Torture and Time

Struggling

2012-02-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

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 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

2012-02-04T22:03:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-23T16:07:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-18T21:55:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-13T14:22:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-09T22:01:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-31T13:58:00.000-08:00

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 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

2011-12-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-17T18:23:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes from Nirvana

2011-12-06T14:45:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

It was like finally sleeping after a forced march.

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

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

It felt like home. Home. Home.

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

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

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

Deep Breath

2011-12-04T21:16:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When You Can't Justify It

2011-11-28T09:06:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holiday

2011-11-27T20:46:00.001-08:00

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

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

Un-fraught

2011-11-21T19:07:00.001-08:00

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

I was going to try to break your heart.

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

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

Old

2011-11-20T00:49:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

Wish

2011-11-14T21:18:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow.

2011-11-13T23:37:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now I'm going to bed.

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

2011-11-10T18:43:00.001-08:00

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

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

Tigers? I like tigers.

How about graciousness?

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

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

Just a little disappointment

2011-11-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Get my engagement ring fixed.

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

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

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

But I didn't get this one.

*sigh*

Last nice weather day

2011-10-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some thanks

2011-10-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

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

The worm has been winning recently.

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

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

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

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

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

I believe, help my disbelief.

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

As others see us

2011-10-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Always take the weather with you

2011-10-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except when it isn't.

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

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

Coming soon...a new look

2011-10-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

R interrupts - "A leather miniskirt..."

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

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

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

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

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

I have two responses:

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

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

Oh, that's right

2011-10-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Facebook

2011-10-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

No? Ah, well....

Red House Painters

2011-09-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

So, you're cleaning, and you dig up an old box of CDs or tapes (or sure, records, if you were into vinyl), and there are all these titles you remember but you haven't seen in ten, twelve years, easy. "Man, I loved this band!" you think, and you pull out a handful of gems. It feels like running into friends by accident, you're about to sit down and have a drink with someone you cared about deeply who just hasn't been in your life for a time. The feelings are all there, just buried under all the careless accumulation of being alive today and now.

Then you press play, slide in the disc, rest the needle in the groove. But it isn't a casual catch-up drink with old friends. Your body becomes transparent because you cease to be in the now, your whole self is shoved unceremoniously into the past, frozen there while the songs play. Maybe you are suddenly 25, and you've been swallowing all your disappointments, and you might not be entirely happy with who you are becoming. You've been sending out distress signals that are too subtle for most people to understand. You don't know how to make anything change, you don't know you are the one in control.

In the midst of that someone begins to entertain you - and it feels like it's for you, like a magician who is right there at your table, maybe other people can see the act but you are the audience for this fantastic sleight-of-hand. This entertainment is a distraction and a summons and a fiction and a delight. You are enthralled.

You are also taken in. Because it is not for you - even the tricks and asides that only you catch aren't for you, those bits are really just the rehearsal of material for others. You are not the audience but an audience. It takes you a long time to accept that this magic isn't directed at you, isn't in response to you. It takes you a long time to accept that nothing about you called any of this magic forth, that you were just the one sitting at the table when it started. You wanted so much to be someone who inspired magic.

And when you finally realize what you are not in this situation, your disappointment wells up and breaks open over everything, it spills down into a few songs that you have to stop listening to, some CDs that you pack away in a box, and try to forget.

"The worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love." - Joyce Carol Oates

Procrastination

2011-09-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, I need to put a budget together and plan my upcoming classes and register my car in IL and exercise and write a letter and make dinner and re-pot the plants in the window and sort through all the stuff I brought home and fold all the laundry and make the bed and...

In short, I have work to do. But I don't wanna.

Last week my Dad was in town and we went to a few museums. We got split up pretty quickly due to our different speeds, and so I spent the morning wandering around learning things. Or, if not actually learning, re-experiencing. A lot of modern art leaves me shrugging, but sometimes a piece really grabs me. I built my own airplane on a computer at one point, and tried again to absorb how airplane wings actually make a plane fly. (It's seems counter-intuitive, no?) I learned that certain cells in my body are constantly replacing themselves while others stay put for a lifetime. Turns out my gut has replaced itself about 33 times, but the brain I came in with will be with me when I leave. (Gulp.) My resting heartbeat is somewhere between 55-60 (pretty good). I was fascinated by the wave simulator detailing tsunamis.

In contrast, this week there's little to learn. Harumph. I guess the onus is on me to go looking for something new.

I suppose the logical thing to do is stop procrastinating and get some of this work done.

All right, laundry. You and me are going to have a showdown...

Zippo

2011-09-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

I have Momitis - I can't think of anything to say that anyone would be vaguely interested in reading. (So named for my mother's true statement, "No one wants to listen to what you have to say, they'd rather be talking about themselves." Which is fair enough.)

I'll just be sitting here looking out the window, humming a little tune.

Getting back to the groove

2011-09-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Whew. Nothing quite like leaving your parents home and getting back to your own to make a thirty-something girl feel like a grown-up again. I managed to take a large portion of stuff out of the closet, and make a really good stab at tossing some things I no longer need while hanging on to things that are still important. Letters from campers 18 years ago, campers I cannot visualize, that end LYLAS? Gone. Letters from one of my best friends at age 19 who is still one of my best friends? Kept.

Re-entry to my actual life is still tricky, as this is the beginning of school and I am way behind in terms of planning anything. Heh.

I did smuggle three bags of trash and four boxes of old clothes/flotsam/detrius out of the house, never to return. It isn't much, but it feels good to toss some things physically, as it allows one to toss some things mentally. At least I hope it does.

Brownlee, I know the danger of nostalgia, I do, but sometimes you don't see the journey until you look back. Also, as stupid, vain, whiny, irritating, and boorish as I was to everyone around me, it's nice to see with what generousity I was treated by my friends. Thanks, all. Especially the four people I know read this on occasion. I've saved letters from all of you.

Smootches.

Life Cleaning

2011-09-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

I am overwhelmed.

I'm home with my parents, one of whom has been diagnosed with a chronic disease, and the other of whom has not been diagnosed but has a far more chronic disease. The house is full. I can't even begin to describe it without using words that would get me in trouble should anyone in the family ever read this. I will be driving back to Chicago from here, and here is a partial list of things it has been suggested I could take back:

4 wooden chairs
two armchairs
two round, glass-topped side tables
a set of china
6 separate lamps, complete with shades
clothing I last wore at age 14
a chest of drawers
all my books

And this is just this evening - more will be offered all throughout this weekend, I'm positive. Here's the problem - I could take every one of those items away from this house and you would not be able to tell they were missing. Because there is so much extra stuff in this house, that wouldn't even skim the surface of the clutter.

So the house is what it is, there's nothing I can ever do to change that. But I came home with the idea that I would clean out my closet. I haven't even touched the closet yet, and I've been weepy and sad and generally sort of fretful, because I'm reading through bad writing of mine from the past 15-20 years. I'm trying to toss some of it, too, but no matter how bad it is, it's a marker, and some of it I can't part with because it is terrible but it describes what was going on at the time.

Did I mention I've been stung by a wasp as well, and that my arm is in a constant low-level pain?

And that reading things I wrote + emails is making me realized what a first class dope I am?

Ok, back to the closet. Pete, I think your stuff is coming up soon - I think for a change I will actually enjoy going through a basket/box/envelope.

Something AWESOME

2011-09-08T14:53:00.000-07:00

Wow. I am. Wow.

Ok. This may be the minute everything changes, or it may not be. But I just got cast in a show, a great show, a show I can be really excited about. A show with a really really well-respected theatre. It'll probably be a tiny tiny role, I'm just in the ensemble, but I don't care. I feel so excited that I'm about to work with these people, these people I respect and think are awesome beyond belief.

I almost can't describe how thrilling it feels. I have a toe-hold in the kind of theatre I can truly adore. The kind of atmosphere I can respect. I get to work with people I think are AMAZING. I get to do a 3 month run of this show. It's a play I read and got super excited about because it is creative and fascinating and bizarre and entrancing. And I GET TO BE IN IT.

I hate to have it be all middle-schooly, but THEY PICKED ME!!! I'M A PRETTY GIRL, MAMA!

The worst part, now I have to wait three months for rehearsals to start. But I don't care. It's going to be awesome.

Thank you, universe. My something good. Thank you.

Four Hours Ago...

2011-09-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, the good news is I pulled out of the worst of the bleakness, the bad news is I might be heading back in. I had an audition today, and it was for something I'd really like to do - I'd REALLY like to do. And I tried to be charming and adjustable and a collaborator, and it was good, really, it was ok. But at the end, I just felt sort of dismissed, and I thought, nope, someone will be better at that than I just was. Which is ok, really, it's so much higher a place than not going through this! But...

Last year about this time I had a very similar experience. A project came up that I really had a chance for - it was an understudy gig, but it would have been with a theatre I love and understudying people who are amazingly talented as well as well-placed in the scene. And I went and did a good job! I felt really happy about what I showed them and about my chances, even if I did not feel like I was a shoe-in. And I didn't get it.

So I know I don't know the result of today, but it feels the same, and I think, great! I keep showing up at these theatres for whom I long to work, and I am getting enough feedback back to realize I really have a shot at these roles (else why would they call me for callbacks and such?), and yet I continue not to book them. How long, oh lord, how long? A year has gone by and I'm in the same place. How many more years go by before something syncs up and I'm actually in the right place at the right time and get to do the thing I love???

And I feel disappointed in what I showed them today. I don't think it was enough. But I can't tell. I hate feeling I've disappointed myself - it was almost easier last year, when I felt good about what I showed them but didn't get it. I wonder if someday I'll actually be at a level where I am the reader on an audition like this, and look back and think, whew! I finally got to do what I love! How freaking lucky will I feel. And hey, if by some magic I have booked this show, even though it doesn't feel like that right now, how amazingly, stunningly, thrillingly lucky will I feel. Even though it would just be a small part in an ensemble. Ah, well. It may not happen. And if it doesn't, I get to deal with that however I can. I guess, in a way, just the fact I had a shot at it is progress? I have to tell myself that.

I feel sick

2011-08-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

I feel sick. I feel like the second I get to next week (when I have very little work scheduled), I will find it impossible to get out of bed. I have to drug myself with books in order to get from hour to hour. Being awake and conscious right now feels unbearable.

Someone is dying. It's a long story. Not one I will tell - you're safe.

I am very close to sliding back into a dark dark place. I hope against hope to get some good news about getting cast in something awesome, but it's looking unlikely. Though a couple of months ago I thought I had been trapped in this dark place and I managed to wriggle back out, so maybe that will happen.

I need a yes instead of a no from something.

I may not get one. It may be a while before I can write another post. But hey, all four of you reading could use a break, I'm sure.

Someone told me once, bad days are good for the acting. Let's hope so. Let's hope so.

No Squirrels Up Here

2011-08-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

I'm on the 86th floor of a building. The view is incredible. The sun is out, making the lake glow - I would say like the Bahamas but I've never been there. The way I think the Bahamas looks? Maybe. This is so far up that I feel like I'm in a spaceship hovering above everything.

I'm filling in for someone in their office and hoping I'm not ruining anything. I'm listening to Pandora and trying to come up with ways to trick it to play me something I like. I'm sort of surprised that Pandora is not as apt at hitting the musical spot as I had hoped. Weird...either I have exceptionally eclectic tastes, or Pandora is hamstrung by its silly requirements. Look them up sometime - it's strange. Hey, we can play you a bunch of stuff you'll probably like, as long as we don't play the song you say you actually like, or the artist you say you like more than a couple of times. Strange.

Hilarious - I am in the gooey middle of a wash of sappy, sugary pop music, brought on by the satellite radio in a rental car, so the fact that I can even pretend that I have eclectic taste in music is delusional. My poor sweetie is so tired of pop music he could throw up, and cracks jokes about the calories that I am burning with all my in-the-seat dancing.

And actually, I gave in and did some street dancing these past few days. Sigh. It is ludicrous that I think I am calm, rational and non-dramatic when I will literally dance in the street with my iPod on as if this is just how normal people behave. Truth? I'm a weirdo. I was dancing at band rehearsal the other night! And here's the thing - I am a bad dancer and yet I can't care. I can't care about that when some peppy tune is plunking out string pizzacato notes to a funky beat. (pizzicato?? How can I not spell that? Horrifying...)

This is in direct contrast to my crying on the bus.  When I think about how little time separates those two events, I shudder and the word manic-depressive flashes through my mind.  You may not be surprised to find it runs in my crazy southern family, manic depression.

Perhaps it would be better, on this fine, sunny day, to look out over the beautiful city of Chicago in the pearly sunlight and do some office chair dancing to, yes, I can admit it, Sara Bareilles' King of Anything. Which I am obsessed with but cannot make Pandora play.  You have to approach it by trying to make it play something similiar. It's like having to aim just slightly left of a target in order to hit it. Hmmm...

Oh, lastly, I think Pandora's super high-minded "bios" of everyone are irritating.  Those bios just tell you who the person you are listening to is "like", as if the purpose of the whole enterprise was to link every artist with another, as if music were a big color wheel and you could describe everyone by saying what two other artists combine to make them.  Not my favorite way of exploring people. I just want to know about them, where they might be from, why they play music, etc.

Clearly, Pandora has different goals than I do. Fair, I suppose.

You know what?

2011-08-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

I had an audition last week (I was not particularly good) in which the character I was playing was described as starting sentences with "You know what?" Sadly, I've noticed I've been doing it a lot since then.

I just looked up into the tree outside my picture window and a squirrel is staring at me. Weird.

Still there.

It's like he's aiming a branch at me.

He hasn't moved.

I'm transfixed by a squirrel. What will happen? Find out in the next post...if there is one...

Delete

2011-08-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I hold onto things longer than I should. But in a moment, I'm going to go delete something out of my phone and I think I'm honestly done with it, absolutely, without a doubt. It's a bittersweet feeling, to be sure. And of course, I think I'm done with it now, but I could be wrong.

There. Done. Erased. Just some gossipy text messages from when a friend went out drinking with someone I went out with once. The messages were from almost six months ago. The person I went out with (much much longer ago), well, it just never really felt finished. But today at lunch I was talking to a friend about the difference between meeting someone and being enthralled with them and then having to actually build a day to day life with them. (Technically, I was talking about it as it concerned my friend, but extrapolation can be made.) And that situation I think of so fondly from my past...would have been a complete mess had it extended any farther, instead of just an unfinished fizzling out. I really should have just had my one night stand and been done with it. Not that I was capable of such a thing at the time, but that's what never got finished, not some great love affair.

The bittersweet part reveals I'm a romantic. I like the idea of the unfinished, the yet-to-come fulfillment. In putting that daydream down and getting on with life as it is and would have been, I lose the fun mental side-trip, the boondoggle. But someday you have to stop kidding yourself. Today I managed to stop kidding myself about one thing. It's not much, but it's progress.

So long, you. I'll just be over here in the corner with this pile of long-cherished illusions. Hey, just because I junked one doesn't mean I'm free of them...

The weeping must stop

2011-08-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

I thought this post would be about the really frustrating kids I am teaching this week. But I just whined on facebook about that, so, no.

Instead I'd like to mark in print for myself that I couldn't stop weeping on the bus today, which is worrying. Low-level weeping, not totally uncontrollable - tears but not shoulder shaking. And yes, lots of things could be behind this - I mean I have reasons to weep, sure, who doesn't? Death is a good reason, and letting something or someone go, and tiredness and frustration. Disappointment, anger, being passed over - all good reasons.

But these are things I'd like to imagine I have the stamina to withstand. Or maybe normally these things, which we all deal with at different times and at different measures, are balanced by the good things. Don't get me wrong! I have some good things! If I didn't, I'd probably not be able to get out of bed.

Which is my point. I seem to be lacking a fundamental ability to cope on an ordinary, regular level with much of my own bitterness and disappointment and sadness. If I had any money at all, I would start investigating medical solutions. Though, tricky - medicine could improve my mood (maybe), but can never make me a better actor, which, truth be told, is what I really want.

Which is my underlying query to myself these days - is happiness overrated? Is discontent the driving force toward action, or improvement? If I medically took the edge off of my sadness (presuming I could afford to do so - not a given, as I'm not sure where next month's rent is coming from because a check is late from my print job in APRIL), would I be stuck at this point forever, or will my dissatisfaction with my present state eventually galvanize me toward a better conclusion?

Which brings me to a different question: do I want more than I have the talent to achieve?

What's orange and sounds like a parrot?

2011-08-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

A carrot. I know, great, right?

So, this week I'm teaching a "talent camp". Who-hoo. It surprises me how much better life gets when I am making some money, however little it may be.

The kids are 5 to 7 years old. While they are, of course, talented, their "talent show" may not be stellar. But the jokes, whoo, boy!!

More soon.

New Mantra

2011-08-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

I just found out an actress I think of as my nemesis has been cast in a new play I ADORED in the reading...a new play I had no opportunity to audition for.

Let it go. Let it go. Let it go let it go. Let it go let it go let it go let it go. Let it go. Let it go let it go.

I'll be at this a while.

Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.....

Ballet Flats

2011-08-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

I got to this audition about 5 pm. It's now 11:15 pm. Gah.

So, it's hard not to feel like cattle at this point, and in addition, not to be truly repulsed by actors in general, and how needy and irritating and self-centered we all are. (There's no way I'm immune.)

And, not to be rude, but this particular audition is full of very young people, mostly just starting out, and they have that "everything is possible" sheen on them, and dammit, everything probably is possible for them. But many of them currently lack a certain focus, clarity or self-awareness. They're throwing themselves at the text and music without regard to detail or subtlety.

Well, and also there are about 40 people here, reading in endless combinations. It's a LOT of people.

There's no getting away from the fact that this is a certain tier of work, and it's not the tier I want to be on. I'm not ashamed of it, I just want more. So if they cast me, and certain indicators make it seem likely they will, I would happily do the show as long as none of the other projects I'm interested in come to pass. As in, it's better to do something than nothing, but there are things I would rather do instead of this.

They are all so young and eager!!! Oh my god! If I hear one more story about the hilarious thing that happened to someone while they were playing some tiny part in a huge musical...

Also, there's a level of effort right now that I feel certain I wouldn't see at an equity audition - lots of performing to impress those of us in the lobby, instead of saving it for the audition room.

I'm tired of these little girls in their sundresses and ballet flats. Does that make me a bitter middle-aged woman who spews venom at those who will succeed where she has failed?

I think so. Damn. Ok, Elsbeth....let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.

Endings

2011-08-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

We leave Michigan tomorrow. It's been a weird year for this gig for me (this was my fourth year with this Shakespeare company), so leaving has its positives, but it's bittersweet nonetheless. I feel...ah, who cares what I feel, I'm just ricocheting between extremes these days, right?

It has been exceptionally easy to waste time here, and in fact I should head off to the beach momentarily to have one more shot at loafing. There are all sorts of things I've not been getting around to - phone calls and writing and general work that should be done. (I owe some of you phone calls...sorry, it is true that I don't get good phone reception where I'm staying right now.) It's hard to feel like any of the things I'm delaying are important. And technically, yes, I guess none of it is important. Or all of it is.

I don't seem to have anything to say, so I'll just stop abruptly. Happy summer, all.

So proud

2011-08-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

The interns I directed performed their scenes tonight and they were so awesome!!! Ok, maybe they wouldn't be ready to star in a Royal Shakespeare Company production or a Hollywood picture, but they were clear, and funny, and knew exactly what they were saying in real words and had a blast. I was especially pleased about how clear they were - they were making choices! Thinking things through!! It was great.

I'm so very proud of their work, and thrilled that I got a chance to work on scenes with them. It's been work, more just arranging everyone's schedule to allow for rehearsal, but the good kind of work, the kind I like doing.

I still prefer acting myself, and I discovered more about what I wanted to direct them to do (or not do) when I walked the script with them, but it was a very gentle, easy introduction to directing. Or really, coaching, I guess.

Yay! No more Macbeth. I may miss Midsummer, but I don't think I'll miss Macbeth. Fake blood is really sticky. Ugh.

Thunder, lightning, and in rain

2011-08-03T12:52:00.000-07:00

It rained last night on Macbeth, which was sort of awesome, and ended up getting me home at a reasonable hour. I was in my pajamas reading by 11:30 pm, and in bed one serving of cherry pie later. Ah.

I know shortly I have to go back to the real world and to real work, and also to really being broke, but for the next three days, it's all books and food and music. One of my friends has promised to teach me some new songs and I know tonight we'll all get to wail on a few good country numbers - pre-show of Midsummer Night's Dream, there are 3 guitars, a banjo, a harmonica, and occasionally a vibraphone that mix in different combinations to play country versions of Dead Flowers, California Stars (that one is totally awesome), Jolene, Took a Lot of Pills and Died, I'll Fly Away, This Land is Your Land, and a few others I can't remember. I love it. We tried to work up Patty Griffin's Long Ride Home, but it's too complicated to master quickly, and no one knows it well enough to put it in performance.

But it's really nice to sing like a banshee, and add the harmonies in for some of those tunes. I can be pretty happy, knowing that's coming.

Now, to nap. Ahhh.

Some silence

2011-08-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

I had the rental house to myself this morning, and it was lovely. Well, really afternoon, since I slept until about 11:30, necessary after getting to bed at 3-4 am. (Completely worth it, as that involved getting to sing along with 4 guitars at once last night - wow.)

At the house, I cleaned, I folded laundry, I rearranged the refrigerator, I made some lunch, I took everything out of my bag, cleaned the bag, and put everything back in. Mostly in an intense silence - this house is in the woods and far enough away from other houses to be isolated. I liked it, although it got even better when I finally figured out I could set up my computer to play some background music and sing along.

It feels good to be alone right now. And I am happy that being alone makes me feel stronger instead of scared and weak. I feel returned to myself, I feel like there's a center there somewhere that I might still like if I can get back to it. I'm happy I'm not scared by silence. It means I have a reservoir of peace somewhere.

And the house is really beautiful. It's a pleasure to clean it - though I did get burned because the "cleaner" left in the house is actually watered down bleach, which has now quasi-ruined one of my favorite shirts. Oh, well. I seem to destroy clothes whether I want to or not, so maybe I should just accept I won't ever be able to wear anything "favorite" for long.

Ok, off to work with interns on their scenes.

Clearing

2011-07-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

You know what I like? Books.

You know what else I like? Being in plays.

You know what I'm doing for the next eight or nine days? Reading books and being in plays.

So, it turns out I can enjoy myself after all. No, I don't have big parts and that's still hard to deal with, but I'm still having fun and there are fun people around. It is really beautiful to have my whole job be just being in plays, though. I'd forgotten how much I like that.

In other news, I am both happy and frustrated to report I got a request to audition for one of the theatres I did a general audition for back a few weeks ago. I'm absolutely thrilled to get the request - I feel like I must be doing something right, finally, or the company would never bother. Sadly, I am still here in Michigan when the audition takes place, dammit. So I can't currently go. Grrr. It's so irritating to find my timing is so off. But on the whole, the request still makes me feel much more positive. And there's always a chance that I'll be able to make an audition on another day - I'm not sure what their schedule is.

I would love for everything to turn around for me...would LOVE to get back to being permanently gleeful. Or at least getting to do what I love and feeling like the path to making money at doing what I love is open, not closed.

In the meantime, I went to the farmer's market today and had a wonderful time chatting with my friend. One of the stands had breakfast for sale, actual farm eggs and farm bacon cooked to order and it was delicious. Then I bought raspberries and blueberries and beans and black cherries. And I came back to the tiny little place I am staying and made myself a cup of tea. The next time I'm required to do something will be tonight at 5 pm. Right now, in this moment, life is utterly blissful: I'm going to go sit on the porch, eat cherries and read silly books. Then, tonight, I'll strap on a broadsword and run around the woods pretending stuff. It's great!

Not bad

2011-07-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

"I demand that you put that book down, turn off the lights in there, and come out here to look at the stars with me!"

You know, there are a lot of things that ease when someone is kind to you. To one. To me. And a sky full of stars doubles as a net to hold in camaraderie. I still feel old and mostly untalented, and I still feel on the fringe of this experience because I just don't do quite enough in these plays to take hold somehow, but on the whole, doing something artistic always feels better than doing nothing, and if I don't get to do much acting, at least the people around me are worth watching.

I might find a door back into my life in the next ten days. The sun shines across the harbour as I ride my bike to rehearsals in the morning, and wildflowers splash over the paths. I think life is rough sometimes, and saying goodbye to people permanently is hard, and I want to think about it and don't want to think about it in equal meaures. At least, as I run on the hamster wheel that is my brain and my heart trying to process loss, I can get off long enough to look out over the lake. There are blessings. There are joys. And kindness is being offered to me from many different sources right now.

Thanks, kind people.

Now, give me the blessing of a nap, and I might start acting human again.

Change of Scene

2011-07-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

So, we've arrived in Michigan, me amongst this merry band of Shakespeare players, and I'm happy to report that at least the change of scene is a great benefit. I'm shaking off some of the worst of the hopelessness and trying to get on with enjoying what I can. After all, it's beautiful up here, and every one is pretty nice, and no matter what, it's fun to perform here.

We're in the midst of tech, which can be a hassle but usually runs more smoothly than we expect. I'm installed in a corner of a tiny room on a bed that's not even an actual bed (it's a sofa over which a small mattress has been laid), in a room with two other women, and it is cramped, definitely, but at least both women are nice and we're all working to make it as comfortable as possible for each other.

I've been to the grocery store, so I finally have fruits and vegetables to eat instead of just endless burgers and sandwiches from the diner-like place next door (it's got great food but not the kind that will make your body feel better), and I may even have time for a short nap.

While I'm still pretty removed from the vacationy, life-is-good mentality I often get up here, I am glad for some small mercies and I know I'll enjoy slinging on a sword tonight and tromping around the woods in my army boots. And there's no one up here I can't stand - or rather, I can find a way to enjoy some part of every person who surrounds me. That's a relief.

Now, if I can keep away from the Crescent Bakery and stay focused on the tasks at hand, or at the very least focus on reading all the novels I brought (and not on my continuing failure as a human being), I'll get a real vacation from myself.

That would be nice. Ahh.

Low

2011-07-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

I'm balanced right in between losing it and keeping it together. I'm not sure which one I want more. Of course, yes, I'd like to be strong and fierce and fight off despair in some heroic way, but there's something to be said for just plain losing your mind - when you're done you're exhausted and low and you collapse. You can expend all your grief and fury all at once, a typhoon, whirling dervish, tasmanian devil. Then you sleep, empty of everything, and start climbing back from the lowest point.

I'm tired of bad news, and being graceful and accepting in defeat. Well, attempting to be graceful in defeat. (I think I tend towards bitterness and whininess and miss graceful entirely, but I do try.)

I'm really tired of being last choice for all the things I want. Even if I could keep my mind off of past and future and fix it firmly to the moment, I'm tired of being useless in this moment. I just realized I am supposed to be in the scene that went by - turns out, I've missed it the last few times, and no one has noticed. That's how much I'm getting done onstage this summer.

I'm tired of feeling like I've failed at every career goal I've ever had.

I'm tired of being underemployed. I don't mind working hard for my money, and I don't mind not having piles of it, but not being able to earn enough to keep ahead of the rent is starting to make me panic.

I'm tired of being a disappointment to my family.

I'm especially tired of being a disappointment to myself.

And of course, you gracious four, somedays five, people who occasionally stop by to read this, I'm tired of not having better news for you. Trust me, no one misses me being joyful more than I do, and I hate that shame and disappointment is all I have to offer.

Come on, wheel of fortune, turn. TURN.

A Three Legged Dog

2011-07-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

I saw a three legged dog today. A three legged golden retriever. This may sound odd, but I bet if you think of the phrase "three-legged dog" the image that leaps to mind is either some sort of Jack Russell terrier or a mutt so ugly its momma had trouble loving it.

Though maybe that's just me with that set of associations.

So this particular dog was not tiny, or a mutt. It was a beautiful purebred golden, the head cheerleader of dog breeds, only with three legs. And damn it, that dog looked happy. Gleeful. Like it had caught a squirrel. Or outstriped a dalmation in a race. Or found a particularly amazing stick. ("Look, I have a stick!" dogs always seem to say when they have a stick, so proud of themselves.)

Three legs, no problems. Love it. Now, if only I could have given that dog a stick...

Change of pace

2011-07-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

So much death talk around here! Let's change it up.

Today, an open letter to the many Matts in my life.

Dear Matts I-III, which in my own parlance I'd label Earth Angel, Jug Ears, and Floppy Hair:

You know, thanks. All three of you tried to be my friend, in different ways, and though I was really lobbying for you to love me (or in a few cases, just care enough to snog me on sight), all three of you tried to let me down as easily as possible. And I was a mess with all three of you - I took it personally, I whined, I made accusations, I acted childishly. All of which behavior I'M CERTAIN confirmed that you were absolutely right to move ahead and find someone more sane to date, or kiss, or romance.

Dear Matt IV (we'll call you "Steve"):

Thanks for teaching me what true disinterest looks like. Wow, that sounds really snarky but I'm actually grateful. I have run into disinterest again recently, and I can recognize it (I think) for what it is. And look! I didn't take it personally! Mostly.

Lesson: Just because someone loses interest doesn't mean you aren't interesting. However, it still stings.

Unfair

2011-07-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out I am being very very unfair (see below and below). Here's what can be said about a woman who tried her hardest to give her community what was expected of her:

"She was a lady who who excelled at maintaining grace and dignity at all times and in all circumstances."

And that is something to strive for, definitely. She liked birds, and dancing, and playing the piano, and she loved her garden, which was lush and beautiful and full of flowers, not practical vegetables but flowers. She read incessantly. She kept her spine straight and her pride in place while living through some very hard times, and she always did what she thought was right, even if it was hard.

Goodbye, Miss Myra. I hope you're with your son and your husband and your own mom and dad, and that you are transformed into your best self, and are laughing and dancing and gardening. Or maybe all of that has fallen away and your best self has transcended all of that to be at peace.

Help me maintain my own grace and dignity throughout my own hard times.

Crazy Town

2011-07-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

I am acting like a crazy woman. My exterior and interior life doesn't match at all. I'd like them to match even less, actually, would like it in a way if no one knew that my grandma had died. Everyone is so solicitous, and sympathetic. I'd like it if instead they would ignore me completely, if I could simply melt into the furniture. I'd like to be completely absent.

I'd like to erase myself for a while.

Curious, I was truly affronted when I was accused by my cousin this week of being a dramatic child. That's what it felt like, an accusation. It certainly wasn't a compliment, it was something very much "other" that she claimed not to understand, something distasteful that she was having trouble grappling with in her own daughter. Maybe I'm being unfair to my cousin. It's my mother who is so against any attention-drawing behavior - my mother who shushes me when I laugh at a play, my mother who says "no one wants to hear what you say", my mother who finds being dramatic in bad taste.

And right now, even though we're a thousand miles apart, I would do anything at all to make my mother happy. To take away her pain. I would like to remake myself into a sober, serene school teacher who lives about two hours from her and is creative in mild, sanctioned bursts in classrooms but not in public. Who married a nice dentist. Someone my mother could be proud of, someone whose accomplishments could be listed easily to folks passing by in a receiving line. Someone who had the requisite number of children she could instruct and spoil.

Someone whose mere presence would ease her suffering.

Of course I'm none of that.

It doesn't help to reflect that my mother, if she admitted it to herself, probably feels the same way about her own mother. Nothing my mother did could ever truly please my grandmother - or rather, any choice my mother made for herself was sure to be in conflict with what her own mother wanted for her, expected from her. And now, it's too late. Well, it was always too late, because of who my grandmother was.

I'm not sure any of the girls in that family, my mother and her sisters, ever felt really loved by their mother. Yet I myself heard my grandmother tell them she loved them. One day it occurred to me that I wasn't around for a lot of years. What sort of upbringing did my mother have that she can't really believe it when her mother says I love you?

This is all supposition, of course. I'm so dramatic, I probably have the wrong idea entirely.

Sigh. I wish I could disappear, take myself off like a dress and wander unthinking through the next few days like a shadow.

Gathering

2011-07-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

You know, there's nothing like family to make you realize you are an abject failure.

Alternately, I went to a funeral of a woman who was always very intent on what people thought of her, on keeping her good name in her community. She spent so much time being blameless that in a way, there wasn't a lot you could say about her in her eulogy.

I suppose I could link these ideas and say, well, if I'm a failure, at least I give the family something to talk about.

That logic seems faulty, though.

Don't listen to me. The veneer of sociability has worn down. And I hate that I cannot convince my family that just because I don't live in the South doesn't mean I don't love it. Or that I don't miss it. Or that I feel in any way superior to it.

Flight 4144

2011-07-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

I'm on my way to a funeral. Time seems to have slowed down.

I don't quite know how to feel. When someone is 94 and in poor health, and they shuffle off this mortal coil, do you really have the right to feel sad? Conversely, do you have the right to feel relieved? Both seem inappropriate.

Because no matter what, no one gets out of this life alive. Why do we as a culture never seem to have a way to deal with the fact that we all die eventually? A faith helps, and the Southern instinct to ply grief with food, but our rituals do seems to fail us in a cosmic sense.

Maybe I'll find I'm wrong. Whatever we do as a family for the next three days, I hope it helps my Mom. Her mother died. I am not looking forward to having such a thing happen to me someday.

Sometimes books find you

2011-07-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

From "Immortalizing John Parker" by Robin Black, in a short story collection titled, "If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This":

"She stands still in her doorway for a few moments -- as though there's an obvious next move to make and she just can't remember what it is. This is a familiar sensation, since George's death. She waits and nothing comes to mind. Nothing ever comes to mind. It is the sensation of absence, she knows, disguised as an impulse to act. There isn't a damned thing to do, except see it for the trick it is."

and later:

"Time makes fools of us all," Clara says. "Every single one of us. It's possible we need to ignore that fact. And get on with our lives."

Nope

2011-07-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

It's not the vitamins. I took some this morning and I'm equally crabby. It might be the hayfever.

Here's the thing. I grew up without allergies. On a recent trip to New Orleans, I was without allergies. Back in SC on vacation, I was without allergies. While, yes, I may have a cold, the symptoms I'm experiencing seem much more like allergies.

WHAT THE HELL AM I ALLERGIC TO IN THE MIDWEST?

Could it be...failure?

Oh, wait, that's boring, I can come up with much more entertaining things for me to be allergic to in the Midwest:

Blue-collar-esque clock-punching
A tendency for the visceral over the verbal (sounds like a complicated math equation, yes?)
Blocky, featureless office buildings (Damn you and your functionality, Mies van der Rohe!!)
Flatness - and I mean figuratively as well as literally. Yeah, yeah, the grid means you planned your city, it's easy to navigate, and you have a place to hide your trash. But personally, I prefer complexity to boredom.

If I say sooth (working on Macbeth lines, can you tell?), it has to be some plant that's making me sneeze, but those others contribute to my general irritability.

Drained away

2011-07-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Maybe I just forgot to take my vitamins today...

Sometimes, I read something so well written and moving that it throws all my pitiful, paltry efforts into the harsh light of reality. As if I'm coming home from my stained glass training all proud of the bird on a branch I made, and I walk under a Tiffany dome. When faced with artistry and talent, it is clear what I do is dabble and posture. Poorly! And irritate the sweet people who put up with me.

Then I go to rehearsal, and lucky me! I'm playing a character who isn't a good actor, and it doesn't seem like I'm even doing a very good job at that. And all the fun stuff I was doing is getting cut because my character is so unimportant that she shouldn't be doing anything that would steal the focus from the rest of the play. I kind of want to go hide in a corner until we open - it seems like it would make the play better.

And I sent a stupid email today that I regret highly. But the worst thing you can do in such a situation is write AGAIN and say, uh, sorry I said that, I really feel like an idiot now.

But maybe I should just take my vitamins when I get up at 4:30 am tomorrow.

Vanity

2011-07-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

It should be no surprise to my two whole readers (hi, Michael and Becky!) that despite my claim a few weeks ago to Really, I Mean It, Go on a Diet, I have not particularly. The irritating thing is that I'd like to shift 10, maybe 15 pounds, and that's not a lot, but I like eating, and this is prime holiday season, and there have been and will be things to celebrate. The problem comes in that I find it hard to care enough to not eat when there is tasty food. I mean, we made Ginger Lemon Sorbet! It was awesome!

Drat.

But I still prefer the self that has dropped these 10 pounds - and for sheer vanity. Gracious, I am finding these past few months that vanity is a bigger motivator for me than almost anything else. It may be why I'm not as successful an actor as I'd like to be. There are lots of parts you can't play well once your vanity is compromised. Note to self: give up on vanity, it's not helping you.

So, I'm going to redouble my efforts to lose some weight, and start today, and go running in the bargain. I won't be defeated by my own vanity! At least, not permanently.

Of course, my vanity is also appeased by all this time spent thinking back into the past, because I have shifted a good deal of weight I used to carry around (physical and otherwise). It's nice to think I have conquered a few things over time. It makes my eventual success provable.

A Completely Successful Evening

2011-07-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

We had a friend over for dinner last night, and it was outrageously fun. I spent the entire day, really two days, cooking and cleaning and singing along to music while I cooked and cleaned. And every single part of it was so satisfying.

First, cleaning this apartment was beyond necessary. We like to keep the windows open and the air conditioning off when possible, which is lovely but lets in a lot of dust and dirt, and we end up ignoring the layers of dirt and dust for a long time. This time, cleaning, I moved furtniture around and cleaned the baseboards and picture frames and, instead of mopping, got on my hands and knees and wiped the floors down. (My mother's stance: Mopping just moves the dirt around, if you want to get it clean you have to get down on the floor and wipe it up, and I am definitely her acolyte in that regard.) There are some rooms I didn't get to at all, but the rooms that are clean are CLEAN.

Side note: I wish I had a really great vacuum cleaner. I can't decide if it is wonderful or sad that I dream about getting a Dyson, for instance, the way other people might long for jewelry or a fur coat.

So I like cleaning and find cleaning incredibly satisfying. Hooray.

Second, I like cooking. If I say so myself, I made some amazing stuff for dinner last night. My friend is a habitual late-comer, and it was forecasted to be 90 degrees, so I decided to make things that could be served cold. Well, I did make a blueberry crumble for dessert, which could have been hot, but I made it the day before and warmed it up a bit. The main course was a harvest grain mix (it has stuff like orzo and couscous and red quinoa all mixed in) and I made a an orange sherry vinegarette and chopped up a bunch of stuff into it - artichokes and grape tomatoes and chicken and mushrooms and feta cheese. It's pretty good. And it seemed to impress my friend, which was definitely the crowning glory.

Third, I love singing. Especially singing along to the radio or my itunes while I'm driving or doing something else. Thoughtless singing, the kind that doesn't have to sound pretty, singing that's just you carving sound out of yourself, finding resonances in yourself you didn't know you had.

So it was already a great day. Then my friend came over and we had a fantastic time! I hadn't seen him properly in ages, and had been saying I would invite him over for dinner for about a year, and it was so wonderful to sit down in my nice clean house and eat incredibly tasty food and catch up with someone who talks about the things I care about - books and jazz and plays and food. He's a Brit, as well, and spends a lot of his time bouncing between London and Chicago, so it was wonderful to vicariously be reminded of my other home.

Now, the one down side is I drank too much wine and went to bed at 2 am for the second night in a row, and had to get up to go to rehearsal this morning. Oog. But it was a small price to pay for having such a damn fine time! Glorious!

Now, if I can just get myself back over to the UK, it seems my friend's new girlfriend is buddies with Benedict Cumberbatch. Really.

Let fly

2011-06-30T06:48:00.000-07:00

Time: 5:30 am
Place: Chicago's Lakefront Bike Path
Weather: Sun rising, between 65-75 degrees
Destination: Michigan Avenue workplace
Music: Elbow: "One Day Like This"
Mood: Complete Bliss

The past two mornings I have ridden my bike from Andersonville down to work in the above conditions. It's fantastic. It's almost like flying.

I am regretting several of the last few posts, and might take them down. After all, should one ruminate on one's own foolishness? Is it healthy to look back and compare then to now? And of course, if you act like a fool and have proof you were a fool, should you leave it on the internet for all to see?

I think the answer is no to all of the above.

In the meantime, I am drinking a cup of tea and wishing I could go hiking over Catbells, though by this time of year it would be crowded with people, which I don't want. I think I'd like to find a mountain to climb - not metaphorically, a literal mountain. I want the physical sensation of having to move my body up an obstacle.

I'm not making a lot of sense these days - Life is wonderful and laughing about 75% of the time, and the other 25% is on an endless loop of questioning, as if my brain is trying to win a complicated chess game and pushing all the moves ahead to see what the consequences are. Consequences - yes, I am working out the consequences bit by bit. I am not sure there is a way to win this chess game. But I'm not a very good chess player.

I may need to say goodbye to things I really like having in my life, and I've never been good at that either.

Something I am good at: hand-woven pot holders. Though I need one of those frames that come with the kit.

Stunned

2011-06-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Wow. I found a BUNCH of stuff I wrote in the past, and it is...shocking? revealing? hilarious? eye-opening?

First, apparently I have the ability to write great text with a great idea...that lasts about 2-3 pages. I don't seem to be able to follow through on an idea. There's this great bit about a caretaker who kills her charge because no matter who she works for, she gives that family/person what they need, and this person needed killing.

Sadly, I have no idea why s/he needs killing, I didn't write that part. I'm not even sure who got killed, aging grandma or tiny tot. But even if I'm explaining it badly, it sounds really intriguing for the two pages it lasts.

And laced through all of this are the hopes and loves of a previous me. And there is no doubt that I behave like an idiot for most of the time. I (currently) pride myself on being fairly even-tempered, not the drama queen that's expected in my profession. HA! Oh, I know how to luxuriate in the drama...it's as if I subsist only on milk. As in, milking it.

However, I am cheered by all of this, if only because one of the most aggravating, most disturbing pieces is an eight-page account of my slow acceptance that something vaguely romantic had ended. (Sorry to be so irritating - I couldn't call it a romance and I wasn't dating this person, so I'm stuck without a label.) I'm cheered because in the ensuing years I actually seem to have learned something, progressed, even (gasp!) grown up a little.

The story makes two interesting points I no longer believe: 1) If this gentleman is no longer interested in me, I must be uninteresting, and 2) without this person to amuse me, I am bored.

Hooray! Two demons completely vanquished! No one person has that much power over me anymore. (Except maybe my husband, but it's balanced by the power I have over him.)

But even better, I was transported back to that girl for a second last night, and when I got back to me, I realized I was sitting in rehearsal to be in a Shakespeare play. And I would get paid to be in that play. Both facts that seemed distantly impossible to certain previous me's. Look at me! I'm getting what I want! Not all the time, perhaps, but sometimes.

And then we all danced a square dance for the end of the play! Really! And I was happy.

Slapped by the past

2011-06-28T14:11:00.000-07:00

I make no claims of goodness for the following poem - I'm just shocked by it, shocked that I wrote it in 2004 about someone who is in no way important to me now. I'm cleaning out a box I thought was just pictures and instead it has a bunch of emails and letters and fragments of stories and poems I wrote over the past 15 years. I'm sad in some ways how much doesn't change, glad at how much does.

I really thought this poem was about someone else, then I found a date on an earlier draft, March/April 2004 and realized who it must be about. Apparently my feelings about anyone who has ever dumped me are interchangable. Though I suppose that's true for all of us up to a point.

So:
Villanelle for the One Who Moved On

Elliptical and sly, he comes alight
and all that danger howling in his eyes
keeps counting up the fierce price of delight.

He snakes his way past your defences' height
and dances there a while, to your surprise.
Elliptical and sly, his eyes alight.

His words are cardinals, his thoughts a kite
to lift you double-winged in rash surmise,
but surely there's a price for wild delight.

The bastard went and turned your pastels bright
with all his tumbling words that seemed unwise,
elliptical and shy, you flamed alight.

How will you pay? Your courage is too slight
you cannot hock the flattery once it dies.
Can you afford the price of such delight?

You hate the final stanza turns out trite
as: woman mourns and pays, man finds new skies.
elliptical and sly, he blazed alight
and never paid a dime. What price delight!

Three in a Row

2011-06-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

If you take a look at the last post, I had a nice audition last week. Saturday I had an another audition - it was fun, though I have no idea if I will get cast due to lots of scheduling conflicts. Then today I had a really really nice audition. I'm on a roll! I love it!

I'm trying to write down the excitment and thrill I feel now, because there's a high probability I won't book any kind of work from any of the three, and then I'll feel pointless all over again. But right now I feel pointful! Pointed! Pointy?

So I could bore all of us with the play by play of today, but the gist is this: they kept asking me to do more things. I sang, they gave me a scene to read. I read, they gave me a song from the show to sing. I sang again, they asked me to stay and read some more.

Plus, the accompanist was this truly awesome, Julliard-trained piano player I've worked with and think is wonderful (and he really is, he's insanely talented) and on one of his trips out of the audition room he turned to me and mouthed, "That was really GREAT!" And then later something like, "You sounded great!"

Which made me feel...gleeful. Pleased. Grateful. Lucky. Talented.

It made me feel like, whatever else happens, I'm doing something right. Not everything, perhaps, and not enough that I'm where I need to be, but something. Maybe even enough to keep at it a while longer.

And it's not just the praise - I mean, yes, of course, my vanity is sated, but there was also just the joy of getting to sing a pretty song in front of people, and have it sound good. It was the musical theatre equivalent of the general audition the other day. I do this for the sheer delight of doing it - I want so badly to do it well, and when a note rings in your voice a certain way and you know you're selling the song, you know it suits you and you land on a note with the ease of a gymnast, it feels so GREAT.

Then I got to go to rehearsal and learn a square dance! What a great day this has been!!!

I wrote it down because in a few days, when no jobs are forthcoming, I'll start to feel like I imagined it all. I want to pull out this description like a shiny locket and remember that when I get to do it, I LOVE IT. Even for a few minutes. Even in an audition.

And that's worth sticking around for.

2011-06-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

I'm going to describe yesterday afternoon briefly, because I'd like to capture it, and I know my delight will be all too brief.

I crashed a general audition - got there at 2:30, waited around until they did finally see me at 5:15 pm (which isn't that long - I have waited from 7 am to 4:45 pm to be seen).

The 2 1/2 hours were pretty torturous. Waiting around at a general audition, you see a smorgasbord of people who are feasibly better than you are and will get cast instead of you. Most of the girls are prettier than me, or if not, thinner, or if not, DEFINITELY younger. Someone always knows someone else, they have big lovey reunions with each other, then stand around talking about what show they are in at the moment. It's always some play you want to be in but didn't get cast in, or an audition you weren't called for, or some project you know you would never in a million years be able to do.
The mental capacity required to withstand this kind of water torture (because every person who arrives is a) another drop, and b) another slot full so you might never even get into the room) is attainable but elusive. Sometimes I can take it, sometimes I feel like total crap the whole time. No matter what, it brings out the "judgy" in me.

But then, right at the very end of the day, when everyone else was gone, they had me come in and audition with my 2 minute piece. AND the three people in the room, those gracious, lovely people, after 7 hours of watching people, had the grace to laugh, more than once. And for a moment, a pure, inhabited moment, I wasn't begging for a job. I was telling a story to people who were listening and enjoying it. A funny story. A story they could identify with. Sometimes it made them laugh with recognition.

And here's the thing. I feel whole. Not bored. Not anxious. Not inferior or sad or confused or wasting my life. Today, for 2 minutes, for an audience of 3 people, I was exactly who I want to be. Who I am supposed to be. As if the tumblers in my particular lock have finally synced up and something came loose.

Tomorrow it'll be gone again. But this is why I haven't stopped yet. Because sometimes it clicks.

Ok, it starts

2011-06-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, I spent my summer rehearsing for two Shakespeare plays and dieting/exercising. The dieting was tough, because I like eating. But I did manage to get rid of some extra weight and I found I really liked being that size of person. I still wasn't skinny even then, but it was easier to buy clothes and I felt much healthier. Ironically, even then I would have had to lose something like another 20 pounds to think about being an actor in LA, but since that's not a goal of mine, I didn't worry about it.

By now, I have gone back to eating whatever is tasty and gained that weight back. However! I think I am going to try to regain that ground this summer, starting tomorrow. No more excuses, no more, oh-just-this-one-cookie...it's an effort to reintroduce myself to discipline, because I feel I have been shockingly undisciplined in my life recently.

Also, I just realized I probably have to wear a skimpy costume and play a fairy in about 5 weeks, and it would behove me not to look as if I have been stuffed with marshmallows.

One down

2011-06-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, I was able to get a hold on myself and refocus. One audition has been successfully hurdled - I may or may not have been brilliant, it's a subjective medium and I couldn't see myself, but I was able to:

show up on time and prepared
dress appropriately
do my piece with confidence and with some actual choices in place
not apologize
make minor small talk without impeding the flow of the audition

While I wish I could tell you I was totally amazing and they'll call me in for every show this season, instead I can report I showed up and tried to show them who I was.

I'm trying to stop thinking about these auditions as thresholds of fear and instead be grateful for the tiny vote of confidence it is to be seen. The theatre I just did an audition for, less than an hour ago - well, I would LOVE to work for them. I love their work, I love what they do, and I would count myself super lucky to be involved there as an actor. And, that theatre had my information and chose, for whatever reason, to audition me for their general auditions. They contacted me with an audition time.

I haven't done a general audition at that theatre for four, maybe five years? So the fact that they saw me today, that's the victory, that's the success.

This weekend, while I was feeling so very frightened, I looked back over a lot of the entries here on the blog, back when I did an Equity show, back when things seemed to be coming together. I wanted so much to turn those experiences into more success, more work, and instead, for whatever reason, the economy or bad luck or still possibly my own lack of ability, it didn't. So I was saying to my husband, "Do you think I'll ever get to do an Equity show again?" His answer was, "If that's what's important to you...."

Within a millisecond, I realized I definitely hope to do an Equity show again someday, but that wasn't what was most important to me:

"I just want to be in a project that means something to me again someday."

His response, so true that most of my roiling fear settled immediately: "Well, of course that will happen."

That's right. And probably more than once. But I won't get cast in them if I stay in my room second-guessing myself or my talent. Bad actors get cast too - we all see them all the time, so my talent or lack thereof isn't even the point.

Time to roll up my sleeves and get back to work. One scary scary audition has been faced down and conquered...more to come.

They were out of moxie at the store

2011-06-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

So, I've been putting off dealing with the fact that I have some general auditions next week. I always claim to like auditions - and I do, I feel like often they are my only chance to act anymore, and on the rare occasion I can surprise even myself, I feel connected, I feel capable.

But to be honest, my recent track record with auditions is frighteningly bad. I haven't booked a job from an audition in over two years. And the last audition I did I thought, hey, it'll be great! I work with this company every year, they have to cast me! I went in, hoping to break my streak, and felt pretty good about what I did. Then I got a special phone call from the producer, saying, hey, we just want to check that you'll still do the season with us, after we tell you the tiny little roles we cast you in. So even when a company has to cast me from the audition, they will make sure to give me as little as possible to do, just so I don't ruin the plays for them.

General auditions are just that, general, and often phoned in by the companies that are seeing you. As in, they have to hold general auditions, but they have already cast their entire season from people they already know. But surprise! I have just this evening realized I am scared out of my mind. Possible crying jag coming up.

First, before I get into details, let me explain that I figured out I am terrified when I noticed I had made a batch of buttercream icing with almond flavoring from scratch. And ate it. Licked it right off the spoon. I think this is a pretty good indicator that I am stressed.

So, what's different?

Because an audition is an opportunity to show someone what you've got and I have nearly run out of belief that I have anything to show. I feel like I'm going to market with an empty truck, how am I going to sell air?

Just...I don't want to sound all woe-is-me, I mean this quite baldly: the fact that I have not been chosen so many times in a row seems to me an indicator that I have no ability in this field. There are lots of hints - a theatre where I did a bunch of shows has stopped calling me to audition, the theatre I work with every summer has me playing almost nothing, the cabaret review I've been involved in for three years didn't ask me to do year 4... When do I catch on to what everyone else already knows?

But I LOVE it. I love it so much. I love doing it so much I'll do bad plays with bad actors and love it. And the chance to be seen by theatres I would really love to work for, it's overwhelming, it's terrifying, it's a death sentence if I screw it up.

Ok, death sentence sounds dramatic, I know. But I'm out of moxie. I've got no belief left - I haven't surprised myself at an audition in so long. Maybe the reason I continue to fail is that I haven't got the talent you need to succeed. And if I get to the point that I truly believe that, that not an ounce of me thinks I can do it, I'm finished, kaput. If that happens, how on earth do I survive it? I won't do anything dramatic like kill myself, but in a way, that's worse, you know? I'd just be mostly dead inside for another, what, thirty, forty years?

Or, hey, yes, I could find something else I like to do, sure. Something I like, not love. But even then, even shunted into some minor path of least resistance, I'll think of myself as a failure.

This is why I'm so scared. I don't WANT to fail. I don't want to be the person I'm describing. If this were a film, I would feel so very scared, this would be the entry into the third act, the dark night of the soul, and next week I'd be brilliant in my auditions and everything would turn around! I want to triumph, I want to get to do the thing I love and I want to be good at it.

Right now that seems like a pipe dream, I'll admit. My life isn't a film.

Worrying

2011-05-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Certain experiences and ideas are so deep seated (deep seeded?) that no amount of reprogramming can correct them.

Hmmm. I write that and it sounds true-ish but unconvincing.

I don't have anything new to report, and suddenly that feels like my fault entirely - have I tried hard enough? Have I made any real attempt to get the things I actually want since last I whined or complained? Have I even taken the time to see outside of my little bubble recently?

And how am I planning to earn $600 to pay for these tickets I just bought to go visit my family?

But I also feel a deep failure of creativity - I feel like if I truly had anything to offer the world, I have given it the old college try and the world has said, repeatedly and clearly, no thank you, we've had better.

Oh, right....

2011-05-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

I managed to walk right into the sharp oven door today (sharp because it's missing its cover, ow) and I was cursing and making arghy noises and my husband rushed in (the way he does when I make these noises, because as he confessed to me today, I sound as if I have chopped off my finger). He put his arms around me and made kind soothing sounds and as I stood there, feeling pissy and in pain and pitiful, I actually said out loud....

"I know, I know. I need to be in a play."

Because none of this raging bear in the woods act goes down when I feel actualized. When I feel my soul is being used. When I have worth because my energy is going into something I care about.

It sounds as if I am saying I wouldn't have walked into the oven door if I were in a play. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I wouldn't have. Sound crazy? Yes. Held up by historical fact? Yup.

You watch - all this self-pity and whining...it may not evaporate, but it will lighten considerably come June 6. Well, I think. I might not be quite excited enough for that project, but I think even a bit part in something will flip my switch to the "on" position.

I certainly hope so. It's like having to wait for weeks between fixes. One gets the DTs.

Adventure

2011-05-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

I had an adventure! I went somewhere new! I talked to fun and intriguing people, saw beautiful and crazy things, ate way too much fantastic food, and got no sleep.

I also found a new drink of choice - the Moscow Mule. I like it. Give me another!

But now I have that back-from-a-magical-land-with-no-hope-of-return feeling (which feeling is trademarked and reserved for a friend's project). Hopeless end-of-second-act, dark-night-of-the-soul music plays as I type.

And the ants, my mortal enemies, are back. Argh. It will be a long summer.

Funny story quickly becoming legend:

While I was in line for coffee one morning, a woman interuppted the ordering process to complain to the barista - she had an accent, French maybe? Perhaps Austrian or Swiss? "This sandwich," she was brandishing a plastic container full of sandwich, "it has come on a crossaint. I don't eat crossaints. I asked for bread."

The barista replies, apologectically, "We don't have bread. That's the way it comes ma'am. That's normal."

Her reply, said with utter scorn, "For you. I do not eat crossaints."

There was more to the conversation, but the plain, flat-out statement that such a thing was clearly not normal was so outrageously fantastic, so "It's the pictures that got small..." that we've begun to adopt the phrase elsewhere. Try it - it's enormously satisfying.

Overshare

2011-05-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have always been an oversharer. I come from a family that keeps a lot of useless secrets, in an extremely self-editing fashion, and it's exhausting, so I try as much as possible to keep information truthful and consistent. It seems easier.

For instance, when my parents bought a BMW, my mother initially didn't want to drive it home to her family's house. She didn't want anyone to think they had so much money they were buying BMWs.

There are plenty of other, smaller instances - I find them baffling and obfuscating in the extreme. I try to avoid them.

Yet, I find myself in a situation...well, technically a trio of situations...in which I must keep certain things to myself. Partly to keep from offending or hurting others, but mostly out of sheer self-preservation. It's odd. I found myself saying about one of these, "If there was anything to say, we would have said it." And now that I think about it, this is a complete and utter lie. Precisely because there is something to say, I have left it alone.

Now, granted, what there is to say is not USEFUL. It's being left unsaid for several reasons, one of which is because it would sound insane if it got said aloud. And another - it (and by "it" I refer to several different unrelated things at once) would damage assumptions I have about my life that I need to keep in place. Or it would disturb the precarious balance I've developed.

I know this must sound impenetrable. The reason I'm writing about it is in an effort to examine whether I'm turning into my mother yet.

You want an example? Sure. Here's a completely true instance:

My amazing husband is the bees knees. Given the choice, however, he would never ever move again - we would stay in this admittedly lovely apartment forever. Now, me, I have never lived anywhere as long as I have lived in Chicago...and I am getting antsy.

I keep this to myself, because right now there's nothing to head to instead. Unlike some folks I know, my husband is never going to roll the dice and decide to pull up stakes and wander off to the west coast or even further. Ironically, that's one of the things I love about him - he gives me roots, gives me a home.

So I keep my wanderlust under wraps. I don't discuss it, I rarely mention it, it's just one of those things that gets tabled because there's no use taking about it.

But it doesn't go away. I just keep not choosing it.

In all fairness, if I did sit down with my husband and talk to him about wanderlust or moving, he would try to make someting happen. He'd let me go traveling or he'd move to Iowa or he'd find a way to make me happy. But he'd be miserable doing it, and making him miserable would take most of the fun out of it. I don't want to ask for things like that. I don't want him to change his nature.

Not to make it all about my husband - I have similar problems with myself and my own assumptions. I decided a long time ago not to become an academic so I could pursue being an actor. So far my success has been limited, and I wonder if I'd have been happier being an academic who acts for fun. But mostly I choose not to think about that, because thinking about it jangles the compromises I have made and leaves me upset and disappointed.

Now, none of the above are the things I really shouldn't talk about, though the above are true. But there are such things, and I am trying to figure out if I am being a coward or a genius by keeping them to myself.

Or am I just turning into my mother? Her side of the family, I've said time and time again, have an inexhaustible capacity for selective self-awareness.

I am not immune.

Soundtrack

2011-04-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

I miss being possible. I feel like as I am getting older, I'm less possible. As if I'm walking down a hallway in one direction, so all the doors I've passed are closed forever.

But this is a misperception, surely? I pass different doors nowadays, certainly, but the supply of them is neverending, or at least, is only limited by my own imagination.

I can tell myself that, and it holds true when I look at other people's lives. I can witness all around me the people who at any age, are ageless and fantastic because they explore life no matter what. No matter what they explore, it brings them energy. And I can see people who got old just because they sank into their lives, like sandcastles washed away by the tide. I can SEE it and my mind believes it.

My heart is infected with doubt, though, and in the dark, late hours of the night, all I hear is the doubt.

Right now I'm trying to find a really great soundtrack for my life, and crank it up, so I drown out that doubt. Any suggestions?

No One Complained

2011-04-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

There are lots of times in my life I've walked out on a limb and it has broken off the tree. Naturally, the mere idea of trees is enough to leave me swimming in regret.

But, as I've been saying, I don't seem to be able to learn from my incessant failure, so here's another poem for the three people who stop by. You don't have to like it, but no one's making you read it, so don't be unkind.

18 March 2011

Cavities, Rachel realized, could be growing for years

undetected, unfelt, no one the wiser.

By the time you knew you had a cavity it was

too late, time for a root canal or worse.

But they weren't really a surprise, you could

have found them any time, just let a dentist

poke around, take a picture or two.

Why, then, thought Rachel,

since it was your mouth, after all,

should you be the last to know? Why not

wake up and feel the empty space growing in you?

That your body kept such things secret from you,

Rachel didn't feel they were on the same side anymore,

she and her teeth. Or gums? She wasn't sure.

It gnawed at her.

Dear Universe

2011-04-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Universe,

So, I can tell you're bored, because of the way you've been messing with me. In the past month, you've given me more surprises than I thought I was equipped to handle, made me question things I thought were rock solid and exploded myths I've held on to for years. Congratulations. I AM thoroughly confused, and find myself capable of all sorts of things I never imagined, while still without the opportunities to make the life changes I've been planning.

I'll say this for you, Universe - you have a great and quirky sense of humor, and I've always liked that in a person. Thought you may be bored enough to play around with me and my future, I have Not Been Bored At All. I've been buying lots of high heels and short dresses and makeup, too, just to make sure I'm ready for whatever you have next in mind.

You should know that I've learned absolutely nothing yet, so if you have a specific point, I haven't grasped it.

But I'm not down. Now I'm just waiting.

Your move, universe.

Short-lived

2011-03-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

Wow. No matter what happens to you as an actor, there is no way to safeguard against feeling like shit when you don't get cast. You could win a Tony, and still feel like shit the next day when someone else gets cast instead of you. Well, I suppose that may not be true - since I *clearly* haven't won a Tony, I don't really know.

This is one of those moments when I think, why, why do I do this? Why not just hang it up and go make money?

No, that's bullshit. I know I why I do it. But I wish there would be a huge thunderstorm, and I could go out in the middle of a field, and scream for a while that it is some kind of sick sick joke when someone is given the desire and the determination, but not the luck or the talent for success.

You know what I miss? Not the money, not seeing my family, not good weather, not QUITE living in the UK, not hearing rain on the tin roof, not childhood or my first love, not having a house, not having fantastic clothes, not being rail thin, not being Thumbelina in the school play, not all the friends I've lost.

I miss being good at something. I know this sounds like self-pity, and to some extent I'm sure it's born of that, but I miss being good at something. I'd say "anything", but I'm still good at working the copy machine, for instance, and that's not getting it done for me.

Being good at something feels like flying in a dream, and right now it feels like I know that I'll never be able to dream that again. And how sad would you be if you thought you could Never Ever dream about flying?

Well, good-bye, incredibly short-lived three weeks of confidence. Hello, alcohol. We've never really gotten to know each other, and that seems like a shame. I hear you're good at making people forget.

Yeah...

2011-03-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

You know when you do something and later all you can think is, "Well, that wasn't me." I think they call that compartmentalizing.

Also, when you do something you shouldn't but somehow you expect not only will you get away with it, but you will have no ill effects whatsoever?

I think they call that "hubris."

Of course, there's always the case where you do something a little bit shady to avoid doing something clearly insane and destructive. I'm not sure there's a term for it, but I'm going to go with calling it "innoculation..." (Though wikipedia seems to think the idea I'm going for is called variolation.)

Several Disparate Things

2011-03-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

First, I'm working in...a really tall Chicago Building today and the fog has moved in so all you see out the window is fog. It is eerie and beautiful, if dizzying, I feel like I'm in Brigadoon and the mist is shifting in to take me into the clouds for a hundred years.

(I had the name of the building, then I thought it might be like catnip to my stalker. My hours at this job are random and untrackable, so I am probably safe, but why make it easy?)

Second, there's a TON of wacky stuff happening that I either don't know what the facts are or I'm stuck keeping other people's secrets. People getting fired, having affairs, taking drugs... It's crazy town! Every part of it is bugging me and making me want to write about it on this blog, and every part of it would be stupid to have in print on a blog, even this one that no one reads. Dilemma.

Third, I am working on the no fear policy, right? The first step always comes out defensive, right? Like the time I bought a backless dress - the first time I wore it I spent the night saying, yeah, yeah, I know I never wear stuff like this but dammit, I like this dress! And then I finally firgured out no one cared and the next time I could just wear the dress without constantly commenting on the fact I was wearing the dress.

So, forgive me when I have to preface this today with: the hell with it...you stopped by, here's a poem for you. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. (Eventually I can do without the disclaimer, but baby steps, ok?)

========================================================

14. (9 August 2010)

I wanted to howl at the moon
but Larry kept saying that was the last thing my momma needed to hear
the phone ringing late with policemen and their mumbled apologies for waking her.
He was rolling joints and soon we were arguing
cause he said that rusted out barrier was a levee.
"This one? This? I think it's just a big gate
stuck in what amounts to a pond."
Larry said what did I think a levee was anyway
(about then I noticed how the moonlight hit his mustache
how it looked greasy, how his hair looked greasy,
and it made me wonder when was the last time Larry had showered).
All of the crime of the night drained out of a sudden,
and it came to me how different the night would have been
if I could have loved Larry, or not even love,
maybe nothing as grand or complicated, but if I could look at him
and see more than just a two-bit hoodlum in training,
more than all the layers of filth he couldn't wash off.

The night felt absent, like it had just moved out
before Larry and I got there, like an empty apartment
and we were pretending the dust and flotsam left behind by the last tenant
were their furnishings, their nick-nacks.

So I did howl, loud, like a wolf in a horror film,
deep in the throat, letting it tear out of me like a rocket,
and in the distance, some animal barked back
and for a spilt second that night was full of night.
Some animal in the dark had heard me.

Das Loop

2011-03-19T20:09:00.001-07:00

My life is currently on some strange feedback loop where I get to examine the past and who I was there and the choices I've made. The universe is fucking with me, I can tell.

Naturally, I see everything a little differently from fifteen, twelve, eight years later. But I look for themes, so I find them. Our computer age means that in theory, I don't have to recall the situations from memory, I could just go find the emails and chats I saved and get a sense of how certain things went down.

Except that I went through and threw away a lot of supporting material at some point in an attempt to free myself of its effects. Which I find odd because I normally save everything. So now what is interesting is to read the handful of things I actually did save, think about why I saved those few messages, and ruthlessly dissect the few remaining clues.

Oh, by the way, the themes I noticed? I get obsessed with things easily, and I've been far far too afraid of making a mistake.

The obsession tendency...I have it with songs, people, food, clothing. I'll find something I like and play it to death or wear it out or eat it all the time. And then sometimes I'm just done with it, and I never listen to that song again, after having played it a million times before. With people, I concentrate on a few, and I try to know them well. Sometimes very very well. I get immersed, emmeshed, fascinated.

In general, the people I care about remain important, as opposed to getting tossed aside when I've worn through them. I'm finding, sometimes inconveniently, that once I've loved you, there's always a pocket of that feeling left. Maybe it would be more accurate to say, once I've trusted you, there's always a spare bedroom of care you can crash in. I'm thinking of friends as much as romances. My closest friend today I knew in high school.

I guess the downside of the above is I don't always let things go. Which in turn leads to some very stalker-like tendencies. (Yes, Michael P, that time I "ran into" you in your office building? I was pretty much looking for you, even though I pretended it was total coincidence. But you knew that. Thanks for playing along.) Which is why I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to toss whole reams of internet interaction from my past. Although next time I go home to my parents' house I bet I find at least one folder of things I kept. But still, hey, it's not around! I don't look at it all the time! For a stalker, that's growth.

Theme Two: Fear. Wow. I wish I could time travel and set myself straight on some of this. I would love to see what would have happened to me if I'd had true audacity to go with my big mouth. I would have gone to Sarah Lawrence. I would have gotten drunk more. I would have made a lot more mistakes. I would have better stories.

I know the answer is to start living with no fear NOW. I'd like to. Habits are strong, and there's more at risk now, more to lose. Still.

Still.

All right, then. I'm getting used to wearing three inch heels and getting my way.

Maybe it's time to buy my own pin-striped suit and start kicking some ass. I threw all that stuff away to have room for what's NEXT.

Bring it, universe. Bring it.

Uncomfortable

2011-03-17T21:34:00.001-07:00

So, two things, and quickly, because I need to go to bed.

One is that looking at the "stats" has ruined me, because I feel extra conscious of the hitherto throw away titles. A lot of people end up clicking to the blog because of the title about unemployment and its ups and downs. I doubt they stay, because clearly that's not the kind of thing they are looking for, but the point has been lodged in my brain that a chance comment could be a search string by accident. So now I'm overthinking the titles.

Two is that through an odd set of coincidences, I've spent much of today thinking about how my past actions might appear to someone else. Since I don't know, I can only imagine the worst, and the worst is pretty irritating, annoying, pitiful, and occasionally stalker-like. I have to hope that's not really how I come off, but it definitely makes me grateful to the people in my life who have looked past my sometimes odd behavior and forgiven me for some of it.

Also, I don't like looking back at situations where I cared more about someone than that person cared about me. But, hey, doesn't everyone have those?? Why do they seem so very embarrassing? Why can't it seem brave and noble to care about someone? Nope, it just seems pitiful.

In contrast, I often feel sad about the people who cared about me that I couldn't return the affection, but the truth is, I don't think about those people a lot. (Or maybe there aren't as many of them? I had a penchant for the impossible dream back in the day. I was good at pining, not so good at other woods.)

So, tomorrow I'm going looking for things I'm happy to remember, even if I remember them incorrectly.

Who are you, stalker??

2011-03-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

So I've got some free time, and I've just written that no one ever reads this blog, which made me go check my stats, which made me realize that after months of really no one reading this blog, someone came by and read most of it. Yesterday.

Who is my stalker?? I have ideas but I'm sure to be wrong.

Also, Blogger lets you see how people are finding your blog and when I look at the history for all time, I find a search string that made me laugh my ass off:

actress "no one *** wants * to hear ***what I* think"

(The astericks aren't really there but I'm trying to confuse future search engines.)

As my husband said, "Do you really use that phrase a lot?" The answer is no, but apparently I use it often enough for someone to look for me that way. Which also makes me laugh my ass off.

Oh, stalker. I hope you come back so you can see you've brightened my day considerably. I typed leave a comment but I can't guarantee my stalker enjoyed any of my ranting.

Wow. Life is fun sometimes. This is one of those times.

Oh, and don't miss the new post below - TWO in one day after such a long drought! It's all for you, stalker! How you inspire.

Re: Your title here

2011-03-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

So, I don't think anyone reads this - and I'm not complaining, I never write it, so the fault is mine, right? It was just a place for me to throw all sorts of thoughts that had no other place in my life. And send secret messages to men who weren't my husband. But two things happened to severely limit my blog time. One: I did finally accept that the men who weren't my husband that I was targeting were not receiving the messages (and that really, my husband was the man I was most interested in, full stop). Two: I got laid off from a desk job that paid me to sit in front of a computer.

But I have sort of a day job again, and sometimes it lets me sit in front of a computer and get paid. Rarely, but sometimes. Guess what tonight is.

And the fact that that most of the men I'd like to communicate with don't read this blog has turned out to be fortunate. Marriage, it turns out, doesn't mean every particle of your interest in the opposite sex has focused itself into one other human being. It means you don't act on any of those interests, but it doesn't mean you don't have them. I am lucky - I have realized that my husband isn't perfect, but no one else I meet could ever possibly give me the relationship we have. Three years in, I still feel lucky and loved. And that I made the right choice for me. Even his imperfections suit me.

But there are all these other men. Men from the past, men from right now, men I have yet to meet, and they are often Interesting. It's like looking back over a Choose Your Own Adventure Book at the turnings you didn't take.

I made a scattershot list the other day of Men I Should Have Slept With - it was surprisingly short, considering I didn't get around much, and there were notable omissions (the man I was totally, head over heels in love with for a year overseas? Not on it). Here's what's funny: I don't really mind not sleeping with them. Ok, well, there is ONE person that the universe and I agree I should have darn well slept with, but it's not who you might expect. Mostly it's a list of sweet men that I was too scared to trust, but would most likely have been very trustworthy.

Aw, side note. Susan - one of the people who made the list was that guy from Ireland, the one who had murdered someone in self-defense and you kept calling him "the murderer?" Thanks for messing that one up for me. He was sexy. That was one good time I really ought to have had.

But overall, I traded trying lots of people out for the privilege of being able to personally make a decision about who those people would be. No one ever forced me, no one ever guilted me into it, no one ever got me drunk.

While that may strike some as a shame, it makes me feel powerful.

It may also strike some (and rightly so) that I might have control issues. Hmmm.

See, this is where it helps that no one reads this. My mother would have a heart attack reading this.

Anyway, I've met men in the last month that I want to add to the list, but I can't really say I SHOULD have slept with them, since I'm married and some of them are also married, and that matters. I don't ever plan to cheat on my husband - it's not worth losing him. No, seriously, there is not a single person whose bedroom skills would be worth losing the best relationship I have ever had. And since it's true for my marriage, it's also never worth the karmic fallout of ruining someone else's relationship (for me).

But I'm not blind, deaf, or resistant to flattery. So there's a new list:

Men I Would Like to Have Slept With.

Are you on it? Probably not. Then again, some of you may be. It's a short list, but it does have room for growth.

I'll Know My Name As It's Called Again

2010-09-26T18:49:00.000-07:00

It's autumn, and new things are happening. Not exactly the things I want, but good things, things that might get me to what I want. Maybe.

This is the time of year when everything seems more possible. I suppose spring feels that way, but autumn has more resonance of beginnings for me - echoes of a new school year, echoes of moving to Chicago, echoes of shaking off the excess and getting down to business.

I think I am the one in my own way. I am going to try to get out of it. I don't want to feel bitter or untalented or wasted, and I think I am the only person who can either escape that, rise above it, or just change my life back to feeling how I felt once - the luckiest person ever, with all of life's opportunities ahead.

And I should stretch more.

I'm listening to Chaka Khan sing, "Tell Me Something Good" and it IS. She is the living embodiment of sex and glory, and you just want to tackle the nearest person and take their clothes off. Slowly.

I keep getting opportunities that, if I could land them, would change everything for the better. And so far, I don't land them. But then more come along. And I don't land those either, but then a few more swan by. Law of averages, something has to stick, right? One of them will come through eventually?

I wrote an image down the other day: a box of old silverware, mostly forks. And I like it. I like thinking about that box. I like thinking that everyone stole the spoons and melted the knives down for jewelry, and there those forks are, hogging that box, finally it's all about them. Hurrah!

I have to get better at enjoying NOT being perfect. How do you enjoy the music if you're worried about how your dancing looks?

Been sick

2010-03-01T10:19:00.000-08:00

I've been sick, sore throat, low fever, a little sniffles, aches and pains and general malaise.

Now I'm putting off going to the gym. I'm not sure I really feel up to it, but somehow I think I need to get my body back in gear, at least a little bit, regardless of the sore throat.

And I'm ... fretful? worried? anxious? I start a class today, feeling pretty untalented and physically out of it. It's an improv class, and while I can't say I was ever any good at improv, I used to love it, I used to feel so happy to be doing it, until I got scared off it by dismissive men.

So I want, naturally, to discover today that I am magically really good at it! Actually, after these past couple of months, I desperately want to discover I am good at pretty much anything, but I can see the danger here: I am unlikely to be magically good at improv, because like all things, it is a skill - one I have not spent any time developing.

Yet I've lost my mojo for all things - the veil of hubris has been removed and I am actually not good at ANYTHING I love. I want my veil back - well, honestly, I want to be proved good in reality, not just in my mind.

I would like to just show up to class ready to have fun and learn something - that's the point. But underneath all that reasonableness I am yearning for something cosmic, some proof that I have not wasted 15 years of my life.

And will I be disappointed when I don't get it? We'll see.

Into the Void

2010-02-13T07:47:00.001-08:00

Ok. Got it. I am writing all of this into a void, because no one reads this page. It's hard to get tone right in type - I'm ok with that, since I only ever had...hmmm...I think about 5 or 6 people who stopped by on occasion, and I didn't post anything for nearly a year, so fair enough.

So it's like I'm writing in a diary that someone could stumble upon. Should this make me more cautious or less cautious?

I wanted to post that I'm back to learning things at this internship. I was in on Friday watching auditions and thinking about how to prepare for commercial auditions and how to decipher what the agent is telling you. I watched a lot of people struggle with the directions and with the spot in general, and a lot of people had prepared but were not able to take direction to change their preparation. They weren't able to think of anything off the cuff to improv further in the scene, and most of them seemed completely thrown by being asked for anything beyond the script.

I can appreciate that feeling of being on the spot, so it made me think about how I could prepare myself for such an eventuality. In the nervousness of the moment, a lot of your thinking shuts down. I guess you have to do your thinking early, and THAT'S the kind of preparation you have to do.

Also interesting, the phrase "go further with it" from an agent's lips never refers to going bigger, it refers to extending the text. The trend in tv spots is small and real, unerplayed, deadpan, etc. The bigger you get, the less real you seem for today's spots. I haven't seen an exception yet, but I bet I will. It's just a trend, not an absolute.

I still think personally I am not very good at this, but yesterday I was able to get back to trying to figure out how it works. Maybe I can get better...I'm definitely going to take a class soon. I'm still pretty disappointed in myself, and it's hard to shake the idea that I'm never going to book real work because I don't have the talent for it. But for the moment, I'm going to keep going, and see if I can improve.

I wish I had something more to show for the 9 years I've been at this. Oh, well.

Unexpected Twist

2010-02-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

It's late, and I can't detail this development the way I'd like to, but I discovered something disturbing today.

I'm interning at a casting agency. One of the perks is that I can watch the dvds of some past auditions - even ones I auditioned for. Today was slow, so I took a look at some auditions.

I am not very good. Please understand, I'm not complaining so that someone will tell me how great I am. (I mean, no one will look at this blog for at least another couple of months, I'd starve to death waiting for that.)

I mean objectively, watching the tapes, I'm no good. I'm not embarrassingly horrific, but it's easy to see why I didn't book any of these jobs. I pull faces, I sound disconnected, and I currently look massive onscreen. The camera adds ten pounds, Christmas added ten pounds, at my lowest I still needed to kick off an extra five pounds - add that up, I'm wearing a flesh overcoat of at least an extra 25 pounds. I look ridiculous. I look like I had my skinnier self for a snack.

I have to go to bed now. But it's a shock to the system to discover that the reason I'm not getting more work is that I'm actually not good enough to get it. I've often said that just because I love acting doesn't mean I'm good at it, but it's still shocking to discover that I'm NOT good at it.

I'm not sure which is stranger or harder:

Giving it up because now I know why I won't get anywhere,

or considering keeping at it with the full knowledge that I'm not good.

I do realize there's an outside chance I could work at getting better, but I'm a good ten years into trying to make this a profession - it's a blow to find out I lack some basic skills.

I've often complained I don't feel like I'm good enough: this is a different statement. Today I looked at proof that I am indeed not good.

I'm off to sleep on it. Maybe I'm still good at theatre?? But somehow, it seems so unlikely...

Pros and Cons of Unemployment

2010-01-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say that it has been an unalloyed joy finally to devote myself to auditioning and working in my chosen field. I also wish that I weren't unemployed at the very moment that most of the work in my field has dried up. Don't get me wrong - I would love to spend all my time being an actor. And for the past few months, I have to a degree. But the snag is that being an actor is not nearly as good as working as an actor.

Also, it costs money to be alive. I'm lucky because I'm used to living on the cheap. I resist beautiful clothes, don't get seduced by gadgets, and like cooking for myself. I was raised by a banker and a saver. I know all about budgets and while I've never made a lot of money, I know better than to spend money I don't have.

But being unemployed for a year is kicking my butt, money-wise. I have rent money, for now. I have money for groceries. I do a little bit of teaching and I collect enough unemployment that the basics are covered, for now. But I took certain things for granted when I was unhappily ensconced in my horrible office job.

Now I cannot:

travel. Especially, I'm afraid, to a friend's wedding in CA in May. I suppose a miracle could occur, but so far... I got subsidized for holiday travel, but I still feel guilty about that. I'm 35, for goodness sake's.
save. It seems like a small thing, and actually, I do still put miniscule amounts "away" every month, but it's demoralizing. My banker wouldn't LET me put money in my IRA a week or so ago. "Are you working again?" No, I explained, but this was surplus. "You need to hang on to that money - you don't know what will happen, and you may need it." He's right. I tried to explain I have money in savings that I would use for emergencies. But my financial future is such that I can't guarantee I won't need that money.
have children. Seriously. Am I ready to have children? I don't know. Can I even consider children while having no money and no foreseeable source thereof? No. Am I swiftly passing my sell-by date to have children? Yup.
go to parties that require gifts. This makes me feel chintzy, and is still rude, since you're supposed to give shower gifts to people even if you miss their parties, right? But I just don't know how the budget could handle shower gifts - or wedding gifts, for that matter! I got lucky a while back - a friend of mine had a shower, and one of her requests (thank you lord) was for home cooked meals that she could freeze. Hurrah.

Let's pretend for a moment that money is no object.

Life should be great. I am finally able to devote myself to being an actor. I can go sit in the Equity office endlessly, trying to been seen for equity auditions. I can go to every commercial audition that I'm called to do. I have no conflicts of any kind.

However...

Of all the auditions I have done since September 2009, I have booked exactly two of them. One was a voiceover for a Public Service Announcement, so it paid exactly $153. For the other, I spent two hours pretending to be a long-suffering patient for the camera. I'll get paid about $250.

The Pros: I had a great time doing both of those jobs. The VO was funny and the studio we recorded it in had a great view over Chicago. It was a blast. The filming folks were easy-going and friendly.

The Cons: In 5 months, I've worked for about 3 hours and made $403. It's not about the money - I keep auditioning for theatre that would perform in tiny spaces for a "stipend" - and I would love doing the shows. Would LOVE it. Sadly, I haven't gotten cast in anything.

So you may have guessed I'm getting downhearted. (As would appear in Pogo: "Are We Downhearted?" "Yes!")

The possible upside? If I break down and get an office job (presuming that I can, there are no guarantees in this job market), I'll bet I'd be back to blogging a lot. There's enticement for those four loyal readers out there.

Maybe four is pushing it.

Am I downhearted? Yes.

Heavy Like a Loaded Gun

2009-04-09T19:24:00.000-07:00

I've been sunk in my own stew for a while, and it isn't interesting. I was listening to lovely music and was inspired to write something, but there is so much else to do and so much stuffiness in my head, I can't quite concentrate.

I noticed on April Fool's Day that I'm carrying a lot of bitterness, and I'd like to put it down. It isn't helping. Everything seems to take such a fight that I've gotten tired. I'd like to think of myself as a fighter. The only things I seem to be able to convince someone I'm good at are boring to me, and the things I love are currently out of reach. And worse, I thought my actions were previously bringing said things closer, when apparently...not.

Confusing? Sorry.

Here's an example: exercising. I've been running about 4 miles pretty much daily, and I suppose increasing my overall health level, only to find a) I seem to have done something odd to my left hip. Damn. b) despite so much more exercise than in years past, I seem to be losing no weight at all, and c) whatever improvement I noticed in my body (a general leanness) has been completely ruined by five days in Cancun drinking pina coladas. Seriously, 9 months of daily running ruined in 5 days. Really? I can't take a break?

Losing the job was a blow, not because I liked it but because that is how I had made my life work, how I had bridged the times between shows, by filling it with money. Not big money, perhaps, but enough money to save here and there. Now, I have a job where I work hard for very little money - true, most do, but it's a difficult transition. Now I can't save, and that's disheartening.

In addition, the firm I used to work for has denied my unemployment. (I'm not claiming any now, now I'm working again, but there are a couple of random weeks.) So that's a fight I am disliking immensely. To think I worked for the firm for 6 years and that's how they decide to behave, when THEY are the ones who let me go...it just feels so petty and mean-spirited.

Lastly, for now, is that my new job involves working with seniors (the almost elderly, not high schoolers) and they are equally a delight and a torture. Delight because they are all positive and talented people, and a joy to discover. Torture because every time we get to the "I'm an actor" part, we go through one of several by-now-familiar song and dances:

1. The proof game - "Well, what have you been in?" If it isn't anything they've heard of or seen, they tell me all about the things they have seen that I wasn't in (and usually wanted to be).

2. Proof game Part 2 - "Oh, do you know....?" I have only won this one once - someone's pilates teacher is a wonderful actress here in town who I like a great deal and know vaguely socially. Usually, no, I don't actually get to hang out with Gary Sinise or Bob Falls.

3. "What are you working on now?" Um, I'm auditioning for everyone's season of August Wilson plays and two-handers and not getting very far. It's a recession, and it turns out I am way in the back of the line for work. Theatres are canceling shows and putting on small cast plays...I'm out there, really, I am. If you want to cast me in something, I'm available.

4. My personal least favorite after #3 is the advice. Lots of advice about what I should be doing. Or who I should be auditioning for. Yep, did that. Yep, sang for them last week. Yep, sent them my headshot and resume. Yep, they know I exist and yet they don't care. And the no win of this conversation is that if you TELL them you've done these things they are suggesting, then the unavoidable assumption is that you are no good. Because if you were a good actor, these golden nuggets of advice would have helped you.

And that's what's getting old. If I were any good, would it be this hard a fight? I don't know right now. I'm losing the belief.

Actually, there's a story that makes me ridiculously happy, and it's apropos here. My husband met an actor friend of his out the other day who was commiserating about how tough it is for work right now. (So, hey, maybe it isn't just me!) This guy is maybe in his late 40s, early 50s, and he has worked consistently throughout his career - lots of industrial bookings amongst the theatre. Apparently, he was chatting about his current lack of work with his mother, and she piped up, "Well, you should have done the Wicked!" To which he said something like, sure, mom, I'll get riiiight on that and get into the cast of Wicked. Which makes me laugh my head off - this guy works all the time, and he's still getting grief from his mother for not getting the ONE HUGE sit-down Broadway show to play Chicago in years. I guess no matter how much you succeed, there's always something you haven't done.

Also to end on a high note - spell check wants my "colada" to be "collards". If that isn't metaphoric, I'm not sure what is.

Lastly, I should add that I have a terrific husband. It does help.

Peace out - have a butter lamb on me.

Ha

2009-01-22T10:33:00.000-08:00

Oh, life. You're so funny.

So, I got laid off from my day job. I have many conflicting emotions about this.

I will not be homeless and will not starve. But my ability to save any money whatsoever has instantly disappeared in a blinding flash. In fact, depending on what happens next, I may find myself using money I so carefully saved.

Now, if I just had to have money, I'll bet I could get a full time job. It might not be simple, it might not pay really well, and it would almost certainly be something I disliked doing, but I feel sure that I could get a job. A job. Some job, of any kind.

But that was never the point. The only reason I've kept this current day job is because they allow me flexibility to pursue the things I really love. To take a job just to have a job and find myself without the time or flexibility to do any of the things I enjoy seems like...well, hell.

Truth be told, I haven't really enjoyed this job for years. It's a placeholder, it's comfortable because I know its irritations and limit my work time to contain them. However, there's no getting away from the fact that I enjoy knowing I'll get paid, and plan accordingly.

So in today's economy, how do I find work that will mean something to me? Well, the perfect answer would be book another equity show. But those efforts have not yet been successful.

I'm excited at the idea that I'd be free of this place. Just not excited to have so little money coming in.

I feel so many people are losing their jobs that I have to be grateful that a) I do have some savings, b) I do have some options, and c) I do have a tiny teaching job that will at least give me something to concentrate on while I make this transition.

Tricky - how do I shift my mindset away from squirrelling money in savings accounts and towards finding work I love, no matter what the pay cut?

What's in the Box?

2009-01-09T09:52:00.000-08:00

I got fewer Christmas presents this year, and you know what, I'm thrilled. I mean, I like presents, naturally, but present giving at Christmas sets up this whole tit-for-tat that can lead to a lot of present giving just for form's sake. I can completely do without that kind of present giving and getting. It's worst at the office, where co-workers feel compelled to give you something, but either don't know anything about your likes and dislikes or just plain don't have the time or money to invest in a "great" gift for you - which is fair. I appreciate the difficulty, but my solution has been to give no presents at all. I participate in the Secret Santa, and call it a day. If I worked for an individual, I'd probably find him or her something, although honestly I've skipped that in the past as well.

Now, lest I come off like a Scrooge, I love to give presents to my near and dear. I love to come up with a really ideal present, something I know that person loves and will be excited to open. If I really can't find anything special, I go for practical, and make sure at least it could be used.

I normally get a slew of gifts, always from people who mean well, that I then have to find some way to re-gift into the world (because it really is a small apartment). Here are some items I would happily NEVER RECEIVE AGAIN:

Stuffed animals. As a grown-up with little house space and no children, I have an exceptionally limited use for stuffed animals. Especially ones wearing Santa hats.
Anything seasonally decorative. This decorative watering can filled with artificial poinsettias and a fake stuffed bird sitting on my desk - where do I put it? I have no storage in my apartment. Also, it isn't really my style. This goes for the decorative snowman I got last year from the same person.
Candy canes. Nothing wrong with them, just, enh.
Pierced earrings. I do not have pierced ears, which makes it awkward to wear them, and then I feel guilty. Boo.

I'm sure there are more, but my point is that this year, I got relatively few pointless gifts.

Interestingly, there are quite a few things that once were pointless that would finally come in handy: for instance, Christmas ornaments. My husband and I had our first tree at home this year, and happily he has a bunch of ornaments, but I was underrepresented on the tree. Don't tell me we could go out and buy ornaments. Sacrilege. In my house the tree is always decorated with all the ornaments you made as a kid or people gave you as presents, and they all have names and dates on them, and every ornament has a story. We always decorate the tree together as a family, and my mother tells all the stories, usually completely wrong. Nowadays the garbled stories are much funnier, because the dates on the ornaments often prove her completely incorrect. My personal favorite is the tiny wooden angel ornament she gave my Dad to tell him I would be born seven months later. Awww. But we have two ornaments that look very similar and she always tells the story while holding the one that is clearly dated three years after my birth.

Sadly, decorating the tree is one of my favorite family traditions that has been squashed by the move of Christmas to my brother's house, since he has two small children. But the small children are a good recompense, so I can take it.

Nevertheless, Christmas trees should be decorated with memories and personality. So where once I eschewed ornaments as gifts, now I'm loving them, building my own Christmas.

In the end, I think the perfect Christmas gift is a token of a memory or a reminder that someone cares enough about you to think of you specifically. Memories and Personality. It could be silly and inexpensive, it could be lavish and something you've always dreamed of, but it either gives you a story or a really warm feeling of love. Everything else is just trash weighing you down.

For me, I love the way the economy affected Christmas. Lots of that trash went away. Also, I love all the socks people gave me.

What about the rest of you? What was your favorite gift this year, and what did you get that you could have gone without?

If you try sometime, you just might find

2008-12-05T14:52:00.000-08:00

So for the impact to make sense, you'll have to read the post under this one, but I found an article about Malcolm Gladwell's new book that made me reassess my moroseness:

“What’s surprising is how much work it takes. Ten thousand hours is a long time. It’s both a daunting and an empowering lesson. It says that, if you haven’t made it, it may not be because you don’t have what it takes. It may just be that you have misunderstood how extraordinarily long it takes for everyone. When you see how long the Beatles put in before they arrived in the USA in 1964 . . . There’s not a shortage of talent in the world. There’s a shortage of people willing to go to Hamburg to play eight-hour sets.” -Malcolm Gladwell

Oh.

Well, in that case, instead of holding my pity party, I've got some more hours to put in. Excuse me, I just remembered I'm lucky enough to be putting some of those in on a really lovely show off of Michigan Ave.

Sometimes, you gotta take your eyes off the horizon to see how far you've actually come. Because the horizon is always, always receeding in the distance. No matter how much ground you may have covered.

Lots

2008-12-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

The adventure - lovely. The show - amazing. My current mood - abjectly morose.

It was bracing to be in London again. However stupid it may sound, it does feel like home, and it is a place of great magic for me. It was very odd having my husband along, because I've never been in the city with someone before - it's always been a place I explored basically alone. Of course I had friends and companions at different moments, but I was essentially wandering with only my own curiousity as a guide. Suddenly I had this other person, and this other person had no agenda but definitely got irritated and bored by following my agenda on occasion. It was like dragging the poor man to a 10 day college reunion. It's interesting to meet the people your spouse spent time with, but eventually it wears on you because it isn't your world you're catching up on.

Regardless, we had some glorious moments and no real blow outs, so I think that's pretty successful traveling. I was just reminded of how jealous of my time my husband can be - he gets saturated, and can handle our being apart, but overall he'd like us to hang out most of the time, and he doesn't want to come second to anyone else. (Fair enough, obviously.)

The trip was both a reminder that we are separate people as well as how much I have been absorbed into the "us-ness" we have. I have mixed feelings about that. I think more and more of the "us" as home base, and it's a great relief to have a place in the world that's home base. But there are parts of me I have put in storage for the moment, and I hope someday to unwrap them again.

I got back and started rehearsing for an equity show. It was fantastic and frightening, wonderful and woeful. I LOVE working where people do this for their living - they act in shows, and they get health insurance, and pension plans, and a support system, and a series of rules that makes their lives easier. I love the people I've met in this show - everyone is there to do a good job and I can respect everyone's work. Also, they make me laugh myself silly.

I am also completely overwhelmed with trying to be good enough, and deathly afraid this will be my only chance at acting in a world like this. It's taken so long, soooooo long to book this one show on this level, and now I don't want to go back, I want to stay here, and I'm afraid I don't have the chops for it. I've done a handful of auditions since we started, and none of them have been impressive, and I haven't booked a single one of those jobs.

I can't help but think, if I were any good, wouldn't I have already gotten on this level and stayed there? I mean, I've met people who came to town and in a year and a half have booked six months of an equity show and a reading at the Goodman. After seven years, I'm working equity....as a non-equity, non-dancing dancer and an understudy.

So here's the problem. Even if I'm actually not that talented, I can't stop. I love it. I LOVE it. It makes sense. I love 8 shows a week and rehearsal halls and silly backstage talk and TELLING A STORY. So even if I suck, I have to keep trying. Because I love it. But how sad it will be to know I suck and still keep trying? I want my love of it to make me talented, but it doesn't.

I'll be ok working non-equity - I still love theatre for telling a story, and that's something completely independent of union status. I just want so much for this to be my work, and there's not enough money in non-eq, even commercial non-eq, to keep me afloat. One of the best parts of these months have been the very few days I have had to spend working in an office, and now, with no more paid work on the horizon, it's back to the office, and that's hard to take. It's my Flowers for Algernon moment, and I'm worried I'll never get back.

I guess I'll have to work harder. Sigh. When I see Northwestern grads bounce from show to show, I can't help feeling a little bitter. Maybe someday I'll get there.

Adventure Ahoy

2008-09-19T10:04:00.001-07:00

It's coming...in about ten days we hop an Air India flight to the UK. I am trying to juggle what I need to get done here with wanting to be there already and planning what needs to happen. My honey was asking me what we'd do, and I had to slightly make up what we'd do, because the truth is I'm going to want to wander around and show him stuff. And see people I adore. It's tricky to scheduled that exactly.

In the meantime, I'm happy because beyond the trip is a show, a show with actual paychecks and a union theatre and a group of people who DO THIS FOR A LIVING, which is after all what I've been after for years now. I only have ten days of office work scheduled for the months of November and December. Ten days! Ha! And that's just for extra money to stash for travel or a rainy day or Christmas presents. It may seem small, but the idea of doing what you love and getting paid a living wage is fantastic. It's a miniscule living wage - I couldn't buy a house on it, for instance, but it feels like the beginning of the right sort of thing.

We went to visit friends a few weeks ago who are quite wealthy, and on the way visited friends who may not be wealthy, but are doing really well. Both sets of friends ended up making us appreciate how much we like the little life we do have, and that we don't want more unless we can earn it doing what we love. Because at least one of each pair of folks does what they love, and all the things they have or have done come directly from that.

I'm not making sense. I would not be interested in having an enormous vacation house in the country if I had to give up acting and be a money manager in order to get it. I know several people who make huge salaries but don't seem to get any enjoyment out of what they do, and that seems like a crime to me. I do most of what I'd like to do on a comparable pittance per year. (In fact, I did the math, and one friend's yearly salary would last me six years.) Money is nice, and sure, there are times it would be very handy to have more of it, and I would quite like to buy a domicile one of these days, but I feel like working in an office AT ALL is enough of a sell out - I don't want to thrown away the things I love to sweat and slave at some profession I hate, or that (worse yet) bored me.

The holy grail of acting is that it is possible (if unlikely) that someday I could make a chunk of money at it. So as long as I'm sweating and slaving, I perfer it's in the service of a profession I not only enjoy, but feel passionate about. The passion and pleasure get me through the inevitable rough times. (I don't care what you do, sometimes it's rough.)

I just realized how hungry I am. Part Two will follow after lunch, I think.

Adventure

2008-08-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

Me: "You know the internet joint account we set up, the one we called 'Wedding Expenses'"?

Husband: "Sure, why?"

Me: "Well, we don't have any wedding expenses anymore, so I renamed it today."

Husband: (after a slightly skeptical look): "Whatdja call it?"

Me: "Funtime Spending. It seemed much more...festive."

Husband: (admiringly) "You're right. That's much better. Funtime Spending. I might have to go buy something right away..."

It's time for an adventure, and we're actually going to have one. I'm not sure how it will turn out, as we're poor and money is a big issue for the moment, but someone else bought our tickets as a wedding present so we're going. To England. In about a month.

I don't even know where to start. Hubby's been (and I've lived there), so we don't have to do "Famous Britain", but there are so many places I'd like to show him and so many people I hope he can meet. I also wish we could spend weeks and weeks just wandering. Actually, I really do wish we could cycle across Europe. Is that unrealistic? Can it be done? What with our complete lack of any language besides English and lack of dough?

It's tricky. I'd like to live a little riskier but I no longer seem to make choices that lead me that direction. It's the reverse of a realization I had in my twenties. Back then, I was sitting on a train platform waiting, looking at the rafters and thinking how much I hate change, when it occurred to me how much change I had brought upon myself. I had intentionally sought out each and every change. "Bloody hell," I thought, "I must like change, really." And it seemed I did.

Now I suddenly realize I have stayed in the same place for nearly 7 years, making fairly safe choices. I have an IRA, for goodness sake, I pay for my own health insurance. I feel a little wrong-footed. I still like change - it's one of the best parts of being an actor, that each project is different. But I've cut myself off from some of the adventure. Maybe that's wise, maybe I'm being clever and grown up. I mean, if someone ran into me tomorrow while I was riding my bike to work, my insurance would be there for the big medical bills.

And I suppose getting married is a big change. I know it is for me.

So how do I keep the IRA and the health insurance and get back to risk? How do I stay on track to save money for a house and still backpack across Europe? Have I just plain run out of time for any more foolishness?

Food for thought.

Not Bad At All

2008-08-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

I'm busy being an ordinary person, and it's ok. I don't love it -I miss working on a show, and I'd always rather be doing an acting gig than working in an office, but for now, it's fine. My one and only favorite lawyer came into the office today and I remembered what it's like to work for people you can actually like and respect. While yes, that means I normally don't work for people I can like and respect, it makes a nice change for today.

Further, since Michigan I am not as irritated. The lawyers are just as irritating, but for the moment I can handle it. I punch in, do my 9 to 5, go home, and wait for the paycheck.

It's a lot easier to do this because I know it is finite. In October I go into rehearsals for a big musical downtown. If I wanted to, I could probably live entirely off my paycheck and spend about two and a half months away from this law firm. I may try working two days a week instead, as then I can try to really get ahead in terms of rent and money and IRA and such. But even the idea of limiting this to two days a week while I spend the rest of my time doing 8 shows a week sounds grand.

So in the meantime I'm taking what they're givin' 'cause I'm working for a living. I'm a little embarrassed to be so practical, but at least my job-I-hate allows me to do the things I love.

In the meantime, the sweetie and I will be going to London in a few months. It feels very strange - London is a place I'd like to go back to live in someday, but right now all I can see is how much I've built this world in Chicago. I jumped around a lot in my twenties, and settling down felt like selling out. Now, however, I can see the advantage to staying put and grinding out what I'm trying to get.

More and more, I see the things I've done that succeeded have always been within my power but I didn't know how to access them before - like playing a video game where you have to know how to unlock secret aids - the aids are always there, but it takes some trial and error to unlock them. So for now, I have to keep playing this game over and over until I master it.

Sadly, I am slow to master it. But I creep forward, bit by bit. This month, I think I can be content with the progress and enjoy the fact that I get a new experience out of it starting in October.

And then, underneath it all, there's a lot more ambition. I want a lot more than this. I'm trying to enjoy what I do have while I get there.

I will get there, won't I?

Michigan and such

2008-08-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

So, two weeks in Michigan doing Shakespeare outdoors - fantastic. I had one rough patch right in the middle where I got grumpy and pissy, but otherwise I had a beautiful time. I couldn't do this job all the time, because that part of Michigan is just vacation land, and this led to me eating way too much pie and other bad-for-me things. But aside from the unfortunate weight gain, it was the best acting job ever.

The theatre is a bandshell outdoors and the audience sits on a hillside and watches the show - gorgeous. Amazing to watch the sun go down over that hill. The audiences were lovely - so appreciative and so friendly. I couldn't help wishing I could be in the plays more so that I could entertain everyone more!

It was a very motley crew we took up, and I had (have) mixed feelings...not so much bad and good feelings, but affection mixed with utter caution. Some of these people are involved in dramas I want no part of. Some of them are involved in substances that increase the drama. I found myself wishing for a real grownup along - just one, because of course if everyone is a grownup the parties are no fun. But one real grownup would have waded in and settled some things definitively.

I'm being vague on purpose - I like (in many cases adore) these people, so I would hate to imagine one of them coming across this and getting the wrong idea.

Two weeks in Michigan made me realize again I'm not very good in group dynamics - I have less than a perfect track record in groups or with group mentalities. Fortunately, I was in this case able to just go along with the flow. I have had groups that I felt totally comfortable with and could completely be myself - maybe next year with these folks. Not that they aren't great, I just do better the second time around with these things.

Here's an example of my grumpy period. A woman came up from Chicago to visit, call her Sadie. For about four days, all I heard all day long was how fantastic she was. "Oh, Sadie's awesome, she's the best ever at everything and everyone likes her. She has no faults, she's both powerful and kind, and every one that meets her wants to fall down at her feet and worship her."

Maybe not those exact words, but that was the general sense. I was, of course, perversely irritated and had every intention of despising this angel.

Joke's on me - she really WAS a magnificent creature, with fascinating background and care for those around her. And I was delighted to meet her, and after that I kind of had to get over myself for a while.

Other than a few episodes of true jealousy, I really had a great time. Lots of water sports, we were staying on a lake and got to hang out on the dock during our copious free time. Most of what craziness there was didn't ruin anything for me. And I was exceptionally happy when my husband finally arrived...it was glorious to go exploring the terrain with him.

I gathered enough bliss from two weeks in Michigan to keep me calm during a weekend with my mother out in San Diego. We went out for my college roommate's wedding, which was absolutely lovely. For me it was a great combination of realizing how glad I was I got married and all the good things I can remember from the wedding (the unpleasantness is fading), and then on the other hand being jealous in moments that my roomie had managed to do x, y, or z that I didn't get around to during or for my wedding. It was a great time, though, and I think my mother was on her best behavior - not a single word about what I should or shouldn't wear, plunging necklines and all. Not a whipser of my needing to lose five pounds. (It's always five, even when it was more like 15-20 I needed to lose.)

My husband had hoped that I would get something along the lines of: "I'm so glad we did it our way at YOUR wedding," from my mother. But I predicted correctly that mom would have a great time and would have found such comments rude. However, I'm happy to note that she didn't stoop to "I wish you'd done it THIS way," which was a relief. I am trying to come to terms with never having my mother's approval, and it's a lot easier when I'm not getting blatant DISapproval.

We managed to stay cordial and Mom really had a great time - she had wanted to be there very badly, and I am glad I could assist. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and only wished I could have been more help to my roommate. All the details were done weeks or months ago, and the whole event was very well-planned. I just wish I could have made some part of the festivities easier or more fun for her.

Nonetheless, I am very happy I got to be a part of everything, and it was a lovely wedding.

Wow - nearly three weeks I enjoyed entirely! Yay!

Ugh

2008-07-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

I nearly got past this total ugh I'm feeling right now. I went to a lunchtime concert at Millenium Park and for about five minutes there, I was really loving being able to rock out with Le Loup for my lunch.

And then I had to go back to work, where I have no motivation.

No one should have to work in the summer. And yet most of us do.