Sitting in Seattle

Seattle is home 364 days of the year, on that 365th day, home is where I grew up, and I'm in Seattle, not there.  Spent a brief moment being sad about that, but it means I can sing my favorite carol with the Finns tomorrow morning before going and picking up my sister and heading to my parents' house.  I already sang once tonight, very slim (because I have access to a car) chance I'll get dressed up again and go to a midnight mass, right now I'm listening to the Northwest Boys Choir on the radio (usually I listen in the car, and god, is it beautiful this year.)

Anyway, I'm home 'cos I came down with some virus last night.  Think it's just a cold, but felt like crap.  Have been taking this immune tincture I found recently, and along with this vapor rub-type thing, seems to have made a huge difference: both sore throat and achiness have abated.  But I didn't get everything done that I needed to, hardly got anything at all done today, and I don't feel like driving.  The week was somewhat stressful; coordinated a big, convoluted, last minute office move (nine offices trading places) that had to get done before I went on leave, and a few people have had the flu, so germs are also passing around.  It got done (and I caught a virus.)

(This apothocary is big on using what grows around you to heal you; for instance, this tincture has evergreen tree parts, and elderberry in it.  Not all of her products are entirely local, she has a tincture with chocolate in it, but most of it is.)

Anyway, that's why I'm in Seattle.

Merry Christmas!

And with the wave of a hand

Well, just was informed that I no longer have a role that I was cast in a few weeks ago.  Was offered a smaller role instead, but I haven't answered yet.  (Or I can accept the promised pay for the role and just walk away, an offer I do appreciate, as the commitment was for Jan-Mar, and I've had to show up for casting calls on short notice, when I had other commitments already promised.  Also, I appreciate the integrity of the offer of the pay.)  Taking the smaller role would show that I do want to work, and there's integrity in that, and experience, I guess.  One of the other actors originally cast, was also downgraded to a smaller role (actually, if I accept it, we'd be in the same scene, one that was added in a rewrite.)  Mostly, getting the part made me feel legitimate, like I was doing something right, and now, I sorta' feel like a fraud, because for all the training I've done, I have nothing to show for it, really.  Also, I understood the role, the character's circumstance, but not how to balance the tension between two contrasting sets of direction, so what I ended up doing, didn't end up fulfilling either.  I shoulda' just made a strong choice and gone for it, (what John calls being "director-proof") but I didn't, I think I ended up too much in my head and immobilized.  Any action being better than none.  (And when are you ever ready?  Maybe it was too much of a role for me, maybe the smaller role is a better start?)

And the thing is, I wasn't really expecting to get cast when I originally read for it, I wanted the experience, but maybe the original call needed to be wider, so that more people were seen before a final decision was made?  I get you want the right person for the role, and that maybe I wasn't it...I had that happen in a former job (actually, more than once) where my boss offered a position to me, but the other bosses gave it to someone else, and I only found out about it when it was formally announced that the other person had accepted that position.  At least I was told before it was announced, this time.  But why the rush?  Something to keep in mind when I'm in the position of making those decisions.  (I have been in that position before, for other things, but it was a larger group decision.)  Again, from their side, they want the right person, but from my side, it makes trust harder, as if nothing is ever solid, that at any moment, the rug can be pulled away.  And yet, I suppose that's the case, as much as I want some sense of permanence, something solid, something sure, perhaps there is no such thing.  Learn what you can, and move along.

And somehow between this, and singing commitments, the acting class, the hot water and heat going out at the house during the cold snap, and a last-minute project at work, I finally am able to come up for air, and it's a week until Christmas.  Time flies.

I should re-read the script, and since I can't afford to do the acting class when it starts up again in a couple of weeks, maybe I'll book monologue coaching time.  Lots of stuff I could audition for, but don't have a monologue in a good place yet.  I think it's worth it, the changes I've seen in my classmates have been remarkable, some of the best monologues I've seen done.

Life is full of disappointment.  Maybe it means I suck, but maybe I don't.

Cold spell

Tonight the attic feels about 40 degrees.  Outside, the stars are out, and it's below freezing.  Tomorrow it might snow.  I feel like that overheated car ride to sing in Gig Harbor was not so long ago, riding in the same car, coming home in the same clothes, from a different singing gig earlier this week, only 60 degrees and 4 months separate the two.  I'm writing this wearing a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a sleeping bag and four three blankets, and I can still feel the chill.

Last night, I decided to kill time by walking to my acting class.  Passed a man with a telescope aimed at the sky.  A hand-written note on the side with something about the moon and Saturn, 8-10 pm.  I never did really figure out what that was all about, and at any rate it was only a little after 5 pm at the time, but I had to get close to read the note, and he said I could look through the telescope, so I did.  Up close, half the moon, enough to see a bunch of craters.  I once waited almost two hours, late in the evening, for 30 seconds to look at Mars.  I don't remember what I saw, only the waiting in line, and all the other people waiting, for so long, for such a short glimpse.  To see what else is out there, I guess.  And other nights, looking at comets, thinking they just looked like a larger version of a blurry star that I could see with my naked eyes.  The moon last night was more detailed.  It's burned in my mind.

Went to see "A Christmas Carol" at ACT, a friend got me a discounted ticket.  (Which I realized I had left at home as soon as I got on the bus.  I pulled the cord to stop, but the stop wasn't really close to home, and there was no way I could walk home, get the ticket, and get to the theatre on time, so I decided to stay on, and take my chances with seeing if they could look it up.)  I was late, but they did honor the ticket, and I did get in a little bit after it started, there were eight of us, at that point, sat most of us in the back, but still was able to see it.

So, Dickens wrote the story in the early 1840's to bring awareness of the plight of the downtrodden in London society (and it did bring awareness, it brought about change), and this adaptation was written 41 years ago (by Gregory Falls), but it could've been written last week.  It felt very relevant.  We repeat the same cycles over and over again...how can we forget the past, and what didn't work, so easily?

In class, working on "Thelma and Louise" again, different scene partner, different scene.  It's going somewhat better, possibly because I am understanding beat work better, and because I've spent more time going through the script.  I don't think of her as a vortex anymore.  They are equally responsible, at one point Louise says that she didn't have to shoot him, "We were walking away."  And because of that choice, she ended up losing the one thing she wanted (and was offered.)

My hand is killing me (the good one), maybe a cortisone shot would help; nothing else seems to work.  My foot is finally improving, finally found a pair of shoes that don't hurt, have barely been able to walk for the past couple of months.

Cheers.