Let the sunshine in.

I do a work/trade at the Dailey Method workout studio on Friday mornings – it’s pretty harmless, except for the occasional bout of entitlement from clientele or having to cover childcare with a usually wailing baby who knows his mom is in the next room and if he only screams long enough, she’ll come. But, this morning, childcare lady came, there weren’t any payment traffic jams in the 5-minute turn around between the morning classes, and I had my Theater Bay Area magazine with me. Highlighted.

The other night, I set my alarm clock for ten minutes, and sat with a highlighter and the magazine. And opened it. I knew that if I had too long, I’d feel overwhelmed, and 10 minutes felt like a good beginning. It was actually easier than I’d thought, just reading through the descriptions of casting calls – some were obviously not right for me – male, far away, or another ethnicity. But a few were. 4, in fact. One was a reach, but I highlighted it any way: Lead frontman in a The Who’s Tommy production company. – But hey, I’m just highlighting, no need to rule any thing out. And then my alarm went off, magazine closed.

So this morning, *thumpthump* *thumpthump* I took the magazine out at my desk shift while class was going on, and… I sent 3 emails. (I want to research the playwright for the 4^th, as they were specific about it, and I don’t know the name). I sent my small little actor’s resume and my headshot a friend took for me in January, and a blurb about why I’m interested, and can’t wait to meet you, yadda yadda.

I’ve done this. I’ve sent out at least a thousand resumes in my working day. I know how to fashion a cover letter. So, I did. And I send the Roger Daltrey one too. – That one, I got a response to right away – he said they’d filled that slot, but were still looking for an Acid Queen and/or backup. I said, count me in. Who knows, he said they have someone interested in managing their group who needs to see the new Daltrey, and probably won’t start going until mid-December, more yadda yadda, so, no high hopes. But I did it – I made baby steps.

Actually, I think proposing that I’d be a great frontman to your production is a major leap, and perhaps I need to learn to mitigate better, so I can stay realistic, hopeful, but realistic, and not stamp out my own dream by taking too-large, developmentally inappropriate steps – but that said, I was glad I replied to the ad, because it might lead to something else. Like anything, this is a game of persistence. And so, great, I sent out 3 emails – one bounced back! – but I have one more to send, and other work to do as assigned/suggested by my actress friend.

However… tonight, me and two of my girl friends went to see HAIR in SF, and at the end of the play, you can go up on stage to dance with the band and all the other audience and cast members – and so as me and my two friends jiggled around to the finale song, laughing and loving it, I told myself to get used to the heat of those lights. 

T.I.M.E: Twisted Ideas Miraculously Erased

Feeling decidedly better today. And I realize that “decide” is the key word there.

I awoke this morning, early, again (although, yes, I do realize that 6am is not that early for some people!), and as I was writing my Morning Pages, and staring at my clock, and writing "I have to figure out how to manage my time better, I spend 5 minutes grumbling out of bed, and 2 minutes heating up my coffee, and 15 minutes on my morning pages – though really they take 30, so I scrimp on days when there isn’t time..."

And I sort of went off on this vein, but somewhere in the middle I decided to simply take the full time it was going to take and write all three long-hand pages of my morning pages. Somewhere in there, I was struck with the thought that I have been treating time like I've treated money – addressing it from a place of scarcity instead of abundance. As something I have to struggle for and will never have enough of. When I was done with the pages, I stood up, and although technically this would be the moment in the morning where I would bolt a shower and stream out the door with wet hair, I said aloud, “I’m hungry.” … then I answered myself, “Then you should eat.”

And so I did. I cooked my eggs, like I’m known to do, and I sat and ate them and drank my cup of coffee, not at a brunch-y leisurely pace, but not shoveling them down either. Something had unlatched in the region of my guts, and I was consciously reminding myself to breathe, and that I was giving myself this time. “There is enough time, There is enough love, There is enough money” are some affirmations my little financially savvy friends use ;) (They also use "I am enough, I have enough, I do enough" - crazy notions, huh??) Then I took a shower and it took as long as it took. I had my clock in the bathroom, but at this point, I was past the time I would usually catch the reliable bus, and had somewhere inwardly agreed that I would take the unreliable bus and whatever happened would happen.  ~ I even blowdried my hair – I haven’t done that in the morning before work in … a while. It’s a luxury of time (but also helps to keep me healthy in winter months). Then I did my makeup and got dressed, and got a snack ready for work, so I knew I’d have something to eat and not starve again.

And I walked out of the house – two days ago, I literally (well, not literally I guess!) flew down the stairs and nearly knocked into the person also going out the front door at that moment. But this morning, I walked. In my purple coat and teal scarf and green bag, and warm hair and world-ready face. And you know what? I ran into a friend as I was walking to the unreliable bus, and I asked him if I could get a ride to BART, and he said it was about time I took him up on his many offers for a ride.

And I got to work 10 minutes late. Only ten minutes late. But the difference between how I walked in made all the difference in the world. Sure, maybe next time, I’ll get there in better time, but somehow, the minute yet immense change in my attitude toward my time – how I was spending it – addressing it – and now hopefully making it work for me, instead of breathing erratically in the face of a ticking clock – hopefully this will turn into change. Not feeling like I’ve got a vice on my heart and being preemptively guilty about not being “where I’m supposed to be, when I’m supposed to be” feels like a good start.

And, by the way, I got let out of work early (for a work errand, so I was told I can still bill my full time), and I went to BLICK art supply store and bought envelopes for my holiday cards – because under the decreased pressure in my temples, I get to be creative. And give myself time to be so. 

Holiday card #2: watercolor&embossing on paper :)

“Anty needs a recharge.”

There’s a scene in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids when the kids are riding an enormous ant through the jungle of their backyard, and the ant starts to slow down, his antennae droop, and the mouthy next-door neighbor kid says the above line.

My alarm went off at 6am, like it does on the 3 days I commute from Oakland to SF for work, and you know that puffy-eyed “whoa buddy, you do not have my permission to get up yet – tank not full” feeling?

I knew that I would have to go straight from work to school tonight, as it’s Wednesday, and I have my Shakespeare class at night and don’t get home till 10pm – and the classes are really small, like 10 or 12 people, so I always feel the need to contribute something coherent – last week, we went around stating what our final projects were going to be, and when we got to me, punch-drunk with fatigue and having not given it any thought yet, I said I would write a project where Juliet gets reincarnated as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ;) I then laughed and said I was kidding, but surprisingly, people seemed to like the idea! I don’t think I’ll do it – but it’s SO strange to be in a class where we’re reading theory and textual criticism and analyzing rhetorical forms, and that could actually be considered a viable final project. We’re allowed to do a creative one, which seems so strange to me – when I was in undergrad, your “books cited” page pretty much made your grade. That said, my midterm was a farcical letter to Romeo (with works cited!), so…

In any case, I woke up this morning unable to face such a full day – so I called out till noon. I said they could call me if that was a problem, and I felt guilty, but I also knew how completely unavailable – and cranky – I am without enough sleep. So, I went back to bed until 10am and went in to work – where I felt like a little kid, waiting to be chastised for doing something wrong (I wish I didn’t react like that when I stand up for my needs! – but i do), and lo and behold, my boss was totally cool, and acted as nice to me as always, and gave me work, and i folded fabric and booked fancy hotel rooms for other people, and that was that. Not a big deal. People understand that other people are human – I’m usually the one who doesn’t get that. “I’m only human,” was my mantra as I was walking into work this morning, feeling like a bad schoolgirl.  – and not in the sexy way. Although I was wearing my brand new purple coat, and I felt like the jewel colored woolen equivalent of a rock star ;)

After work, BART was late with a medical emergency, so I missed the shuttle to school, and by this point I’m starving, as I only had breakfast before work and some cookies at work, because I felt like I couldn't leave to get real food because I had to “make up” for the fact I came in late. So, I’m hungry, tired, and then the bus that I can take to school instead of the shuttle is late – and I know I’ll be late to class, and I have to buy food no matter what.

So … I skiv off. I didn’t go to class. Gasp.  It’s not such an awful thing, I’ve been there every time except once when I was back east, and I got a pretty good grade on my midterm, but, I had had it. So, I trudge up the hill to the grocery store by my house and fill up at the hot food bar on an enormous load of heavy comfort food of creamed yams and mac&cheese and come home and collapse with an episode of Glee.

All this serves to tell me is that something’s gotta give. I’m not sure what yet, but calling in to work late, cutting class, and overeating to make up for malnourishment are signs to me that there’s some aspect of self-care and balance that is seriously missing here. It may not seem like “that big a deal,” and individually, these things are not – but I didn’t go to class on Friday either – and I’m not paying what I’m paying in tuition to not go to class – or to feel so depleted. Besides, I actually like school and my classes, and I want to go! It's why I'm going in the first place!

So, I’m not sure what needs to give yet. There are only 3 more sessions of this Wednesday class before winter break. But, I don’t think I can do what I’m doing like this anymore – even for 3 weeks – that’s three weeks more than anyone should spend exhausted, cranky, and poorly fed. Anty needs a recharge.   

Compensation

A friend once told me that the Universe gives us compensations. This was after I’d just spent an emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually bankrupting week at my family home in NJ last month – I was there to clean out my childhood room as my dad and his fiancé have purchased a new construction home in Florida and plan to move there in April, so he is clearing out the house to get it ready for sale.

He was going to yoke my brother into the task of clearing out my room – and somehow, not really being sure if I’d cleared out all the sex toys, drugs, or writings about such things - and in addition wanting the experience and process of the ritual of “leaving my childhood home” - I made a snap decision to buy a flight home in October. My dad’s not really a sentimental kind of guy, and wasn’t really getting that it was an emotional thing that the house I grew up in – that we shared a family life & history in – was about to be sold.

That same friend also told me that her parents had sold her childhood home without her packing up her things, and that if my dad wanted to clear it out, then whatever he found was his own fault/problem, and that although it sort of sucked that she didn’t get to do it herself, it happened, and it was what it was. But, luckily, I knew I had the money, and there was a cheap deal on a flight, and off I went… to a whirlwind of entirely fucked up.

In describing the state of the house to friends once I returned to SF, two people asked word for word “Was anyone living there??” And my answer was yes – yes, two adult men, my dad and my brother, were there, living in a home that had dead flies on all the window sills, dead bugs caught in the scum of the oven hood, beyond the forever unmowed, uninviting lawn. You remember when I said we never had people over growing up? Yeah, my house was not the entertainment house. It has gotten significantly worse since my mom moved out ten years ago after my parents’ divorce, and to be fair, my dad has been splitting his time between his own home (he kept the house – my mom is a city dweller by very nature) and his fiance’s home, and keeping up the maintenance of a barely used home is a trial. Plus, my brother had been away at graduate school until last year, so … The house reflects the loneliness and neglect.

I did a lot of work before I went home on untying my identification with the house – if it only had more attention, love, consideration of its assets, it could be beautiful, exciting, a success. I was livid that the 200-year-old oak tree in the front lawn was now rotting, and will have to come down before the house is sold – its roots had died; I felt personally affronted by this.

So, I went home – to pack, but also to make peace with all of that. With the deep depression, the anger, the resentment, the despair that house witnessed. To make peace with the shattered door frame to my bedroom as it was once attempted to be kicked down. And also, to thank it. To honor what was, what it sheltered, what it witnessed, and then to let it go.

I did sort of well – no, I did as absolutely as massively well as I possibly could in the situation. When on a streaming tears emergency phone call to an SF friend, she asked me what more I could be doing at that moment (We’d just come back from visiting my dad’s parents in Queens – and their home is, without any exaggeration, a fertile candidate for an episode of “Hoarders”, … and some very strong meds). I thought about what more I could be doing at that moment, and the answer was nothing; I was doing absolutely everything I knew to do in moments of distress – Once we’d gotten home from Queens, I went out for a long walk, I called my spiritual teacher lady (who said we all have a Grey Gardens branch of the family tree) ;) and I made plans to go to dinner with a girl friend who knew my situation. So, I told my friend on the phone, I was literally doing all that I could be doing – and I knew then, that that had to be enough. I was fucking uncomfortable – I was sad, anguished at the state of my family’s homes, of their comfort with or ambivalence toward or simply paralyzing despair in the face of such obvious … sickness. Yes, I was uncomfortable, but I also was doing the very best I could – that had to be enough.

So, I went to dinner with a girl friend; I cleared out my childhood room (there was only one book of porn and no drugs!); and I saged the damn place – because I don’t want no bad jujus hangin’ out there in NJ while I’m all the way back here in CA.

And I came home.

In the tiny window of my layover in Detroit, I get a phone call from the temp agency in SF asking me if I want to work at the interior design firm again - I could start the very next day. … Having cleared out the old, I made way for the new.

And so my wise, wonderful, now-Brooklynite friend told me upon hearing this story: “The Universe gives us compensations.”

The reason I wrote today’s blog on this? This afternoon I found the most perfectly ‘couldn’t be more perfect’ purple wool coat that I’ve been actively envisioning, believing in, and hunting down for the last month – on sale. And after the blind date disappointment, I remember her words, and smile joyfully at my plum compensation. ;)

Make 'em Laugh

I just texted the blind date guy to politely decline his invitation for a second date. Beforehand, when I presented my case to my best guy friend saying that I just wasn’t sparked by the coffee date but maybe I should try a second date, he said that ambivalence wasn’t a good sign.

So, if it’s not a good sign, it’s a bad one. And although my gut had been telling me even before the date that I was having misgivings, I am a Libra – and I need to thoroughly weigh everything from every angle until my head explodes – This usually happens several times per month, or per day if I’m overtired ;P

That isn’t precisely true – I’ve gotten more used to listening to the voice of my intuition, the longer it hasn’t told me things like “another line would *really* make this party awesome” or “his girlfriend isn’t here, so…” I have since learned that this voice may not have been my intuition, but that’s what I interpreted it as for years, and so it’s taken me a while to get accustomed to the idea that perhaps my gut isn’t trying to kill me (my brain is another story).

That said, I spent a significant amount of time and brainspace on second guessing my gut today. “How much can you know from a first date, anyway?” It just felt beige. He wasn’t funny. “Oh, everyone’s on their best behavior on a first date - you can’t really know if he’s funny or not.” He didn’t make me laugh. “Wouldn’t you know more if you went out again?”

Maybe, or maybe I’d learn more if I actually listened to my gut for once instead of hitting the override switch. Build up that muscle of listening to myself, trusting myself, and also, caveat – if it’s meant to happen again, it will. … But I don’t think it will.

I was talking with my actress friend today for my “informational interview/omigod this is hella scary” phone call, and I was telling her that this performance thing is a gut thing that just hasn’t gone away. I recently found an exercise from when I was doing The Artist’s Way three years ago – it was a list of “Forbidden Joys” - things I would love to do, but am “not allowed.” And on it was “Audition for a play.”

So, my friend told me that first, I would just need to start auditioning, and likely fall flat on my face. I told her that I already did do that. 

Earlier this year, I responded to a casting call on craigslist (you can see how much credence I was willing to give to my gut!). We were asked to prepare a monologue and a song - as although this wasn’t a musical, the director believed that having actors sing was a good way to see how they’d do when they felt uncomfortable. … So, I prepared “Make 'em Laugh” from Singing in the Rain – it’s a hilarious outlandish routine by Donald O’Connor – and it is OVER-THE-TOP.

See, I’ll show them how not uncomfortable this makes me! … Turns out, I made them quite uncomfortable. Somewhere between the wildly gesticulating arm gestures and a prat fall, I think I lost them. But hell, if it wasn’t hilarious … to me, at least. Sure, I was a little disappointed – and I felt like I had totally blown it by not being “more serious” or even a little serious – but for christ’s sake the play was about a woman’s love affair with pot!

So I told this story to my actress friend, and she was delighted! She said I’d already made a fool of myself, and lived (and laughed) through it, so obviously I’m willing to try and fail – but I also have to be willing to get out there again. So, she gave me some good advice and said I could check in with her in a week, which seems like an awfully sweet thing, and will help to keep me accountable to some of the tasks I have before me (buy a monologue book – and that monthly subscription to Theater Bay Area I keep on shoving under my coffee table? take it out and look at the casting calls in the back).

Because I want to be a woman who can be disappointed and still follow my dreams, and my dreams also include a man who makes me laugh. 

p.s. just got a text back that said he was offering sex not dinner - that...makes me laugh. Thanks, gut!... + seriously?!

weekend update.

yesterday, I went to a “meditation & creative writing” workshop with a friend from school, and although we both agreed we were ready to leave at the lunch break, i got out some writing that needed to get out. my friend said afterward that her qualm with workshops like those is that they continue to bring people back into the very story they’re trying to let go of, but for me, like I said in the “Excavation” blog, my writing isn’t about spinning my wheels or wishing it were different anymore. I’ve found traction on this stuff, but for me, for my process, it still needs to come up and out.

My friend/spiritual teacher lady said to me today that in Buddhism, they talk about those things as blocks, things that are solid and we knock up against and then back away from – and that they must become diluted for us to move through them. And so, I hear what my friend is saying – and I have certainly been there, simply hitting up against the bricks of my “story”, but  - it feels different lately. It doesn’t feel as solid, weighted, or shameful. There are still pieces that need processing, but on the whole, I do feel I’m getting through to the other side – the side where there is freedom and levity and possibility –

and action. To update on another item this week, I've scheduled phone conversations in the next week with those two working actors in SF I mentioned – indeed giving not only voice to my desire to perform, but also giving traction to that as well by actually putting in some action. Sure, I’m nervous to head in this direction, as uncertain and as fraught with nay-sayers or “realistic” people as it is (esp. when those people live in my head) – but it’s one of those internal nudges that hasn’t gone away, and the longer that I listen to myself, the stronger it has become.

Sure enough, my electric guitar came out of the closet this week. The bass came out with the amp a few months ago, the acoustic is out always, as is the small keyboard that mainly gets used when i’m plunking out notes for my singing class– but, they’re here. and like the performance thing, "singing in a rock and roll band” is not going away either, and it too is just getting stronger. That’s another one I feel retarded talking about – like, who am i, i’m too old, too square, and what have i done and i don’t know that much music and i don’t have enough tattoos. ... but, sure, be ALL of that as it may – i still want to sing in a band. i can fucking taste the metal of the microphone. do i know what kind of music? – it’s becoming clearer – it’s not “pretty” singing. i don’t want to sing pretty, I want to sing passionate – and if they intersect, which to a point i imagine they will, then all the better, but i’m not looking to do pretty – i’m looking to do raw. I wrote an email to a girl friend/acquaintance lady about a year ago because i read some of her facebook updates and watched her go through the same thing, and she emailed me back echoing that her teenage rock girl just wouldn’t go away – and at some point we listen.

or perhaps we don’t, but that’s not my story – anymore.

so, true to CITO, my closet is getting cleared and organized, and an entire drawer is now empty – because “the universe abhors a vacuum”, so if you build it – or clear it – they will come. plus, I feel mentally freer in some way, like how you feel when you go away on vacation and know you’ll come back to a clean apartment (it was once suggested to me to put dirty dishes in the fridge so they won’t rot when you’re away – and sadly, i have done this!). or like in feng shui where you’re not supposed to have anything under the bed, because even if out of sight, it is taking up “room” … energetically ;)

to close out my updates for the week, i will also tell you that I finally wrote that “renegotiating old agreements” letter to the cousin this morning on my way into the city – and about an hour ago, I wrote the last line on one of the petals from the flowers I bought myself, and let it go out the window (burning didn’t seem the “right” thing with this).

and finally, yes, I went on my blind date today - it wasn't a disaster, and there might be a second one. but in the meantime, i’m going to continue taking these itty bitty actions: moving the instruments out, talking to people in the field I want to be in, and completing exercises that help me see myself, my blocks, and my gifts more clearly. 

Cuz, one month into being 30? Eat It, Saturn Returns! ~ I’m totally learning my lessons on this go-round! :P

Plus, I started those hand-made holiday cards I said I would too ;)

Sex of Rockstar and Death Rattle Varieties

Tomorrow I go on a b l i n d date. As in I really have no idea what the guy I’m meeting looks like. He’s a friend of an acquaintance who emailed me on facebook to go out to coffee, and his photo is one of those cartoon/sketches of a photo – and the rest of his photos are private.

That said, I have to be in the city tomorrow anyway – I have mild suspicion about the suitability of this person judging from my conversation with our mutual acquaintance – and he may or may not have an addiction to adderall – but that’s based on circumstantial evidence – or that’s the term they’d use on t.v.

And secondly, in favor of coffee with a stranger, why not? It’s good to keep my dating muscles toned or at least not atrophied – my last was a date a few months ago with a near-friend. You know, that person you run in to at shows or gatherings and always seem to flirt with obscurely in one of those “*wink* we’re totally flirting but so totally covert about it that I’m not actually sure if we are but I think we are and isn’t this charged ambiguity totally exciting” kind of ways (!) - but one or the other is always in a relationship, or you don’t want to ruin the quasi-friendship with the quagmire of sex, or neuroses.

My date with the quasi-friend went well, but in terms of continued romanticism, it was a case of mutual “i don’t think this is gonna work” and luckily we both said as much a few days later, and so we still get to be friends.

So, tomorrow’ll be my second date in … a lot of months. It’s cool. I have a pretty good idea that I’m marinating – getting seasoned for the right time. – I almost wrote “right now” – which is also true – as I’ve said before, I tend to believe that once I have x y or z in place, I’ll be really ready to be in a relationship. But, I got out of a long term one in January that had a few death rattle trysts through August, so until I was ready to stop beating a dead horse – or beating off an ex – just kidding – I haven’t really been available to date anyway.

Although, about a month ago, around the time I started doing the Calling in The One exercises, along with the Cousin contacting me out of the deep blue, an old SF fling contacted me to say what’s up. It’s a good thing I’m convincedly sure he’s a bad idea, because, have.mercy. that sex was awesome. He and I “saw” each other for about a month about two years ago, and it was like the kind of stuff you read about or see in “movies” or just fantasize about – I actually said to him, Do you ever forget how great sex can be? (He said no.)

But, alas, said hipster (who really wanted me to wear his torn skinny jeans and loved that my dishware was all in some "state of decay" [I’ve recently tossed all chipped dishware…]) is not a viable option for me – rockstar sex or not. Well, not right now at least.