Perspective

Oh, and then watching John Oliver clips on youtube, suddenly washes away my bad mood.  Curses. (It was the Ugandan segment, if you must know.)  To Pepe Julian Onziema, much gratitude and respect for your amazing bravery and decency (and humanity) under such appalling conditions.

Monday

The thing I've been dreading has come to pass.  I guess there's nothing left to worry about.  But it sucks.  It sucks.  And I just signed up for a dance class for the rest of the summer: it's in the 'hood, I have too much free time, and I could use a little more grace. I've been considering it for awhile.  And I'll have to reschedule the meeting again (oops!, with my scene partner from last quarter.  Edited.)

I come home to my landlord dousing the yard in chemicals and attempting to fix the dryer, both of which are bad ideas.  I hope he doesn't cause the house to burn down.  (My issue with the laundry isn't that I'm not capable of hanging it out to dry like most of the world, but rather that I'm holding up my end of the rental agreement and the landlord is not, and I don't want weed killer all over my clothes.  And also that there should be certain livable standards in rental units (water, electricity, appliances, etc., that are up to code), but too often the property managers/landlords take the rent money and don't keep the property up to that standard.  And I share my roommate's concern that a professional should work on the dryer, since the issue seems to be a heating element; neither of us want a dryer fire.  Pretty sure he's not an electrician)

And some poor soul got shot and killed over an altercation at the light rail station.  It's effed-up.  Many things are effed-up today.

You know the weather's lovely, and this is supposed to be a good week, but I'm gonna wallow in my pissy-ness awhile.  I'll try not to write about it.

Here's Joe Jackson doing "Is she really going out with him?"  (It's that or the Aerosmith song that's stuck in my head, I prefer Joe.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5BaurXMmMU

Here's Elvis Costello.  Love this song.  Music is a good anecdote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFunjzyIsE

What now?

Feeling very removed from the past year, from everything I've learned.  Feeling like I wouldn't know acting if it smacked me on the back of the head.  Maybe I just need time to absorb everything.  It was "go" for so long, and now it's "stop."  Stop.  I don't know what to do next.  Or if I should just sit here awhile.  Something clicked for us on our last scene (just as something clicked for me when I performed "Emily" from "Spoon River") but I couldn't tell you what.  I think there is something there, I don't think it was a fluke, but logically, I don't know how to get back.  I'm meeting with my scene partner to try to figure it out tomorrow, or at least what the "process" was.  Maybe that'll help.  I don't have a clue.  I feel small and lost on a vast sea.  It's not just the acting, it's pretty much everything.  For the past few months I've pushed things aside to deal with later, and now it is later.  There's a lot.

Slept most of the day, except for a brief stint where I watched the (heartbreak) of the second half of the Mexico-Netherlands match, leaving the room finally because I surprisingly wanted to cry and looking up and seeing the shock on all the faces and the wiping away of tears (I was in a Mexican joint.)  When I woke up again, I cleaned the house because psychologically it feels better for the house to not be a sty, and then got rid of more things, so I have less to move next time (which could be sooner rather than later, as my roommate has had it with things being broken all the time and how much rent we are paying, and threatened the landlord with legal action. The appliances in this place are ancient and of questionable safety.  I'm writing this surrounded by wet laundry because I was told the dryer was fixed, but it's not.  I wouldn't have washed flannel sheets had I known that.  They will dry some day.)

Hoping this is just some sorta' decompression from how much stress I've been under for the past year.  I just feel like I'm drifting.  Aimless.  I don't particularly like it.

Saturday

Ugh, my stomach's been killing me for hours.  Perhaps I should stop eating sugar.  Drove up to Granite Falls earlier today to sing at a wedding.  It was for a woman who used to sing in the choir.  I'm happy for her, she found what she always said she wanted.  I wish them all the best.  I actually cried a bit during the wedding, I never cry at weddings.  I suppose it's seeing her find this.  We sang two Finnish songs (with accordion) and one American (A cappella.).  Since I've gotten home, I've just been lying around feeling whiny (about the stomach pain, not the wedding.)

Because I finally have free time, I've decided to read Sonia Sotomayor's "My Beloved World," I started it awhile ago.  Wanted to get out of the house, so I went to the bar up the street  to read.  Mistake.  I can't read this in public (and not a good time to be wearing mascara): It's too close to home, I'm sobbing.  The stories of her parents are just breaking my heart.  I might have mentioned before that my grandmother was from Puerto Rico, she was born in 1902, and I know she had a hard life.  My family doesn't talk much about the past, but I gleaned enough to know that her story (like so many others) is so close to this, it's just breaking my heart.  I'm still sobbing and I stopped reading about 20 minutes ago.  It's so sad, and I understand her more; understand my own mother more.

The book's not meant to be sad, I think it's meant to be inspirational. (For the record, on my mother's side my grandmother was from Puerto Rico and my grandfather was from the Philippines.  My father's side of the family are all from Finland, though I think both of his parents were born in the States.)  A lot of the things people did to escape the hard conditions of their lives are pretty gutsy.  You do what you gotta do.  Sometimes you know your life will not improve if you stay where you are, and you want more, believe there is more out there, and you go.

Gonna go find something to make me laugh.

Peace

Done

A couple things came up tonight in the last class (Alexander Technique, by the way.  I'd like to study it more.)  One is that Meisner didn't necessarily make me more open (it was already there), perhaps it only made me less self-consciously so.  And two, maybe when I had the breakdown in voice class last year, it was a release of pent up chemicals locked up in muscle tightness from a memory dealing with my fear of singing in my actual voice, because I didn't think it was good enough; that it wasn't the voice I would have chosen, but it is what I have and if I can use it to get across what I want to get across, why does it matter?  (There was another issue of being completely accepted and loved and supported in that moment in class that I could not handle.  It was too much at the time.)  Maybe I don't need to fear it, and maybe it wouldn't even matter if it happened again, that there is nothing to fear in it.  Hopefully, as a performer, we/I will be in a room where other people get it.  It happens.  Most of us have stuff just buried, in some ways we're lucky if we can get it out.

And I did sing tonight, because I thought, what the hell, even if most of these people have had vocal training, I still want to sing the best that I can, and if this will help me do that, I don't actually care that I can't sing as good as they can (and they probably don't care either.)  I just want to sing better than I did when I walked into the room.  And I wasn't gonna discover anything if I didn't risk anything, so I did it.  And aside from the AT, everything that went through my mind to get to where I wanted to go made me less self-conscious (nervous) and the sound was better.  And that was probably easier to get to (standing up and deciding to do it) because of Meisner, because we did sing for each other in that class.

Still have a lot to think about, and to process with all the different ways of thinking about the same thing.  I guess the big thing is: there is always (mostly) a choice.

Thursday

Woke up early, fell back asleep and had a meandering dream that involved: On the Boards, SIFF, my parent's house, Whole Foods, and eventually Bosnia.  I woke up suddenly (and late, almost 7 am) from where I was witnessing a parade of giant "men" who were going to battle it out and looked down to realize I was carrying a Holga and not a digital camera like I'd thought, and therefore, had not actually taken any of the pictures I'd thought I'd taken, that the film must not be advancing properly.  Woke up happy, wistful and groggy.  The grogginess has lasted all day.  (The parade had two different sides "devils" and "saints" they converged where I was standing.  They were a little frightening, both in numbers and in size and in that I and  the people I was with, other travelers, were the only people to witness it.)  I was happy because I like to travel and everything was beautiful to me.  Maybe I just need a vacation; been a while.

I didn't do an individual exercise tonight, though we all practiced walking up and down stairs. I need to work more on the walking up, the walking down has improved.  On the up, the leg swings forward at the hip joint, but I'm somehow trying to lift it, which is extra work.  She suggested (via email) that I work on a monologue (or text) but I didn't have it on me, been carrying it around for so long it was a  relief to take it out of my bag.  I wanted to work on either the moment before, or having to "hit" an emotional cue (usually because it was written in by the playwright.)  I have trouble with both, and if there's a different way that might work for me, I'm all for trying it.  (I never want to have to lie, and right now, I feel like I would have to fake it, if there's a way to get there truthfully, for me, I'd like to find it.)  I'll try to do it tomorrow.

Today I've been feeling overwhelmed with the new information.  It's different enough, in some ways, from what I knew previously, that it's almost too much.  My brain is feeling pretty fried trying to juggle everything, make sense and integrate it together as much as possible, if it is possible, and if not, to decide which bits are kept and which rejected.  Because of this, I'm also all over the map regarding the ETI program.  I have to decide by July 15. There are so many factors, I just don't know.

Third day

So, file under: things you don't know until you know them...we actually move from our spines, not our limbs. All this time I've been thinking really hard about how my feet touch the ground, how to roll through the foot to feel more grounded, and then tonight I asked to work on walking barefoot, I find out that when I thought my pelvis was tilted back, it was actually tilted forward.  Still, feels odd to arch my lower back that much, but, you know, "eureka!" not only do my feet feel like logs on the ground, I don't need to turn them out as far for balance.  Fascinating.  "Roll through your feet" is not quite the same meaning as "roll from your feet."  I had been hearing and trying to do the latter. (I can still sit cross-legged, too...I know because I keep practicing it.)

It might sound silly to get excited about these things, but they were so uncomfortable before.  And I was always told it was because my legs were different lengths (which they are, but so are a lot of people's, and not by all that much.)  I just always thought that was the way I walked, which is fine, it just isn't very efficient.  It's nice to have a choice.  To realize it's a choice, that everything doesn't have to be the way it always has been.  That we can always change.  That I can change.  That the information I was given before might have been the best they could give (or perhaps they were lazy), but that didn't mean it was correct, and I don't need to continue in a pattern that doesn't work for me just because someone gave me information (a long, long, time ago.)  We don't have to continue on in someone else's truth, we can find our own, and even that can be changed.  Kinda' liberating.

Ihana

My favorite time of night: the eastern and southern edges of the sky darkening first, the west and north the palest of greenish blue, the brightest stars beginning to shine, pale at first, barely visible.  The air is still warm with the occasional puff of cooler air now and again as I walk.  The further I walk, the darker it gets, and the more stars break through the canopy of sky.  Far, far above, the distant light of long distance flight speeds northward.  The squeak of a screen door, the sound of a conversation in the dark, through a window or in a yard, I can't see at any rate, just voices, alone in the vastness, sometimes the clink of a fork on a ceramic plate.  It's not just the clouds from last night that made it seem so, night does fall quickly now once the sun has set.  I imagine it in my head as a lingering dusk, but that's not quite the case.

Tonight, I was able to sit on the floor cross-legged without tipping back, which is what I do/did, but not the typical posture for most people, most people tip forward.  I have an aversion to the ground.  Not sure when or where that started, I notice it when I try to sit on the floor, in the way I revert in walking if I'm not conscious about it.  I tend to think of it as my center of gravity drifting up, but that's probably a symptom.  I do know I wasn't always that way.  The wrist injury makes it more pronounced, because I'm afraid of doing more damage, but I know this tendency was there long before the injury, it only exacerbates it.  I studied a martial art for a couple of years and was pretty good about falling, and last summer in clown there was some breakthrough (as in biomechanics class, with the awareness of walking and how my feet moved against the floor).  I guess it's like my body is attached to my head to carry it around, to be in service to it, rather than being one whole being.  If I learned it, then I can unlearn it.

The workshop is fun, and nonthreatening, even if we do have to do things in front of everyone else.  There's no judgment.  I was given an add code, so I guess I'm in it officially.

Missed the bus home because the first one was late and I thought I had to wait another 15 minutes and so I caught a different one and then walked 22 blocks...it was a lovely evening for a walk.

Back to it

For the sun setting just after 9 pm, it seemed to get dark fast...and now it's raining.  I do love summer, but psychologically, I prefer the winter solstice because then the daylight begins to increase in length as opposed to now where it will begin to decrease.  That said, I think August is my favorite month.  Must be memories of camping, and the height of warmth here.

The workshop I'm trying to get into is about re-training our bodies out of habits of moving or being that don't necessarily serve us well, but for which we have ingrained ideas about, often from something that was said that we maybe can't even remember consciously, but the response to or the result of which, we've been holding in our bodies.  It's supposed to help free you up to move or speak with less strain.  I went tonight, even though I haven't registered yet, still keeping my fingers crossed that I can.  It's only fifteen hours, I hope it ends up making a difference for me, I often fear that nothing will.  I did witness a change in resonance for a couple of people as they said text or monologues.  The only difference I've felt so far in myself was an increase in my level of openness to the people around me, and my wanting to communicate something to them.  I was less self-conscious.  I'd like to try it in class with both walking barefoot (because I walk really different with shoes and without) and with a monologue that I've been having trouble with, or maybe with singing (although, half these students seem to be musical theatre majors.)  I'm feeling more confident than I have in a while.  It's nice.

Rambling (again) on Sunday

Mutual support and the ability to have a conversation where both people get heard...is that too much to want?  Not very common.  I do have it with some people, I appreciate them more and more everyday.  I went to this one-act play festival (?) the other night, the first one had to do with everyone so into having an online life, that they didn't actually have a real one.  Amusing and exaggerated, but not by that much.  Who exactly are we trying to connect to, and what would happen if that connection became real, as in standing in front of us?  Would we reject it?  Is it a game?  Is it wanting to feel like we matter somewhere (else, not where we are, not with who is in front of us)?  I'm not immune, I am writing this.

I messed up a tendon in the back of my foot, inside, below the ankle.  Can't figure out how to stretch it, would like to avoid snapping it.  It doesn't "hurt" per se, but it feels like it needs to pop, and is uncomfortable.

One thing I do disagree with Mamet on, is he makes a statement about maybe the best way to encounter a play is to read it yourself (but then why would he choose to write a play as opposed to a short story or a novel?  Something in him wants it performed.)  Other people would say to toss out the first couple of readings.  I find that doing character work, background work, improv, etc, while it can be intellectual, helps to find a deeper meaning in the text.  Take "Riches," the play I just did work from, when we performed it on Tuesday, I think we got a lot deeper into it, and it was more meaningful to the audience, and I don't think we could've gotten there without character work, without finding deeper meaning in the text.  I mean if you didn't need to do that work, you wouldn't need directors, you could just stand there and read it.  When we first started working on it, it was a lot of surface meaning, there was humor and sarcasm...but it wasn't particularly meaningful.  Ho hum, some middle-aged couple having an argument, so what?  Why would anyone want to see a play about that?  The audience connects with the work when they feel the human struggle, when they can see themselves in it.  And the few reviews I could find of performances criticized Carolyn for being petty, and I don't think she is, but it can come across that way when you just read it.  When she finally is able to ask for what she needs, she asks him to save her, "I need a great big kiss that says honey, I will do whatever it takes to keep you alive, including break up this marriage." (Lee Blessing, Riches.)  That's not petty, that's human pain.

And it was the same with "Oleanna," as I've mentioned before, when I first read it, I sided with John.  And perhaps that's what Mamet wanted, and that's the way the movie version played out.  Carol was an unsympathetic character, you felt like she deserved what she got.  But as I've mentioned before, when you start looking at the power structure, the privilege, she becomes the "hero," as much as there is one in this story.  He's written like a victim on the surface, but all the rules have been in his favor his whole life, he gives some sob story, but he has no idea what everyone outside that structure, whom were not considered when the rules were written, struggle with everyday, just to: get work, get an education, get housing, get fair compensation, vote, not feel like you always have to have your guard up when you walk outside, etc (grow a thicker skin?  Please, that's a temporary fix at best, allowing those who discriminate to get off without self-examination or empathy.)  And you don't necessarily pick up on that when you read it.  It took a lot for me to like her, but I did in the end, you have to at some level, empathize.  And I had to look at myself and figure out why my sympathy immediately flowed in his direction.  How much have I resigned myself to the way things stand, even as it doesn't really work in my favor, or for the majority now?  The rules favor the very few and we justify it, saying they've somehow earned it, and the rest of us aren't playing the game right...we never will.  It wasn't made for us.

Still, he writes great plays, and a lot of what he says in the essays ring true.  He studied with Meisner for a while and then rejected it, I think. There's some healthiness in that, you take what you learn and make it work for you, keeping your own autonomy and not giving all your power to some guru.  I don't think Meisner meant to be a guru, all the good teachers continually revise, there wasn't an ultimate teaching that would be the answer to end all answers.  The work is fluid, and you take from it what you need, and what helps you to do more truthfully on stage, or in life.

He (Meisner) has kinda' ruined me.  I watch performers all the time now for connection and truth...it's very distracting.  Not saying I'm better, I'm sure if I saw a my own performance, I'd notice the same things.  But I like it when they are so in the moment I get lost in them...it happens a lot.  That's the holy grail.

I should go plant something.

Friday, almost summer

So, I can catch a bus on either side of the street to get to work.  This morning, I saw that I had missed one, so waited for the other, then realized I had missed that one as well.  I saw people across the street, so decided to go to the crosswalk and cross over.  When I finally made it to the stop, there were no longer people there.  I initially thought they'd changed their minds, and then I looked around more, behind the pillars, behind the stop, around the cars, and no one.  Ran back across the street to catch the other one.  A bus must've gone by and I just didn't see it.  Been having that happen a lot lately, I was cooking, only one home, and I had taken vegetables out of a drawer and when I went to put them back in the fridge, I opened the drawer and it was full of butter.  I closed it and opened it again.  Still butter.  Then the thought occurred to me that, "oh, maybe someone wanted to use the drawer and took my vegetables out," so I looked for them (seriously) and didn't see them anywhere else in the fridge and got slightly annoyed.  Then I remembered that I had gotten them out just now, and no one else was there.  Opened the drawer again, butter.  Then, yes, realized it was the wrong drawer, and was relieved that I had not gone into some parallel universe.  I think I might be losing my mind.

Went to go see "The Price" by Arthur Miller last night at ACT.  The first act was kinda' slow, second, much more interesting.  The truth kept getting more twisted with each telling of what happened that I wasn't really sure where things were at the end, and have no idea really why the brother, Walter, bothered to show up, except perhaps to assuage guilt or clear the air.  I'm not sure what was resolved in the end, but perhaps that's just life, all of us see what happened in our own light, through our own filters...is there an ultimate truth or resolution?  Maybe not.  In the end, we have the stories we tell ourselves and each other to make sense of our lives and justify our choices.  And all of us see the same story from a different point of view...perhaps they are all true, though not the same.  (Then there is the dissatisfaction of who we've become, what we've done with our lives, how we no longer hear each other, how we feel we have failed and the fear we can never be more than we are which keeps us paralyzed in our unhappiness, in the places we feel stuck.  Same themes as with "Riches," that was all ringing familiar to me as well.)

Always waiting for the moment where we will let ourselves "live" and then waking up and realizing we've been holding our breath for our whole lives, and our lives are more than halfway over.  Whatta ya do?

Yes or No?

Got accepted.  One minute I'm sure I won't accept, and then the next I'm sure I will. Every time I try to tell someone out loud, I choke up.  Giving up safety scares me (job, health insurance, knowing I can pay my bills, knowing I can eat, having retirement money, (the golden noose) etc.), but at other times, being stuck in life and not reaching out and trying to be more, always taking the safe route, keeps me awake as well.  Time passes and what have I done with mine?

It's not impossible, I can take a loan off of my retirement account, I could see if I can get a loan from my credit union, I can look for a part-time job that is sympathetic to performing artists...they do exist, there are a lot of musicians and actors that make it work.  It's not an un-trod path, just scary for me.  If I wait, I'll just be older.  If I do it, I'll hopefully have the tools to be a better performer, some of which I could get from actually working on shows, but voice, Shakespeare, film, fight choreography would be helpful, because I don't have that.  There's the balance of I should just work vs. I should have the skills to do better work.  It's only 10 1/2 months, it's the tuition and living expenses that's holding me back from saying "yes," (and another year without a social life.)  I could do all the training separately as well, though this gets it all in in a short period of time, with two performance elements (solo showcase and touring Shakespeare show.)  I had one former student honestly tell me that I should consider graduate school because job opportunities are better if you have letters after your name.  I'm under the impression (possibly  misguided) that my age makes grad school for performance iffy at best (when you get 200 applicants and accept six of those, all with potential, who are you gonna choose?  Where are the roles?); though better chance as a director, which I might do in the future, but I want to perform first.  I know that.

I am leaning to yes.  Who knows where it will lead?

I'm not deciding today.

This blog program is being wacky. 

Cheers

Final class

Nine-plus months later...it's over.  Much love and respect to all who shared that journey with me.  I think I've grown, both as a performer and as a human being, and that's a decent trade off for nine months of my life.  I do not know what is next...chop wood carry water.

Brain and heart need to connect

There's this story that Stanislavski tells about a dog that always got up and walked to the door when rehearsals were over, and he wondered how the dog knew, but then figured out that it recognized when the actors started relating like normal people again.  And I know I get stuck there, if anyone else said these things to me in any other context I would react more, I'm not because I know that it's not real.  But I need to make it real, make the consequences more real, let his words hit me.  If he said these things to me off of the stage, I would get upset...there's something about the space and the stage that gets me stuck, and I have a few hours to figure out how to change that (it's happened before.)  I have to care more.  Invest more.

Thought about that on the bus this morning.  Also, it finally really hit me by what she means when she says, "I wish I had that much dignity." (Not in our scene, but earlier in the play, she's trying to explain why she wants a divorce, and she's describing watching another woman's animated conversation.  She also says she's a hidden, dark body.)  I've been mulling over that for weeks now, it's part of her central struggle.  You know things when you know them.  Better today than tomorrow.

I was just talking to someone about all the ways we think we are communicating what we mean to say, and how our baggage and the other person's baggage keep that from getting across...they will hear what they want to hear, what they are able to hear.  And we talk around what we want to say, especially when we are afraid of the what the other person's reaction might be...how in the world has the human race survived as long as it has?  She finally asks for what she needs, and he rejects it...but again, they really aren't hearing or speaking the same language.

Everything I know intellectually, I have to feel.  I can't let being in that space stop me from feeling.  Work to do.  Geez.

Sunday

So many ways we misinterpret each other's meaning.  So many ways we don't connect.

Almost two pages of rehearsal notes, but we got out early.  Came home and took a nap and then went to the final night of the NWNW showcase; traded the ticket.  Home two hours earlier than last night.  (Theatre Anonymous, Witness for the Prosecution, Agatha Christie.  Really good, but ran 'til after 11:30 pm, and with bus re-routes and all, it was almost 1 am when I got home.)

Overall, show tonight was beautiful.  David Schmader's We Can All See Your Lips Move, was entertaining, and I realize by the title that the lip-syncing part makes sense, but it felt like he got bored of the performance so sent someone else to finish it (who did a good job), but that's what it felt like.  Pep Talk by Hand2Mouth was fun.  The two dance pieces were beautiful to watch, and Molly Sides' voice reminds me of a female Jeff Buckley (I Once Was My Father.)  Three perspectives in one space,  Coleman Pester//Tectonic Marrow Society was the other dance piece, lovely choreography on that.  Again, with both, wonderful body awareness and the effects of varying states of gravitational pull.  (What it made me think of.)

Pouring down rain when I left the house and again when I left the theatre.   Two hours earlier is still late, but I need to do something regarding the notes (and I'm hungry.)  Less than two days now.

Hyvää yötä.

Waiting

I suppose if all I accomplish today is laundry, that might be enough.  Sitting here reading Mamet's True and False, Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor.  About half-way through it, it's mostly essays, so easy to read.  I don't want to agree with him, however, I find myself reading this and saying, "yes" out loud: over and over and over again.  I'm agreeing with most of what he's written.  If you want it, there is no fall back.  If you want it, there is no substitution for actually doing it.  Know your lines, live in the moment, whatever happens happens, rather than deny or try to analyze it, seize the moment and use it to get what you need.  Your job is to present the writing to the audience, and the audience is why you are there.

It made me think about how the first acting class I took was in community college, and how up to that point, I didn't know anyone.  How I was terrified of standing up in front of anyone and saying anything at all (what today I would call self-consciousness, then I probably would have said shyness or insecurity, both of which I had, probably still have.)  Anyway, it was a movement class, and from there, because it was interactive, I met people and somehow by the end of the week, got involved in working on shows, in one capacity or another.  It wasn't acting for me at the time, I was denying to myself that I was allowed to do that.  Anyway, I feel like self-consciousness has gotten in the way of a lot of things that I have wanted, and I'm getting better at letting it go, and perhaps it will always be a struggle.  The improv and the mirror work have been the biggest help for that thus far, though I haven't figured out how to translate that into working with text, which I guess, is what I'm after.  And I can feel that's true when I feel like a lump on stage, like I want something to do (and I should find something to do which doesn't disconnect me from my partner.)  And the saying is that whenever you feel lost on stage, you should find where you need to be in the person you are working with, by connecting with them more fully...which doesn't involve just looking at them the whole time.  Sometimes I do that and I still feel like a lump.

So, I'm thinking that maybe improv would help, but it has to be the right kind, one like what we do in class, where there is still connection, not the sorta' experience where it's more about trying to think of how you can "one up" whoever is before you, but rather really paying attention and connecting to the other participants and building on what is given.  In other words, being truthful.  There's an improv intensive, or advanced clown, and the other workshop I'm doing (fingers crossed) is for getting more attuned to how I move and to get more grounded, which will also help, I think. (More specific to that than biomechanics, though I could stand to do that again, as well.  And more voice.  Those two are pretty fundamental to anything else you do, since they are the vehicles through which you work.)  And I need to start auditioning, get more experience.

Waiting for my laundry to dry so I can go out and try to find a dress for "Carolyn."  Day is half over already. And there's marching band outside.  Think I'll go see what for.

Friday the 13th and all that

Aahhhh, Spain, what happened?

Here: a day of rain and gray, a lucky full moon, a solar flare (or two), communication glitches, a gift card in the mail for something I'd already forgotten about, being randomly handed chocolate by someone who also said they loved me...that's today, thus far.

A rough rehearsal (felt like a lump a lot of the time, though some parts were better, kept upstaging myself, and fight choreography has gone backward for me); made it to the NWNW on time, show was great, again; idiotic, drunk (that would be in her favor) girl in bathroom, just really needed to stop broadcasting everything she thought...but the show was really good (the studio set sold out again all weekend, it's a small space.)  Wayne Bund and Erin Pike were both entertaining and brave in different ways.  The latter reminding me that I have a long way to go, and why the conservatory training would be good.  (I think she does great transitions, and she had many as the words spat out of her mouth. And awesome staging.)  The former telling us things, and both reminding me of a question someone asked at the "Winners and Losers" workshop about how you perform yourself on stage.  (I don't remember the answer.)  Amy O'Neal has an amazing sense of how every muscle of her body moves, which is cool to witness.  The Helena Theatre Company, felt somewhere between an improv and scripted, made some good points about what the NEA should be, but ended in an odd place.  This weekend is more theatre-heavy than last.

Came home, kitchen is a disaster...glad I grabbed something while waiting for the bus.  Everyone must expect they have maid-service...never did see the full moon.  Ten more minutes of this day, then not another full moon on Friday the 13th until 2045, or so I hear.  Hope it was lucky for you.

Picture

Hope, June 12/L Herlevi 2014

Everything

Wednesday - Well, paid the application fee, received time waiver, and now am keeping my fingers crossed that the class will have space available when it starts (I can't actually register until the third day.)  Plan B for that would be to take a folklore class second term, make use of my application fee...which would make me really close to a second degree and maybe I should apply for it.  I don't know.  I'm still pursuing acting, I'm also really close to having enough credits for a BA in Scandinavian Studies, so why not?  Life feeds art.  (And art feeds life.)

Tried to take "Carolyn" shopping to find a dress.  No luck yet.  I recycled another big bag of clothes at H&M, but didn't find anything there.  Maybe a thrift-shop.  Not sure when I'll have the time. (Mid-80's, September, Minnesota, anniversary dinner, 41.)

Thursday - Woke up disillusioned; feeling across the board: mediocre.  I'm a generalist, I know a lot of things, can do a lot of things, but none of it really stands out.  I don't always care, it makes life interesting for me, but it's really bothering me today.  I think the "generalist" thing is ingrained, probably not going to change.  I doubt what I have to offer, what do I bring to the table that someone else hasn't already brought and more fully?  I'll get over it.  (Feel like I've been surrounded by super-achievers lately...glad they are out there, making shit happen, stuff we're all better for, but, I wouldn't even know where to start.) 

Sometimes I feel so much energy goes into destroying the world vs. saving it...and if there was less destruction, maybe I wouldn't feel like I have to spend my life counteracting that (or that anything I do that isn't along that line is my "first-world" problem, and how dare I want anything more than to "be a hero."  The idea that we'd need fewer "heroes" if our world were more just and we were all generally more altruistic, then everyone could each do a little, and that would be enough, and if there weren't so many people out there trying to take as much as possible, consequences for anyone else be damned, notwithstanding.)  I feel ill-equipped to save anything, and I attempt to live my life as conscientiously as possible (even if I don't quite succeed, it's an ideal for me), and yet that hardly feels like a good enough answer.
 
The crows have finally quieted down for the moment.  The silence that has come from the school year being over, has suddenly erupted with the lustful cries of hungry baby crows, and the frustrated adult crows, swooping down on any unsuspecting person (or animal) that unwittingly gets within thirty feet.  Someone mentioned getting dived at in the parking lot, and later, I was walking to the bus and a crow chased me down the block: I saw the baby, it was on a roof, no where near to me, but that's not far enough away, I suppose.  They remember faces, so even if you didn't do anything, but they singled you out, they can remember you all season and dive bomb you.  I had that a couple of years in a row, didn't seem to matter where I was, got singled out, even in a crowd...started wearing really big hats, carrying food to throw and distract them with, considered wearing a disguise.  (That was one of the nice things about being befriended by that family of crows in my last place, they actually brought the baby (s) to me and stopped attacking me.  That lasted for a few years.)  Maybe I'll try feeding them.

One week left

Traffic was just a mess tonight.  I think we started to break open, so in spite of the fact that it still feels like we have a lot to do between now and Tuesday, I'm hopeful that we can present whatever we have.  A lot more of what's behind the words is making sense, as well as figuring out what each of wants overall, and moment to moment.  It was more connected and raw...a good thing.

Bird chatter

There's a bird I've never heard before (or hadn't been paying attention to) that I now hear around town; still haven't managed to see what it is (one long swoop of a note, five, fast, staccato notes, then one long note held out. I think I could draw it better than explain it.) The birds sometimes all chatter at once, and sometimes, one voice at a time, in succession.  The robin is almost always the first, and the loudest, when the sky has only considered lightening.  Then it all stops for about an hour.  Curious.  I can hear one bird now (plus a little bit of background chatter), a mournful one, it's at a distance and the freeway is so loud this morning, it drowns out almost all other sounds.  The sky was blue, gold-tinged clouds floating below, when I first woke up, now it's more bright gray, puffs of cool air dropping in through the window, hitting my skin, reminding me I'm alive...maybe it will rain

Need to pack for rehearsal.  Happy Tuesday.

Later, walking into work: silence.  Almost no one around.  No traffic.  No wind.  Just quiet.

I really should get this ulcer thing checked out...feel like someone's trying to punch their way out of my rib cage.  Sigh.  (Okay, I did make an appointment, so I'm doing something, not just whining about it.)  Also, working on a Plan B for the education thing, conservatory training looks iffy at this point, or scaled back.  I just found a class that would have been part of it, with space available, but I'm a day late on turning in the paperwork (because I've been in limbo with seeing if this training would be possible); waiting to hear back if they will still let me in. Always worth asking.

Maybe I should come up with a Plan C....bureaucracy, fees, red tape.  Sigh.  Need to keep the practice up over the summer.

Off on a tangent

Then again, maybe it's not the artists' faults if they just follow what's become a standard form.  Shrug.  We are not alone in that, look at resumes and cv's and academic journal articles.  (Sure, I suppose there should be some standard, but why is it that one?  And once you know it, why can't you bend it?)  The last of these gets my biggest scorn, if they made them readable (i.e., didn't throw in a bunch on unnecessary, and I might add, at this point, meaningless, words-nothing wrong with the format itself) the average person might actually wade through and read them.  And if we could go to the source for the information, we might be better off and more informed than having to have the science (or whatever) translated and dumbed down for us by someone who probably has a bias or a word limit.  Seriously, think about that.  Sure some of the formulas might be difficult to understand, but the general concepts, the hypothesis, the findings and the possible implications should be readable, but as it is, they tend to get buried in unnecessary verbiage.  Every time you go through a translation/re-interpretation, you lose content.  Was it important? Maybe, maybe not, but someone else just made that decision for you.  (This is similar to an issue I have with not teaching handwriting; our country's founding documents are handwritten.  The average citizen should be able to read these for themself.)  (John Oliver made a joke about how boring talking about Net Neutrality was, and that's true for a lot of policy and science.  It doesn't need to be, but it often is.  We get too bored to pay attention, and then decisions are made that affect our lives, for better or for worse.)

I might be done now.  I'm not as articulate as I'd like to be, still I think it's important.

Here's a profile shot of a cute goat for putting up with me.  (There are birds nesting right outside my window, in the roofline, I can see a blur of flight and hear the chirps as I write this.)

Picture of a goat, May/L Herlevi 2014

More on that, again

I don't suppose it's fair to expect that every performance is trying to make a deeper connection with the audience, maybe they just want to be entertaining or to look good or to put on a good show.  While I don't suspect that's necessarily true here across the board, I'm also aware that I'm projecting my wants and expectations of those being met onto the performers, for what it's worth.  For me, art is a way of exploring our common humanity, and getting at truths that aren't always attainable through rational means, and it does a fantastic job of that, but that doesn't mean that everyone else has to feel the same way.

And the thing about the programs, I know there's not a whole lot of room, and I realize you want to give a little background about the artists, but sometimes programs (in general) can feel like you are trying to sell the audience on you, telling us what you've accomplished and convincing us that you are worthy of our time and money...but we've already bought the ticket by the time we see the program. (It sometimes feels like the highlights of a resume, like you are applying for a job with us...one you've already got.) You already have us...invite us into the work you are presenting, more than a title.  Some of these bio pages offer nothing at all about what the current work is.  Tell me: what is it, what inspired it, why are you doing it now?  Doesn't have to be long, give me something, anything.  I want to be there with you, I want to like you.  It's like they say about auditions, the auditors are on your side, they want you to succeed.  And you have...give me an intro to the story...then tell it the way you do best, through dance, movement, song, narrative text, whatever.

I'm done now.

I suppose it's Sunday now

Can finally open the window again, now that the wasps have gone to bed; waited a couple of hours for the wasp that came in the wide open window to re-find it and exit.  I said it must be a metaphor for continually banging your head against a dead-end wall when there's another answer open to you, immediately after which, it miraculously found it's way out.  Interesting.  (Only one of the windows has a screen and it helps to cool it down to open both.  It's hot up here.)

Went to the mainstage show at NW New Works, weekend one, tonight.  It was good, but I liked the studio set better.  Tonight was interesting, the choreography and dancing were ridiculous (-ly good), but I think I prefer to have some narrative and last night had more, and I just connected more to the performances.  I suppose the difference was that tonight I was watching a spectacle, and last night I was invited in to the story.  Granted, the venue last night was much more intimate.  (And I just really like storytelling.)  Also, there's only so much static/distortion/flickering/flashing lights I can handle in a night, and it seems like everyone is doing that now, so it kinda' loses it's effectiveness, and just irritates me.  And there was a lot of that tonight.  All the pieces were good on there own, but maybe the line-up coulda' had a strongly narrative piece thrown into the mix (or a blurb in the program-thank you ilvs strauss for yours-about background for any of the work.  I'm not familiar with any of these performers, so didn't have any "in" into the work.  But still, nice to look at, even if that's only a superficial appreciation.) Yes, there was a singing piece that had a little narrative, but it wasn't enough.  My favorite was the first one, although at some point, it felt like two pieces, there was a little disconnect, but I liked the movement especially when two dancers would separate off from the rest and do a back-and-forth tumbling/dancing thing, keeping one constantly evolving point of connection between them, plus the choreography was super tight.  (The Pendleton House, From the Middle to the Edge.)

It was good, I'm glad I went.  Glad it was a sold out house, too, so the performers got seen.  I appreciate the work and that they are all putting something new out in the world.

Let's see if the internet connection lasts long enough to let me sign out.  :)

Raw

I feel raw, like people are digging into me.  I want to recoil and crawl into myself, but I can't.  More people have been nice than irritated at me, but the barbs stick, why is that?

Went for a walk, warm sun, ducklings progressing into ducks, settling in to take a nap.   All eleven having survived to this point, the whole family is curled up on the ramp when I pass them on my way back from lunch. The scent of roses rises in the heat, their colors drawing me in like a five-year old to a candy shop.  In the woods, the herons' nests are quiet, the light dappled, the air cool. Over near the greenhouses the giant agave plant readies itself to bloom for the first time in 25 years.  Looks prehistoric. Nearby, passion flowers send forth flowers and scarlet runner beans climb, briefly reminding me that I should plant something.

After, I'm a little calmer, but still irritated (had a stupid tiff with my roommate's boyfriend, who is the extra person living with us; irritated that he was bossing me around.)

Later.  Went to a book reading/signing (Wendy Perron, dancer/choreographer, writer-though I'm not in the dance world, I saw a notice for it, and can relate to what she was saying, in general) at On the Boards.  After, went for a walk.  Passing by the little woodland in front of The Rep, I saw a bird dart into the trees and admired it's flight, wondering what it was.  Turned out to be a cedar waxwing; a (very) small flock was flying around (I counted three).  Surprised by their presence in so urban a setting.  Walked back to OtB for the first night of  the Northwest New Works Festival (studio), actually loved the whole thing.  ilvs strauss was pretty wonderful, and I wanted Sarah Rudinoff's piece to be longer because I enjoyed listening to her talk.  Would like to see it again, an over-generous pour of bourbon, combined with lighting and music choice, made me pass out for part of one of the four pieces, and I'd like to see it...I won't drink (it was probably more the music, though.)  Might be sold out, it's a small venue.  I'm excited to see the rest of the series.

Need to do more character work, in the meantime.  It's late and I have to get up early, ciao.

Can't seem to load pictures, internet hasn't been working right, is not working now.   It would've been of a turtle, and other random stuff.

Holy

Almost 10 pm, and someone has just finished mowing the lawn.  Walking home after rehearsal, and after stopping to water the garden, the sky was candy aquamarine; the wide expanse of pavement, warm; the air quickly chilling as the sky darkened with each block I walked.  Closer to home, I passed through a wall of swirling insects.  I stopped to try to fathom the beginning and end of them: 15 feet up, at least 15 feet wide, and I could see more under the street lamps further off.

Earlier in the day someone had written about a place that he said gave him chills and brought him to tears to even think about.  I thought as I walked (and have thought before) that even if you don't believe in the supernatural, that all we have is the material world and this life, we give places meaning and then make them holy not through any supernatural means but by our attention to them.  By our visiting them.  By walking the paths.  By bringing all that we are along on the journey: our hopes, fears, wishes, dreams, loves, secrets, pain, devotion, blood, sweat, and tears.  Our presence gives them meaning.  The continual expression of our humanity, all of it, makes it holy.  And I don't think these places have to particularly have religious meaning, nor do I think you need to be religious or spiritual to be moved.  And these places change people, regardless of why they thought they went. And if that's true, and we give and take from those places through our mere presence, then our lives become a part of it, and we carry a little spark of it inside of us when we depart.

Passing through the insects has made me itchy, so I shall depart.

Less

Well, that's done.  I was second in line for auditions tonight, think it went better than my last one.  Glad it's over, one of my friends said that after I walked out, that was the most relaxed she'd ever seen me.  Now I can just focus on the work for class: we need to block and get the fight stuff down, and I still need to figure out my "as if" and how I get to crying.  I can do it more easily now, but not quite on cue.  I didn't think I'd get anything out of the character private moment last night, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had found.  All these exercises, getting into the character sideways, help to make the written word three-dimensional and breathing.  Less than two weeks to go.  At least we can play with it more now that we are off book.

I should probably get a second job.

It's early and I'm free.  Cheers.

Picture(s) of the day

In the same part of the sky as that dove-like (or dragon, if you prefer) cloud was last summer.  Reminded me of an angel (breaking free from this mortal coil.) The only cloud in that part of the sky again.

Angel-like, June 2/L Herlevi 2014

Full view of western sky, June 2/L Herlevi 2014

Monday

Walking the line of finding the parallel to my own experience where I don't drag myself into a cavern and get lost there...the whole point of this form of acting prep is to not do that.  Not always clear on the division.  I think it's a seed (truth) of something real, something you/I care about blown out way beyond that point: fantasy.  It's an in.  How did I get in before?  Is it like the wardrobe entrance to Narnia, where you can never go back in the same way?  This question wrote a lot of books.  I know it's kinesthetic for me...why am I trying to get there through my head?

I'm not afraid anymore (well, not so much that my first reaction is to shut my eyes and run in the opposite direction), my weekends of late seem to find me facing an accumulation of doubts, kept at bay during the week, but raining down on me when I have a chance to stop for a minute.  I'm ready to face whatever is there, if anything is, if it wasn't a mirage.  And if it was, at least it opened up window for light to shine in, and to re examine things.  I didn't write everything down (journal), but there was a willingness to walk away which hadn't been there before, and that's worth exploring.  There was more than one answer, and I was fine with that.  I don't want to use those as an excuse to avoid my first choice, but it takes the pressure off of what I think I want...I still want to know, but it can be what it is, and not some "answer to end all answers."  There is nothing to prove, and nothing to save. 

And gratitude for all the lights that shine in our world (for however long or brief) and make the days brighter; and gratitude that I was lucky enough to be touched by any of them, in any way.  They've strengthened my faith in humanity and in the belief that all of our lives (the way our lives touch others) matter.

Is ambivalence an enemy?

Not much to say.  Searching for the thing in me, an unmet need (real or perceived) that would make me go beyond logic, to be completely irrational.  Have not found it.  Was not there today.  I think I can start from where I was a week ago, but I need to drop over the edge.  Where is the place where there is nothing left to lose?  Logically, I understand what's going on, but logical is not where these people are at. And they need to be saved by each other.  Two weeks.  I feel so far away from finding the truth and living that right now.  More homework...it needs to break open.  Shatter.

And the fact that we always seem to get shorted on time makes me wonder if I should bother doing the audition.  It's happened with a couple of instructors (certainly not all.) Is this just hopeless?  Because we are performing these though, I'll get it as close to show-able as possible.  Maybe it seems that I'm not taking it seriously, but I am.  I care.

Still feeling pretty ambivalent...do I just think now that I don't want what I did (for so, so long) because it's a possibility?  I don't know that I should walk away just because I'm afraid of what it might mean to stop wanting and actually have.  I tell myself that I did follow thru and go to Spain after talking about it forever.  And on the balance of it all, that turned out to be one of the best things I ever did.  It's only fear of the unknown that makes me think I no longer care.  Maybe I know what I need.  Maybe the things I want are the right ones.

Back to theatre stuff.  Looking forward to a week-or-two off.