK. And I love this work. I'm going to walk into a room and figure out how to tell a story in the next two weeks, and then a bunch of people are going to come watch that story and be highly entertained. They might learn something about themselves, they might just be cheered up in a cold snowy night to see a charming musical, I don't even care. Most people will walk out happier than when they went in - it's that kind of play, and we're going to be really really good at it.
What else is there to do? Yes, yes, there's tons of other things out there to do, all worthwhile and useful and often more momentarily necessary than telling a story. But none of those things make me feel like this, this combination of excitement and happiness and deep interest.
So, you can probably tell I drank some coffee. But even if I hadn't, this is an amazing, fantastic, Christmas miracle of a day. Thanks, universe. It feels really great to win this one.
Now let me finish reading the script....
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Home
I love the South. God, I love it. My mother has put camellias and narcissus in my room and it's warm in December and I can walk to my best friend's house in a minute and I'll see the ocean tomorrow. And everyone sounds friendly, even when they aren't (don't let people tell you that what they sound is "ignorant" - those people don't know jack shit about the south), in fact, they sound especially friendly when they AREN'T friendly. And my aunt's house is a proper house, wood and high ceilings and a big front porch and creaky and old and rickety, and my mother's house is a blessed nightmare in exactly the right way and she still has her nightgown and robe on at 5 pm because she was too busy to get dressed because she is beautiful and crazy and completely lacking in the feeling that any part of herself should change because it sounds crazy to you.
Also, she just plain didn't get that far.
I know tomorrow the temperature will drop and it will just be cold and rainy, but right now it's in the 60s and it feels like...I don't know, like my hair will curl properly in this humidity and the ground buoys my feet and I'm almost myself again, though in a few days it will feel like this is the farthest from myself I will ever get, when the expectations keep coming and I continue to fail at being the perfect daughter/sister/niece/aunt and no one seems to know who I really am down at the center of myself. Or care.
Right now none of that matters. I'm just home. It smells right.
I just want to sit down and write out the story of my grandmother I heard for the first time today. Turns out she threw over her Citadel boyfriend after he painted her two pictures and wrote her a poem saying she could keep the pink picture and he'd keep the blue picture and it would mean they'd always remember each other. She broke it off and ended up married to my grandfather, but somehow kept both paintings and had them hanging in her living room for the rest of her life. Until she was 89.
It's just nice to be back where my history lives, and remind myself of where I fit in it. All three of my names can be read on the gravestones of my ancestors.
Oh, Christ. I just realized I have to post this, because in a few years this house will get sold and it won't ever be the same, there won't be a "home" to come home to, and this note will be like a homeopathic remedy, the almost reminder of what return actually feels like. It feels like...like Christmas.
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Not blowing it for a change
All right, so I've rethought this audition all day, and I must admit that I might have been a tad nervous and talked too much and said stupidly inappropriate things, and been generally like an excited puppy. That's one way to over-think it.
BUT ALSO.
I just had a really great time with some of the best artists in this city at one of the most beautiful theatres in this city and while I was there, I acted like I belonged there. Instead of asking for a job or asking them to like me or being any kind of supplicant, I asked artistic questions and ended up having an artistic interaction with people I admire and respect. One of the questions I asked ended up giving the auditioner a new idea. That's right, I brought a new idea into the room for an audition for a play that's been done a trillion times, for an audition to understudy a tiny little role.
You know why that's so amazing? Because if they don't hire me for this job, it doesn't matter. I showed up today as an artist who can bring something to the conversation, and not everyone who walked into that room did that. Heck, that theatre will hire some people who didn't do that. I could be wrong, but I think I just proved myself to be an entirely different kind of actor.
The kind who will work. Maybe not this project, maybe not for a while, but without a doubt, eventually.
It feels...it feels...it feels fantastic. It feels like being who I'm supposed to be.
Oh, and it was 70 degrees today, which felt like a dream for December.
Great day, coming after a great week. I feel lucky. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.
BUT ALSO.
I just had a really great time with some of the best artists in this city at one of the most beautiful theatres in this city and while I was there, I acted like I belonged there. Instead of asking for a job or asking them to like me or being any kind of supplicant, I asked artistic questions and ended up having an artistic interaction with people I admire and respect. One of the questions I asked ended up giving the auditioner a new idea. That's right, I brought a new idea into the room for an audition for a play that's been done a trillion times, for an audition to understudy a tiny little role.
You know why that's so amazing? Because if they don't hire me for this job, it doesn't matter. I showed up today as an artist who can bring something to the conversation, and not everyone who walked into that room did that. Heck, that theatre will hire some people who didn't do that. I could be wrong, but I think I just proved myself to be an entirely different kind of actor.
The kind who will work. Maybe not this project, maybe not for a while, but without a doubt, eventually.
It feels...it feels...it feels fantastic. It feels like being who I'm supposed to be.
Oh, and it was 70 degrees today, which felt like a dream for December.
Great day, coming after a great week. I feel lucky. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Sleeping on my feet
Hey, future me! Right now, present me is tired like you would not believe. Please, please tell me you have stopped lugging everything around on your freakin' bike - your spine cannot take the weight of your stupid shoulder bag. Go buy a bungee net to strap stuff on the rack, girl. You just took a half-inch off your height with this foolishness.
Ok, but that aside (because you'll have forgotten about it by whenever you read this over again): things are GOOD today. Really good! You got paid a huge wad of cash this week, you've got acting work lined up for six months, you're doing a 7th day of filming tomorrow, money will automatically be deposited into your account overnight, people keep fbing you and calling you to say they've seen you on tv. You get to be home with your own family for Christmas (and yes, future me, you may be rolling your eyes, I'm sure this was the Christmas someone had a big meltdown, and it was probably you, but let's hope not), and you're getting brand new tires on the car this week. You. Are. In. The. Pink.
Right now, you're exhausted. Give it up and go to bed, lady. It's a losing fight - you need some sleep. But I just wanted to leave you this note to say: sometimes, you win one. And you have. So at least sometimes, sometimes, sunshine, you're a winner in your own story. This week was one of those weeks. Yes, yes, I know, you might blow that audition on Monday and spend the next month living it down, but on the other hand you might ace it, and then you'd almost have more work than you know what to do with. Wow! That would be a cool problem to have. It could happen, you know. The things you want are actually within your reach right now. Right now. RIGHT NOW. That's incredible. Enjoy it.
And seriously, buy a bungee net. RIGHT NOW. Heh.
Ok, but that aside (because you'll have forgotten about it by whenever you read this over again): things are GOOD today. Really good! You got paid a huge wad of cash this week, you've got acting work lined up for six months, you're doing a 7th day of filming tomorrow, money will automatically be deposited into your account overnight, people keep fbing you and calling you to say they've seen you on tv. You get to be home with your own family for Christmas (and yes, future me, you may be rolling your eyes, I'm sure this was the Christmas someone had a big meltdown, and it was probably you, but let's hope not), and you're getting brand new tires on the car this week. You. Are. In. The. Pink.
Right now, you're exhausted. Give it up and go to bed, lady. It's a losing fight - you need some sleep. But I just wanted to leave you this note to say: sometimes, you win one. And you have. So at least sometimes, sometimes, sunshine, you're a winner in your own story. This week was one of those weeks. Yes, yes, I know, you might blow that audition on Monday and spend the next month living it down, but on the other hand you might ace it, and then you'd almost have more work than you know what to do with. Wow! That would be a cool problem to have. It could happen, you know. The things you want are actually within your reach right now. Right now. RIGHT NOW. That's incredible. Enjoy it.
And seriously, buy a bungee net. RIGHT NOW. Heh.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Trying not to worry
I spent some time this weekend with someone I love who is more likely to die than most of us. I come from a long line of people who have perfected what I call "selective self-awareness", hence, in my genes is the ability to block out certain unsettling truths. With that in mind, I think this particular 88 year old is doing pretty well, overall, and with some rest, may yet get back to some good months or years throwing around a quip and laughing at animatronic stuffed animals.
Now there's a short pause in my life, giving me time to wonder about all the people I've lost and am likely to keep losing. These wholes never do seem to fill up - like an aerated lawn that never fills in, I'm left pocked and hollow, aware of absence if not with the details.
We keep going, though, missing those pieces all the while. Is there something that truly keeps those people with us, besides sentiment? Do they live in the objects we keep that may be theirs, the phrases they trademarked as we use them, the tics and mannerisms and habits they passed on?
I don't know. I only know I'm grateful the person we were visiting is still there to visit, and I dread the day she isn't, even though, guiltily, I know I can survive her death. The ones I'm not sure I can survive will be my parents. Here's hoping it will be a long long time before I have to prove to myself such a thing is possible.
Now there's a short pause in my life, giving me time to wonder about all the people I've lost and am likely to keep losing. These wholes never do seem to fill up - like an aerated lawn that never fills in, I'm left pocked and hollow, aware of absence if not with the details.
We keep going, though, missing those pieces all the while. Is there something that truly keeps those people with us, besides sentiment? Do they live in the objects we keep that may be theirs, the phrases they trademarked as we use them, the tics and mannerisms and habits they passed on?
I don't know. I only know I'm grateful the person we were visiting is still there to visit, and I dread the day she isn't, even though, guiltily, I know I can survive her death. The ones I'm not sure I can survive will be my parents. Here's hoping it will be a long long time before I have to prove to myself such a thing is possible.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Try, try again
Right. So the election got me thinking about being closed-minded. About deciding your side was right and therefore the other guy was some expletive and only worthy of derision or distaste. And YES, there are things I abhor, and in no world are they ok, ever. Rape - not ok. Killing of human beings, I have a problem with that. I have a huge chip on my shoulder about women only being valued for their face value and not for their brains. That problem also extends to making assumptions about the abilities of any people based on their race.
But. There are also a ton of things that I don't personally like and I'm not personally all right with, that I have to find space in my life to let someone else appreciate. Because if everyone needs to be exactly like me, to want what I want and believe what I believe, life is going to be insanely boring.
Look, perfection is not the lot of the human being. I'd like a kinder, gentler world, but the truth is that certain behavior is right at certain times, while completely out of place elsewhere. Human beings make a lot of mistakes. Often, we even love each other for those mistakes.
One of the points I was actually trying to make in a previous post about the election is that I couldn't imagine coming calmly to terms with Romney winning. But I want to be able to do that - to accept that what I want might not be the only choice, and that electing Romney didn't have to mean the ruination of the country. I was truly distraught on election night 2004 as Bush beat Kerry, but I had no choice but to make peace with it. It had happened, and it was going to have to be lived through.
I didn't feel the ability to resign myself to Romney in the same way. BUT I WANTED TO. I wanted to be better than the other side, who are still gnashing their teeth and crying foul play. I wanted the ability to be graceful in defeat, and I don't think I had that ability anymore.
I regret that. I don't want to hate 59% of my home state. I don't want to write off someone who disagrees with me just for disagreeing with me. If they believe Obama was born in Kenya, ah, hell, that's just ridiculous, we're not both operating in reality anymore. But if they believe government needs to be smaller and they're tired of giving the poor handouts, I may not agree but I can respect that.
However, it's hard. I want what I want to be right. Still, if I decide it's right and I never allow any other thinking in, I'll never grow or change or adapt or be given the tools from a new perspective.
The truth is, if I can't adopt more than one perspective, I cannot tell a story. And that's what I love, really. Even more than being right.
But. There are also a ton of things that I don't personally like and I'm not personally all right with, that I have to find space in my life to let someone else appreciate. Because if everyone needs to be exactly like me, to want what I want and believe what I believe, life is going to be insanely boring.
Look, perfection is not the lot of the human being. I'd like a kinder, gentler world, but the truth is that certain behavior is right at certain times, while completely out of place elsewhere. Human beings make a lot of mistakes. Often, we even love each other for those mistakes.
One of the points I was actually trying to make in a previous post about the election is that I couldn't imagine coming calmly to terms with Romney winning. But I want to be able to do that - to accept that what I want might not be the only choice, and that electing Romney didn't have to mean the ruination of the country. I was truly distraught on election night 2004 as Bush beat Kerry, but I had no choice but to make peace with it. It had happened, and it was going to have to be lived through.
I didn't feel the ability to resign myself to Romney in the same way. BUT I WANTED TO. I wanted to be better than the other side, who are still gnashing their teeth and crying foul play. I wanted the ability to be graceful in defeat, and I don't think I had that ability anymore.
I regret that. I don't want to hate 59% of my home state. I don't want to write off someone who disagrees with me just for disagreeing with me. If they believe Obama was born in Kenya, ah, hell, that's just ridiculous, we're not both operating in reality anymore. But if they believe government needs to be smaller and they're tired of giving the poor handouts, I may not agree but I can respect that.
However, it's hard. I want what I want to be right. Still, if I decide it's right and I never allow any other thinking in, I'll never grow or change or adapt or be given the tools from a new perspective.
The truth is, if I can't adopt more than one perspective, I cannot tell a story. And that's what I love, really. Even more than being right.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Closed Minded
All right. It is true that sometimes I'm a jerk. I like knowing things, and I like to be helpful, and quite often those two combine in a way that could be considered unpleasant.
Also, apparently my poker face around those I think are idiots isn't the best.
I do try to make up for it by being completely on the side of things I adore. And I try to listen and ask questions.
Um, this wasn't what I was trying to say. Hmmm.
I should erase this and start again. I'll do that...maybe tomorrow.
Also, apparently my poker face around those I think are idiots isn't the best.
I do try to make up for it by being completely on the side of things I adore. And I try to listen and ask questions.
Um, this wasn't what I was trying to say. Hmmm.
I should erase this and start again. I'll do that...maybe tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
Worried
I feel physically sick, and I have a headache. It could be what I ate plus what I drank (coffee), but it could also be the election.
I have spent the last few weeks especially trying very hard to keep my mind open - oh, not in terms of who I was voting for, no, no, I was set on that long ago. Truth be told, the word "socialist" is not dirty to me, and though I don't believe anything Obama has done contributed to socialism in the USA, I would be thrilled if it had. Having lived in a country with universal health care, I yearn for it. I have no problem whatsoever with giving more of my income in order to make sure everyone has a basic level of care. I think a society run purely on capitalistic principles is one where the beating heart is money and only money, and I don't think money makes a good heart for a nation or a person or a philosophy.
BUT - and here's the absolutely headache-inducing problem - I can see why someone else would feel differently. I can see why someone would say, hey, I worked for this and you have no right to take it to assist someone who hasn't lifted a finger. That's not how I see the issue, but I do understand a little about the other side, and while I don't agree, I can see some of their points.
These tense, rabid weeks, I have been trying to open my mind up to why the Romney camp believes Romney is the way forward, not because I personally want any of what Romney offers, but because I don't want to dismiss someone who disagrees with me as stupid, or ill-informed, or evil. It's half the country, folks. It has to be more complicated than that.
So, here we are. Down to the wire. And while I have trouble respecting Romney voters as much as I respected McCain voters (Mitt's constant morphing has made me deeply suspicious of him), I have been trying to do just that. The problem? I cannot want him to win. I can't even be ok with the idea of him winning. I desperately, desperately want Obama to have a second term - and I fully admit I am not a fan of the first term, that I am disappointed in much of what has happened or not happened. But I don't want ANY of what Romney wants. More accurately, I don't want any of the Republican platform. I don't want corporations to be people. I don't want gays to lose the opportunity to marry. I don't want an abortion, but I don't want to make abortion illegal, and I don't want any lawmaker taking that choice away from whoever might need to make it. I don't want the rich to get more tax cuts. I think Obamacare is going to be painful in part as we figure it out, but I don't want go back to the way things were, I want to try the changes. I don't even want smaller government (*gasp*).
So here, on the eve of the election, I am terrified. I want a nation that values the things I value, and I am terrified I will wake up in one that has proven with its votes that it does not.
It should go without saying that despite living in a state that everyone knew would overwhelmingly vote for a particular candidate, I voted. I don't usually write about politics because taking sides shuts you off from an opinion. Eliminating possible opinions is a two-dimensional place from which to build a character. Put more simply: you need all sorts of opinions to tell a story, so deciding some opinions are invariably wrong just leaves you poorer. But tonight I'm a citizen, and I'm scared, and this is what I'm thinking about.
I don't want to live in a corporation. I hope enough people agree.
I have spent the last few weeks especially trying very hard to keep my mind open - oh, not in terms of who I was voting for, no, no, I was set on that long ago. Truth be told, the word "socialist" is not dirty to me, and though I don't believe anything Obama has done contributed to socialism in the USA, I would be thrilled if it had. Having lived in a country with universal health care, I yearn for it. I have no problem whatsoever with giving more of my income in order to make sure everyone has a basic level of care. I think a society run purely on capitalistic principles is one where the beating heart is money and only money, and I don't think money makes a good heart for a nation or a person or a philosophy.
BUT - and here's the absolutely headache-inducing problem - I can see why someone else would feel differently. I can see why someone would say, hey, I worked for this and you have no right to take it to assist someone who hasn't lifted a finger. That's not how I see the issue, but I do understand a little about the other side, and while I don't agree, I can see some of their points.
These tense, rabid weeks, I have been trying to open my mind up to why the Romney camp believes Romney is the way forward, not because I personally want any of what Romney offers, but because I don't want to dismiss someone who disagrees with me as stupid, or ill-informed, or evil. It's half the country, folks. It has to be more complicated than that.
So, here we are. Down to the wire. And while I have trouble respecting Romney voters as much as I respected McCain voters (Mitt's constant morphing has made me deeply suspicious of him), I have been trying to do just that. The problem? I cannot want him to win. I can't even be ok with the idea of him winning. I desperately, desperately want Obama to have a second term - and I fully admit I am not a fan of the first term, that I am disappointed in much of what has happened or not happened. But I don't want ANY of what Romney wants. More accurately, I don't want any of the Republican platform. I don't want corporations to be people. I don't want gays to lose the opportunity to marry. I don't want an abortion, but I don't want to make abortion illegal, and I don't want any lawmaker taking that choice away from whoever might need to make it. I don't want the rich to get more tax cuts. I think Obamacare is going to be painful in part as we figure it out, but I don't want go back to the way things were, I want to try the changes. I don't even want smaller government (*gasp*).
So here, on the eve of the election, I am terrified. I want a nation that values the things I value, and I am terrified I will wake up in one that has proven with its votes that it does not.
It should go without saying that despite living in a state that everyone knew would overwhelmingly vote for a particular candidate, I voted. I don't usually write about politics because taking sides shuts you off from an opinion. Eliminating possible opinions is a two-dimensional place from which to build a character. Put more simply: you need all sorts of opinions to tell a story, so deciding some opinions are invariably wrong just leaves you poorer. But tonight I'm a citizen, and I'm scared, and this is what I'm thinking about.
I don't want to live in a corporation. I hope enough people agree.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
What's the What?
I spent a chunk of time today writing an email to a friend in which I alternately whined and tried to take responsibility for my whining.
Driving home from an audition, I tried to square two different truths with each other.
The first is that I've always been irritated by people who are unhappy but make no effort to extricate themselves from that unhappiness. Some unhappinesses are inescapable, of course, grief from a death, job changes, breakups, adjustments from a move, chemical imbalances. But if you are in a situation that you dislike but make no effort to change that situation, I start to lose patience with you. I will grant dispensation to those who are unhappy in one situation but find outlets elsewhere - if you have a job you hate, for instance, but you do it to feed your family or fund your travel bug or buy equipment for your photography hobby you love. I will absolutely buy in to the unhappiness "deal", where unhappiness in one place earns you happiness elsewhere.
I'll also listen with sympathy to the person who is unhappy but is trying different tactics to fix the problem, even if those tactics don't work and the unhappiness persists.
Again, my beef is with the perennially unhappy who make NO CHANGES. Say you're a stay at home dad but you never ever shut up about feeling emasculated by it. This is your life and you need to find a way to be ok with it. Say you're in the corporate rat race and you don't have any time for the things you wish you were doing. Find a way to love the race or get out. Say you've always wanted to go to India but your new hi-def tv just absorbed all your disposable income - I have absolutely zero patience for you, sell the damned thing and go do something.
Ah, but today I thought about how, fittingly, I am hoist by my own petard. My second truth is that I am unhappy that I have absolutely no disposable income because I am an actor and a teaching artist in a rough economy, and there's not a lot of work to be had. Alternately, I'm unhappy when I'm not spending my time on the acting, I can forgo disposable income when all my free time is occupied with a show. It's worse than just unhappiness, too - I feel in danger of becoming permanently disappointed, because all the promise I felt I had ten years ago is draining away under the hostile consistency of rejection that being an actor delivers.
(Side note - if you happen to be reading this and you have ever once wished anything bad to happen to me, you have had your wish, time and time again. There have been so many times I wasn't chosen for something and was left only with the mantra of "what was wrong with me" to pass the time until the next turn on the chopping block - there have been so many times that I truly have no idea what that number is. I can tell you I did at least 14 commercial auditions this month and booked none of them. That's a rejection every other day all month. If you think all actors are self-absorbed twats, we may be, but on the other hand, you try keeping your shit together when you get judged and found wanting nearly every day. Also, if for any reason you've ever hated me, there is no way you could ever hate me as much as I hate myself some moments. So, if something I wrote here pissed you off, or if I was ever condescending or rude or overly needy or mean or sarcastic or boring, don't worry - I have been repaid in full, and there will always be more coming.)
Back to the point...by my own stricture, the long slow slide into permanent disappointment means it might be time to give it up, to find something else, hell, to just go get a damn job and make money and have this be a fun hobby.
But here's the kicker, for me. If I give up, actually start spending my time doing something else, I will unequivocally be disappointed. I might as well tattoo it on my forehead then: THIS PERSON HAS FAILED. I'm sad a lot now, I have trouble staving off the demons, I sink into a world of self-doubt and inaction, BUT BUT BUT...when the yes comes, when someone casts me in something, or I sing a really perfect line, or I make someone laugh, or someone asks me to be in a workshop of a play, or I have an audition that feels like finally telling a story...it's magic. It's validation. It's joy on a scale I can't imagine in any other form.
It's delight. And delight is transforming. I can shift and melt and reform into the person I am actually supposed to be, one that has enough personhood to listen to someone else, play with others, love and be happy.
I hate the disappointment. I hate it. I don't want to be that, I don't want to feel it, I want to be able to transcend it and I hate myself even more every time it catches me, but if I give up, it wins. Instead I try to fight it, and when I lose the strength to fight it, I try to live through it and keep it mind that, just like winter, or an evil spell, or a rain cloud, it will lift. It will lift and it will be spring, or restoration, or sunshine.
So I had two auditions today and someone asked me to be in a workshop, and I have to stop writing to go be in a show. It's still raining, but I see the horizon lit up over in the distance, and it is beautiful.
Driving home from an audition, I tried to square two different truths with each other.
The first is that I've always been irritated by people who are unhappy but make no effort to extricate themselves from that unhappiness. Some unhappinesses are inescapable, of course, grief from a death, job changes, breakups, adjustments from a move, chemical imbalances. But if you are in a situation that you dislike but make no effort to change that situation, I start to lose patience with you. I will grant dispensation to those who are unhappy in one situation but find outlets elsewhere - if you have a job you hate, for instance, but you do it to feed your family or fund your travel bug or buy equipment for your photography hobby you love. I will absolutely buy in to the unhappiness "deal", where unhappiness in one place earns you happiness elsewhere.
I'll also listen with sympathy to the person who is unhappy but is trying different tactics to fix the problem, even if those tactics don't work and the unhappiness persists.
Again, my beef is with the perennially unhappy who make NO CHANGES. Say you're a stay at home dad but you never ever shut up about feeling emasculated by it. This is your life and you need to find a way to be ok with it. Say you're in the corporate rat race and you don't have any time for the things you wish you were doing. Find a way to love the race or get out. Say you've always wanted to go to India but your new hi-def tv just absorbed all your disposable income - I have absolutely zero patience for you, sell the damned thing and go do something.
Ah, but today I thought about how, fittingly, I am hoist by my own petard. My second truth is that I am unhappy that I have absolutely no disposable income because I am an actor and a teaching artist in a rough economy, and there's not a lot of work to be had. Alternately, I'm unhappy when I'm not spending my time on the acting, I can forgo disposable income when all my free time is occupied with a show. It's worse than just unhappiness, too - I feel in danger of becoming permanently disappointed, because all the promise I felt I had ten years ago is draining away under the hostile consistency of rejection that being an actor delivers.
(Side note - if you happen to be reading this and you have ever once wished anything bad to happen to me, you have had your wish, time and time again. There have been so many times I wasn't chosen for something and was left only with the mantra of "what was wrong with me" to pass the time until the next turn on the chopping block - there have been so many times that I truly have no idea what that number is. I can tell you I did at least 14 commercial auditions this month and booked none of them. That's a rejection every other day all month. If you think all actors are self-absorbed twats, we may be, but on the other hand, you try keeping your shit together when you get judged and found wanting nearly every day. Also, if for any reason you've ever hated me, there is no way you could ever hate me as much as I hate myself some moments. So, if something I wrote here pissed you off, or if I was ever condescending or rude or overly needy or mean or sarcastic or boring, don't worry - I have been repaid in full, and there will always be more coming.)
Back to the point...by my own stricture, the long slow slide into permanent disappointment means it might be time to give it up, to find something else, hell, to just go get a damn job and make money and have this be a fun hobby.
But here's the kicker, for me. If I give up, actually start spending my time doing something else, I will unequivocally be disappointed. I might as well tattoo it on my forehead then: THIS PERSON HAS FAILED. I'm sad a lot now, I have trouble staving off the demons, I sink into a world of self-doubt and inaction, BUT BUT BUT...when the yes comes, when someone casts me in something, or I sing a really perfect line, or I make someone laugh, or someone asks me to be in a workshop of a play, or I have an audition that feels like finally telling a story...it's magic. It's validation. It's joy on a scale I can't imagine in any other form.
It's delight. And delight is transforming. I can shift and melt and reform into the person I am actually supposed to be, one that has enough personhood to listen to someone else, play with others, love and be happy.
I hate the disappointment. I hate it. I don't want to be that, I don't want to feel it, I want to be able to transcend it and I hate myself even more every time it catches me, but if I give up, it wins. Instead I try to fight it, and when I lose the strength to fight it, I try to live through it and keep it mind that, just like winter, or an evil spell, or a rain cloud, it will lift. It will lift and it will be spring, or restoration, or sunshine.
So I had two auditions today and someone asked me to be in a workshop, and I have to stop writing to go be in a show. It's still raining, but I see the horizon lit up over in the distance, and it is beautiful.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Absent
A friend is in London on a training course. She posts beautiful pictures that affect me physically. I can see one of those images - the view from Primrose Hill, for instance, and the sight of it blooms in my gut like an ache, a physical loss.
I hate that I feel as if I'm in exile from London, because I know, I just know it sounds absurd and pretentious. It's not my country. I don't know it or understand it as a local, because I was always and ever just a visitor. I cringe when non-Southerners claim to luuuv gumbo and wisteria and I know in my soul they don't have a clue what they are talking about, so I'm painfully aware I'm on non-native ground.
But, in the past, when I go to London, something fits. The air smells right, my skin does well in the climate, the sound of the traffic, the accents, the echo of thousands of years of literature soothes. Some unhappiness that sits in my chest eases in London, in church pews and museums and pubs and wine shops and car boot sales and underground stations and Marks & Spencers. I have at least lived there, alongside natives. I can identify a Bramley apple and pronounce both Greenwich and Ipswich correctly and really, it's a Marathon bar and Smarties, not Snickers and M&Ms. I have some minimal street cred, some time on the ground.
Habermas Girl is in Italy. She posts pictures that make me madly jealous. I would LOVE to go to Italy, I would hock my last pearl, and maybe someday I will own enough pearls that hocking them would mass enough coin for a trip. I have memories of lying in a churchyard in Florence in the spring, picking tiny white flowers and soaking up sunshine and feeling as if no one could ever be discontent in Italy. I long to go.
But I don't think it would ease me the way London could. There's something about the character of London that appeals, the humor and the reserve and the oldness and the oddness of things.
A friend came to dinner two weeks ago and was flying out to London the next day. I must have gotten that wistful look on my face as we talked about it, and my husband knows what it is to me, and how long it has been since I've been there, felt that ease, and he very sweetly said he'd give up the new tires we need if it meant I could go to London. Awww. Ludicrous, of course, because we absolutely have to have new tires, we won't survive the winter without them, and of course the money for tires would never cover an entire trip to London. It was like saying, I'll go without dinner so you can buy a new car.
Perhaps I'm over-romanticizing the country's effect on me. That's likely, given my penchant for romanticizing. Eleven years ago, I came back from the UK and moved to Chicago. It was hard. I'd left all my friends behind and shown up in a town where I knew no one and it was just going to get colder. I worked as a temp in an investment firm, I got cast in a campy, silly sketch show. I thought dispassionately about how much easier being magically dead would be to having to re-create myself piece by piece. Not that I wanted to harm myself, but "not being" at the time sounded better than "being", which felt messy and sad and painful and lonely.
For Christmas I asked my parents for money to go to the UK at New Year's. They were very sweet, and smiled, and said no.
And I went anyway. It was the best decision I could possibly have made. (I charged it, and worked 7 days a week for 8 weeks when I got back to pay for it.) I was serenely, blissfully, magnificently happy for about 9 days. Coming back again was dreadful, of course, but I had managed to prove to myself that being that horribly unhappy was temporary. No, more than that, I could lift that veil any time I wanted to, with just a plane ticket.
Time has passed, and the scales are much more even now. I can't say for sure where my happiness lives anymore. Is it somewhere in London? Or are the relationships I made there less important now than the ones I have here?
Or is there some secret harmonic at work there, some resonance fills me up no matter who is there? And if there is, how long will it be until I can go relax into it, lie back and let myself be finally at ease?
I hate that I feel as if I'm in exile from London, because I know, I just know it sounds absurd and pretentious. It's not my country. I don't know it or understand it as a local, because I was always and ever just a visitor. I cringe when non-Southerners claim to luuuv gumbo and wisteria and I know in my soul they don't have a clue what they are talking about, so I'm painfully aware I'm on non-native ground.
But, in the past, when I go to London, something fits. The air smells right, my skin does well in the climate, the sound of the traffic, the accents, the echo of thousands of years of literature soothes. Some unhappiness that sits in my chest eases in London, in church pews and museums and pubs and wine shops and car boot sales and underground stations and Marks & Spencers. I have at least lived there, alongside natives. I can identify a Bramley apple and pronounce both Greenwich and Ipswich correctly and really, it's a Marathon bar and Smarties, not Snickers and M&Ms. I have some minimal street cred, some time on the ground.
Habermas Girl is in Italy. She posts pictures that make me madly jealous. I would LOVE to go to Italy, I would hock my last pearl, and maybe someday I will own enough pearls that hocking them would mass enough coin for a trip. I have memories of lying in a churchyard in Florence in the spring, picking tiny white flowers and soaking up sunshine and feeling as if no one could ever be discontent in Italy. I long to go.
But I don't think it would ease me the way London could. There's something about the character of London that appeals, the humor and the reserve and the oldness and the oddness of things.
A friend came to dinner two weeks ago and was flying out to London the next day. I must have gotten that wistful look on my face as we talked about it, and my husband knows what it is to me, and how long it has been since I've been there, felt that ease, and he very sweetly said he'd give up the new tires we need if it meant I could go to London. Awww. Ludicrous, of course, because we absolutely have to have new tires, we won't survive the winter without them, and of course the money for tires would never cover an entire trip to London. It was like saying, I'll go without dinner so you can buy a new car.
Perhaps I'm over-romanticizing the country's effect on me. That's likely, given my penchant for romanticizing. Eleven years ago, I came back from the UK and moved to Chicago. It was hard. I'd left all my friends behind and shown up in a town where I knew no one and it was just going to get colder. I worked as a temp in an investment firm, I got cast in a campy, silly sketch show. I thought dispassionately about how much easier being magically dead would be to having to re-create myself piece by piece. Not that I wanted to harm myself, but "not being" at the time sounded better than "being", which felt messy and sad and painful and lonely.
For Christmas I asked my parents for money to go to the UK at New Year's. They were very sweet, and smiled, and said no.
And I went anyway. It was the best decision I could possibly have made. (I charged it, and worked 7 days a week for 8 weeks when I got back to pay for it.) I was serenely, blissfully, magnificently happy for about 9 days. Coming back again was dreadful, of course, but I had managed to prove to myself that being that horribly unhappy was temporary. No, more than that, I could lift that veil any time I wanted to, with just a plane ticket.
Time has passed, and the scales are much more even now. I can't say for sure where my happiness lives anymore. Is it somewhere in London? Or are the relationships I made there less important now than the ones I have here?
Or is there some secret harmonic at work there, some resonance fills me up no matter who is there? And if there is, how long will it be until I can go relax into it, lie back and let myself be finally at ease?
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Words
I just used the word "louche" properly in a sentence. (Not here - I was writing emails, of course. To people who respond.)
Here's what happens to me, and forgive me if this is too self-congratulatory - I'm writing along, and a word will come to me, a complex, juicy, enjoyable word, like "louche"* or "inimitable", and it feels fantastic, it feels like exactly the right word, but an unusual word, there's special thrill in it, like having a sandwich with grainy artisan-y bread instead of just slabs of generic wheat. But then I can never trust the word initially, I nearly always think, hang on, you don't use that word a lot, you'd better check to see if it means what you think it means (and if you are spelling it correctly). You'd better mean what you think you mean.
And here's the best part, the self-congratulatory part: it nearly always does. The word aligns. Every time I can remember, I look that word up and think, yep, that is exactly what I wanted to say. And that, that is...delightful.
Now, I don't go looking for wildly unique words. I don't try to shoehorn them into conversation (ok, I rarely try to shoehorn them into conversation, mostly because in conversation I can't look the word up and make sure it's really saying what I want to say, and I am guaranteed to mispronounce it). But when one comes to me and means what I thought it meant, it feels...it feels like having a wild bird eat from your hand. Like finding the perfect fitting coat in a resale shop for $10. Like getting a really excellent haircut.
(*I just went looking for something else and found the OED's word of the day for Oct 21 was louche!! Word of honor, I don't follow the OED WOD; the word louche came to me unbidden, out of the mists of memory, probably memory of descriptions of Byron, not from that source. I've no way to prove it, but it's so.)
Saturday, October 20, 2012
For this
I get bogged down in my own shortcomings. Sink into them like a morass, my negativity never escaping the quicksand of my own judgment.
Then I go see a play. It takes a really good play, a really blissful, exciting, transformative, imaginative sort of play, one that makes you see the things that aren't there, whether it's a cold winter's night or the inside of your own heart.
And when I see a play like this, everything falls into place again for a few hours. The world makes sense when we can tell each other stories like this. We might let the devil capture us for millennium, but one day we will find a way back out of the trap, and when we do we will have landed right back where we were taken, armed with a new knowledge of ourselves.
And if I can do this for people, if I can spend even a fraction of my life making up stories for people to discover themselves inside, I will be happy. Not every second, and not always as deeply as I wish, but happy, and that happiness will be a thing that the joys of others will only increase, not threaten.
Inside a story, I may yet find the person it is I want to be.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Can't stop
I'm on a destructive path, though I shouldn't say "I can't stop" because I suspect I could stop given the right circumstances. However, I do not seem to be stopping.
There are a lot of people better than me at a lot of things. Truth be told, there's probably someone better than me at all things, taken one at a time. I am not a superlative sort of person - nice enough, good enough, but not someone who ranks high in lists, or wins things, or, truth be told, even gets picked in her chosen profession all that often. Sometimes I do, yes, and when I do, it feels terrific. Outstanding. Those are the good days, the ones that keep me going forward instead of just leaping down a well.
But often in life, a situation comes up where someone is better than I am...usually at one thing, though often at multiple things.
Now I'm in a situation where someone got picked for something and I did not. To be fair - I was never actually in the running AT ALL. As in, the person making the decision was not thinking, hmmm, should I take elsbeth for this purpose, or this trulyfantasticamazingperfectthrilling bag of awesome instead?? No, it's just the alternate person was always and ever the right person for the job.
Ok. Ok. Fair enough. Happens to us all. Best and smartest thing to do (you know this, right??) is just put it behind me and get on with whatever's next.
Except I don't. I keep checking back in on this situation ALL THE TIME and every time I do I feel like throwing up, but I just don't seem to stop. I can't seem to look away. Even though (I think?) I truly could forget about it if I just stopped reminding myself every two seconds.
Which is the point in question. I'm not enjoying feeling permanently, intrinsically inferior. So why can't I stop? Am I desperately looking for evidence that this person made the wrong choice and that The Perfect One is not, in actual fact, perfect? Do I feel the need to punish myself in some way I'm not currently conscious of? Do I alternately look for proof that the job itself was not worth having by checking in on TPO?
I remember this sensation from the past - I was cast in a musical in college as an old woman (I wasn't one at the time) and a beautiful, sweet blonde was cast to sing all the really pretty songs. In keeping with this post, she was an amazing singer and absolutely blew me out of the water - I was jealous but even then I would never ever have expected to be cast in that role instead of her, she was incredible and perfect for it. To add insult to injury, however, her costume was a dress that had been specially made for me the year before, for a different play. And they had to take it in to fit the gorgeous blonde. Which meant I could never wear it again (I'd rented it the year before for Halloween, to be Jane Eyre).
I loved that costume. It was Victorian, black, off the shoulder, the neckline trimmed with jet beads. I LOVED that dress. And every night I would make a special trip during the prettiest song of the show (which of course she was singing), and watch how beautiful this blonde girl sounded and looked in a way I would never be able to match, wearing a dress that even though it had been made for me, looked way better on her.
It made me feel like shit, naturally. I teared up most nights, more from jealousy than being moved by the singing (though it truly was lovely). But every night I was in the wings, watching it. And I didn't have to be there - I could have sat in the green room or stayed in a dressing room cracking jokes with fellow cast members.
So, thinking of that, the only explanation is I must like feeling inferior? But I don't!
So confusing. Ok, off to cyberstalk someone who is better than I am in every imaginable way.
Addendum: someone recently mentioned the blonde to me, and then waxed poetic about the very scene I just described and how absolutely beautiful she was and how every man wanted that girl, and even with a headstart of about 17 years to get over it, I still felt like shit.
Man, I wish I'd go ahead and grow up, certain things would be so much easier.
There are a lot of people better than me at a lot of things. Truth be told, there's probably someone better than me at all things, taken one at a time. I am not a superlative sort of person - nice enough, good enough, but not someone who ranks high in lists, or wins things, or, truth be told, even gets picked in her chosen profession all that often. Sometimes I do, yes, and when I do, it feels terrific. Outstanding. Those are the good days, the ones that keep me going forward instead of just leaping down a well.
But often in life, a situation comes up where someone is better than I am...usually at one thing, though often at multiple things.
Now I'm in a situation where someone got picked for something and I did not. To be fair - I was never actually in the running AT ALL. As in, the person making the decision was not thinking, hmmm, should I take elsbeth for this purpose, or this trulyfantasticamazingperfectthrilling bag of awesome instead?? No, it's just the alternate person was always and ever the right person for the job.
Ok. Ok. Fair enough. Happens to us all. Best and smartest thing to do (you know this, right??) is just put it behind me and get on with whatever's next.
Except I don't. I keep checking back in on this situation ALL THE TIME and every time I do I feel like throwing up, but I just don't seem to stop. I can't seem to look away. Even though (I think?) I truly could forget about it if I just stopped reminding myself every two seconds.
Which is the point in question. I'm not enjoying feeling permanently, intrinsically inferior. So why can't I stop? Am I desperately looking for evidence that this person made the wrong choice and that The Perfect One is not, in actual fact, perfect? Do I feel the need to punish myself in some way I'm not currently conscious of? Do I alternately look for proof that the job itself was not worth having by checking in on TPO?
I remember this sensation from the past - I was cast in a musical in college as an old woman (I wasn't one at the time) and a beautiful, sweet blonde was cast to sing all the really pretty songs. In keeping with this post, she was an amazing singer and absolutely blew me out of the water - I was jealous but even then I would never ever have expected to be cast in that role instead of her, she was incredible and perfect for it. To add insult to injury, however, her costume was a dress that had been specially made for me the year before, for a different play. And they had to take it in to fit the gorgeous blonde. Which meant I could never wear it again (I'd rented it the year before for Halloween, to be Jane Eyre).
I loved that costume. It was Victorian, black, off the shoulder, the neckline trimmed with jet beads. I LOVED that dress. And every night I would make a special trip during the prettiest song of the show (which of course she was singing), and watch how beautiful this blonde girl sounded and looked in a way I would never be able to match, wearing a dress that even though it had been made for me, looked way better on her.
It made me feel like shit, naturally. I teared up most nights, more from jealousy than being moved by the singing (though it truly was lovely). But every night I was in the wings, watching it. And I didn't have to be there - I could have sat in the green room or stayed in a dressing room cracking jokes with fellow cast members.
So, thinking of that, the only explanation is I must like feeling inferior? But I don't!
So confusing. Ok, off to cyberstalk someone who is better than I am in every imaginable way.
Addendum: someone recently mentioned the blonde to me, and then waxed poetic about the very scene I just described and how absolutely beautiful she was and how every man wanted that girl, and even with a headstart of about 17 years to get over it, I still felt like shit.
Man, I wish I'd go ahead and grow up, certain things would be so much easier.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
A Good Choking
It is very tiring to get choked to death on stage. Very.
And a little creepy.
Turns out, I've never been choked to death on stage before - I've had my throat slit, and I've been stabbed to death in a swordfight, but this is the first time I've gotten to act out being throttled. It's interesting, because it starts to feel like I am actually being strangled, and I have to go out of my way to breathe in and out to remind myself I can. Even though I shouldn't because the audience is about three feet away and might spot me breathing while I'm being choked.
On a side note, it's actually waaaaay creepier to then die into a pool of blood on the floor that gradually seeps into my clothes as I lie there "dead".
This is all fiction, of course, but if you have a secret distaste for me, you might want to catch this show. I can actually think of a few people who might really enjoy watching me get choked to death - after all, since I can't breathe, I can't talk, so it effectively silences me, and that's something I know certain people have wanted to see happen.
And a little creepy.
Turns out, I've never been choked to death on stage before - I've had my throat slit, and I've been stabbed to death in a swordfight, but this is the first time I've gotten to act out being throttled. It's interesting, because it starts to feel like I am actually being strangled, and I have to go out of my way to breathe in and out to remind myself I can. Even though I shouldn't because the audience is about three feet away and might spot me breathing while I'm being choked.
On a side note, it's actually waaaaay creepier to then die into a pool of blood on the floor that gradually seeps into my clothes as I lie there "dead".
This is all fiction, of course, but if you have a secret distaste for me, you might want to catch this show. I can actually think of a few people who might really enjoy watching me get choked to death - after all, since I can't breathe, I can't talk, so it effectively silences me, and that's something I know certain people have wanted to see happen.
Monday, October 08, 2012
Commercial
I filmed a commercial last Friday and it's left me a bit shaken. Because it turned out to be wickedly difficult, and although every person involved was overwhelmingly nice to me, I left feeling inept. Inept at the thing I do to earn money.
Now, I'm trying to give myself a break. I'm still fairly new at the commercial world, and there were some mitigating factors that made it harder than it had to be. The text I had to say was pretty long for the 8 seconds they wanted me to say it in, and although they were very very specific about the words, they'd waited on purpose to give me the script about an hour, maybe two hours earlier. They do this on purpose, because they don't want you to memorize it in a certain way and be unable to change, but sadly, I sort of did get stuck saying it a certain way because my brain was always scrambling frantically to remember what came next so emphasizing certain words gave my poor brain catch-up time.
All of the above are excuses. My job was to say a string of words in the right order in 8 seconds however these people wanted them said. And I found that very very difficult, and it's possible I did not succeed, that they just gave up and took "good enough" because it was clear I wasn't capable of anything else. Not that I'm sure that's true, I just know that is a possibility.
BUT I'm still trying to give myself a break. The poise and concentration you need to execute these scripts are learned skills, and they are hard to attain when you're also just frightened to death, when the pressure and lights and attention are all on. I didn't have them last Friday, and I suspect the resulting ad will be hard to watch, to say the least. But maybe next time I'll feel more confident? I can hope so.
"A pupil in the art of walking a tightrope, fearing every moment he will fall, cannot be expected to achieve the easy smile of the adept."
I can hope for the easy smile, but I'll have to earn it the hard way.
Now, I'm trying to give myself a break. I'm still fairly new at the commercial world, and there were some mitigating factors that made it harder than it had to be. The text I had to say was pretty long for the 8 seconds they wanted me to say it in, and although they were very very specific about the words, they'd waited on purpose to give me the script about an hour, maybe two hours earlier. They do this on purpose, because they don't want you to memorize it in a certain way and be unable to change, but sadly, I sort of did get stuck saying it a certain way because my brain was always scrambling frantically to remember what came next so emphasizing certain words gave my poor brain catch-up time.
All of the above are excuses. My job was to say a string of words in the right order in 8 seconds however these people wanted them said. And I found that very very difficult, and it's possible I did not succeed, that they just gave up and took "good enough" because it was clear I wasn't capable of anything else. Not that I'm sure that's true, I just know that is a possibility.
BUT I'm still trying to give myself a break. The poise and concentration you need to execute these scripts are learned skills, and they are hard to attain when you're also just frightened to death, when the pressure and lights and attention are all on. I didn't have them last Friday, and I suspect the resulting ad will be hard to watch, to say the least. But maybe next time I'll feel more confident? I can hope so.
"A pupil in the art of walking a tightrope, fearing every moment he will fall, cannot be expected to achieve the easy smile of the adept."
I can hope for the easy smile, but I'll have to earn it the hard way.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
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