Fall, Late.

I love fall. I felt so creative on Monday (the first day). I had one of the best aerial rehearsals that I've had probably since before Gnometenna Removal of 2008.

Speaking of the Little ACL That Could, it's been 7 months since surgery. And I'm getting ready for an aerial performance on November 1st. Cool huh?

Can't say that it's 100 percent, because it's not, but I'll wait until 1 year has passed until I start to get *really* annoyed. I'm not gigging as much as I want to [uh...strike that...] At All, but hopefully once I get this act together I'll be on the radar a little more. It's getting frustrating. Not going to lie.

I'm being overwhelmed with these huge feelings of self doubt in regards to 2 seperate classes/workshops coming up that I'm going to be participating in. One is an audition class and the other is a "masters" scene study. I'm being overwhelmed with huge feelings of self doubt in regards to these two things. Did I already say that? Springfield is a part of us all...a part of us all...a part of us all...

I wish the damn leaves would start their changin' already. I wish a lot of things. That's the one that is pretty likely will happen whether I do something about it or not.

Hmm. How hopeless of me.

Scary Things.

1. Drinking more than you have in probably 3 years and making yourself so sick that you remember why you said you'd never do that again. (oh my god. I feel like I'm going to feel nauseous forever.)

2. Realizing that you love Boulder, CO and maybe you should move there.

3. Feeling like you poisoned yourself last night.

4. Applying for jobs that you have no business applying for but you're tired of worrying about if you're good enough so why the fuck not.

5. Wondering how you're going to make enough money to live on for the rest of your life.

6. Feeling like you need to throw up again but there's utterly nothing left in your system.

7. Having the same fears and problems that you did before you got to forget about them for a few hours.

8. Realizing that how you physically feel right now was not worth forgetting about your fears and problems for a few hours.

9. Michael Phelps is quite possibly the alien's first attempt and sending us a man/fish hybrid, and they've seen that it was successful and now they're going to invade (maybe).

10. Oh my god I seriously feel so incredibly ill.

Life in Art.

Yeah, I'm not pretending that my title isn't based on the Stanislavski memoir, My Life In Art. Read that MoFo of a book sometime. Then read War and Peace. Then tell me you still don't understand Russian culture (you will, by the way.)

I'm sad today because two sad things happened. This Guy died, and This Place closed.

I guess the This Guy was going to happen eventually...and he had a good life and made a lot of people laugh so I'll mostly just miss his stand-up specials and guest appearances.

But the This Place...it makes me nervous and stressed out about my future in the American theatre. It was in my list of Top Places that I *really Really* wanted to work someday. This Place had just won a regional theatre Tony award...did "crazy" things like incorporating puppets, music, circus, mask, and spectacle into their shows...and was basically a theatre company where, if I were to start a company, would have been Just.Like.Them.

The production of Carmen that they brought to the American Repertory Theatre blew my mind...and opera doesn't usually blow my mind.

I'm stressed out because if a huge company can't make it work...after 30 years...how the fuck am I going to?

Sometimes the world feels really small, and little victories (like doing a toe hang on the trapeze on Thursday for the first time in 5 months) are huge and make you feel like you're part of something huge.

But other times (like now, and a lot, recently [except for the toe hang moment]) I feel like the world is impossibly big...and I'm half drowning most of the time...and my knee still isn't solid enough to climb the figurative (and literal, actually) ropes to higher ground. I need to get acts put together. I need to nail auditions. I need more clients to train so that I can pay my rent without stressing out while doing the things I actually love.

I want to do amazing things. But I feel so unfocused at the moment.

What It's Not.

I suppose that from an outside eye, I probably do have a pretty “strange” life. I thought that the ‘planned out’ part of my day was going to be finished after the trapeze class I taught yesterday (there’s the first “strange” thing). But a phone call changed all that.

In the champagne bar in the middle of downtown that I found myself being taken to last night after teaching a burlesque class to a really great group of women at a bachelorette party (second “strange” thing), I felt like I had stepped into New York night life. Usually, if I step into a place like that, I’m one of the performers. As I walked through a sea of trendy 30 something’s, I wondered how many of them actually live the life of champagne bars on Saturday night and how many of them were just pretending, like me.

A lot of the women I met last night live In The Posh Section of town, where there are a lot of people at outdoor cafes All The Time...where rent is ridiculous, where it’s too social for my taste. I kept thinking about my quiet little neighborhood...sort of residential, a little industrial, very working class...not trying to be what It's not.
As I walked through The Posh Neighborhood (where there happened to be a huge art fair going on so there were even MORE people out and about. It's was scary and claustrophobic, actually), I couldn't help but judge a lot of the people that I saw. Thin, tan (and not because they work outside all day), a lot of money, young, done up, etc. And I couldn't help but wonder if all of those people live that life or if they're trying to make it look like they live that life.

I think the former is a more disturbing thought to me, but I also think that the former is probably true. I won't judge the women I was with last night, because they were, at the end of the day, "just a bunch of girls from Indiana celebrating with their best friend" (their words, not mine).

Even If I was in the position to be able to do that, to go to champagne bars and have a social night life like all those people sitting in the outdoor cafes, I don't know if I’ll ever really feel like I "belong" in places like that. At least in that part of town. I secretly wish that I could. But maybe I fight it because I usually find so much facade in places like that...or maybe it's my own 'putting on' of that onto those kinds of people. Not only will I hesitate to judge my experience last night, but I’ll embrace it. Because for a few minutes, all clichés were broken for me. The cliché of body type, of sexy, of fun, of my own (In)ability, of that Neighborhood, of the people that live there, of bachelorette parties, of girlfriends. It’s not about where you are, it seems. But more the people you are with. I felt really taken care of and included in the group of people I was with yesterday. I didn’t have to play at being fancy, because with the people I was with, I didn’t need to be. They were so cool, and I felt so included. And it didn’t matter Where we were. We happened to be in a really fucking cool place that I’d love to go to again, and it’ll be just as fun to see them again at a house party watching Top Chef or on a blanket at Ravinia.

I have a strange life. I do a lot of strange things. I’m usually working during the time that other people have having happy hour in outdoor cafes. I’ve never been one for the bar scene. Last night while sitting in the New York Like bar, I couldn't help but think about the little dark lounge in the middle of The Bad Neighborhood right next to our old training space. How it never tries to be what it’s not. Where I can work on the trapeze until my hands bleed and walk over, smelling of rosin and chalk, hair a mess and still have the bar tender flirt with me, because I belong in that neighborhood and it’s our place. We’re "the aerialists down the street". And how the "bangers" on the corner might not actually all be bangers, but might actually just be young guys who are too hot in their unairconditioned apartments and would rather sit outside where it’s cooler after the sun goes down. I don't tend to walk to my car alone when I’m around there, especially on the weekend...but I’ve never felt like I was in immediate danger on that street.

The champagne bar Was What It Was, but was it really? I’ll be the first person to admit that I always feel like places like that are trying too hard...that they aren't actually cool but are pretending to be. That maybe it was a joke that snowballed out of control under the weight of its own facade. Or maybe my definition of cool isn’t "normal". Maybe It's easier for me to think that those place, or people, are faking it because I so often feel so far below them that if they weren't faking it, then what the hell would that make me?

In grade school, after I realized that the popular kids weren't really the ones that were liked; I stopped caring about being pushed out of the group. I embraced being a floater. I loved (and still do) being liked by all kinds of different groups, being able to fit in all different kinds of places, and not be tied into anything.

The problem that happened, I think, is that I am now tied into nothing. I think this is why I long for a sense of community with people. When I’m a part of something, even if it’s just for a little while, I soak it in with the same intensity that a plant in the desert does water after the first rain in months. I drown myself in it. I fall in hard and it hurts when it’s "over".

When we did the show at The Huge Church, for 3 weeks, I felt like I was in a community not only of my fellow performers, but of thousands of people who believed in the power of prayer as a way of life. That was so different for me. And I left a tiny piece of my heart there when it was over.

Sometimes, I feel like I leave so many little pieces of my heart in so many different places (third “strange” thing) that I’ll have to be a floater forever so that I won't be completely empty. That I’ll constantly be moving from place to place, going back to old places, holding onto old memories so that my heart, though spread out, at least feels a little more whole. It's starting to make more sense to me...why I get so attached to people and places...it's because as scary as It is, and as hard as It is for me to do so, once I leave some Heart there, I feel like I have to take care of it...and that includes the people around it or the place that it's left. This is all starting to sound very metaphysical and strange. To me (and maybe this is scary or the fourth "strange" thing), those things are What It's Not. It's a very real sensation. As an actor, I spent time learning where emotion lives in the body. It's a real sensation. It's a floating, a distancing, a pulling, an expanding...like the last puzzle piece dropping into its slot when I get to "visit" places that my heart lives. Actually, that visit shouldn't be in quotes. It's a real sensation. When I dropped a piece of Heart at The Huge Church during the Christmas show, a few days ago when I got to go back there for a Q and A session (for the first time since December) I felt a stitching up in my chest. Like I was a magnetized suit of armor and that Piece left there was made of the most energized metal. I walked into the huge theatre space, and tried to inhale my heart back into my body. It smelled the same; it still felt like a huge room, I was bombarded with memories from every direction.

I guess what I’m trying to get at, is that last night, it was strange for me to find myself letting a piece of my heart go in an environment where I usually put up steel barriers. Whether that is with words, with avoidance, with presumption, or by simply writing it off as "silly" or "not my thing".

When people remind me that I do "belong" or that I am "wanted" or whatever, I don't think my response has ever been "I know". "I know" is what it’s not. It’s always been a surprised and delighted reaction, which always confuses people for some reason. I know this has to do with self esteem. Save the psychoanalysis. I’m (clearly) doing it for you.

I think we're all always trying to fit In. And I think I’ve made it more difficult for myself because I don't feel like I’m trying to fit in with a specific group. (and let's face It, I’d get too bored.) It’d be much easier if I were to chose a group and mold myself to that. If I had steps to follow. "Lose weight, dye hair, get a tan, talk about boating." "Gain weight, marry a doctor, have 3 kids, wear pearls." "Get a tattoo, move to England, start smoking, date a rock star." But I don't have steps. I don't really know where I want to be am. There are so many things I want to do, and places I want to go, and people I want to affect. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing it alone.

The perfectly well adjusted self actualized people in this world (or the loud-mouth fakers who think that they are) would tell me to "just by myself" or "be ok with being who you are", or some other ChIckenSoupMakeMySoulPuke type of answer. To be honest, I do know a few people who actually are ok being "on their own". I mean, for fuck's sake. I really do enjoy spending time with myself. I like to travel alone; I like to do my own thing. I love when I’m invited places with people but sometimes...no, a lot of the time, I feel left out...but mostly I want to be on my terms. So I talk myself into it being ok.

I’m starting to make more and more good friends that remind me that it’s not a solo-warrior-into-the-wilderness type of endeavor. But finding the people who'll actually float with you...

What it’s not, is easy.
What it’s not, is set in stone.
What it’s not, is risk less.
What it’s not, is comfortable.
.
.
.
What it is, is very thought provoking.
What it is, is very exciting.
What it is, when it’s good, is eye opening. And very good.

Organize Life.

My hamstring still hurts like a mother fucker. Excuse the language, but now that a lot of the "surgery" stuff seems to be healing, I can sort of pin-point where the actual pain is. (No, I didn't get the hamstring graft, I got a doner graft...so the hamstring should not have been touched.)

I don't know if it's from the original injury or if it's at the attachment point on the fibula and just radiating up or what the fuck is going on, but it's really getting on my nerves. It's the kind of dull aching annoying pain that makes you [want to? no. it's made me.] cry after a while because it JUST ISN'T GETTING BETTER and I tried to put cans in a low cabinet in my apartment today and I CAN'T SQUAT DOWN GODDAMNIT.

I keep thinking that organizing my clothes, or my desk, or my closets, or my kitchen will make me feel better. But it's not working today.

I felt like a total moron trying to get ads placed for the show I'm producing and there's nothing I can do about it today because it's easter sunday. And the Container Store was closed so I couldn't finish my organizing, so THANKS A LOT CONTAINER STORE.

I had an awesome day yesterday...it was like grad school again. Got up at 6, did theatre from 9-4...grabbed some dinner...and saw a show at 8 and got home at 11. JUST like grad school. And theatre all day. I'll write about that more when it won't be overshadowed by AARRRRGG WHAT THE FUCK LIFE?!?