Distractions

It is painful to avoid distractions, but I am more committed than ever to it. I've officially gone a month following my first New Year's Res. Every day spiritual study & journaling before phone. Less and less do I even want to engage in social media. It hurts or it distracts. I like learning this slowly instead of insistently. I like waiting three minutes for the train and looking at the track. My counselor has noted I give myself little homework assignments all day, and it's refreshing to know it is not only okay to end that, but vital to my peace.

I've been distracted since I got here, although I don't regret most of it. I reached for the lowest apple, then climbed to the first branch, then sat in the tree. But don't worry, I was scoping other trees while I was off the ground. I was making my grape net and even harpooned a mango or two. There is power in saying what I actually want to do and what I don't. It is difficult to jump down and walk away. This might be related to social media. Who knows.

I feel a yellow rush about February, or pink to match the CVS displays. What I truly am is more complicated, obtuse, but I keep getting these good signs and these interested emails and that is more than most people ever get (not to be full of myself, but to be grateful and honest). It's so regular now I only have to follow through. I have some schemes and I have accepted the investment.

That's where I will sit and make my new play. As early as I can. With an open body. That's where I will sit and finish my book. When I'm done, I'll stand in the shop and order four fancy chocolates. At least. We will make our thing. My calendar will be full of deadlines over call-times. I have two scary goals for 2018. One I have little control over, but two potential knocks. The other I have all the control over. I only must avoid the crunchy distraction.

My Show, Here We Go

January has been headachingly busy. I opened and closed my solo show remount. I want perfection, and that's just not fair to wish for. My final show had a bevy of technical issues, which crushed me. People loved it. They gushed, they hung out at the bar, they said, "I could barely tell," and "the important thing was--." I appreciated all of it, and based on the anonymous post-show surveys, I believe the responses were honest. But. I held Puhg close and told him I needed to cry. He said, "Okay," even though he was in the middle of sweeping the stage of debris, and took me backstage for a hug. Why was it so important? A time and money investment, uh huh, but really I believed in what I said and did, and I wanted that to be crystal. It's never going to be crystal. I'm too accomplished to ever confuse my work with magic. I'm too consistently good. It's an odd problem to have. I don't mean to brag. I don't know how else to say what I feel.

There's been such a heavy weight on me since I signed the space contracts in October, and maybe it's naive to think it would lift. It will dissolve slowly in the bleach of new projects. As people filed out of the theatre with their free vegan cake, they were joyful. I forget how infrequently adults can be joyful. And all they had to do was spend $8 and an hour in a small dark room. A white-hairs man and a woman on his arm sat in the second row. As they left he pointed proudly to his chest and said, "14 years strong vegetarian." I was sincerely happy.

I could have had more choreography. I wish I hadn't skipped that line. How did the timing work on that bit? And then I have to be understanding that good theatre gets workshops and previews, and who am I? The Queen? I googled how to deal with biffing and got an article about how to forgive one's self after a bad interview. (Ugh, you'd think I bumbled around in a potato sack the way I'm describing this experience. I watched two minutes of the recording, and it looks good. Better than it did in my brain. This is some weird massive female humility at play.) The article encouraged the downtrodden to consider what they learned. Yes, yes, I've learned.

I've learned the tiny things--always bring a flashdrive and print the full script, review the cue sheet. I've learned it's not about the number of people under a platform, it's about the sincerity with whoever is around. I've learned what holds people back. I've learned to calm down. More more more than anything I haven't learned but recognized the people who love me. My family who came and loved. My Puhg who left tulips on the counter for me after closing, who ran home for forgotten props, who set up chairs, who sat in the back corner, who tore down stage dressing and carried costume bags down the street. Everyone who came. Period. (And yes, it's hard not to feel bummed about who didn't.) But everyone who came! From the stranger who chastised me as I waved goodbye to the girl I sit-in with who saw the poster on her way home and said why not.

Kale visited Chicago for this show. I am stupid grateful for three days with an old friend. I will probably break even financially--a modern miracle as I paid everyone. I go to experience a dream of doing a scene with Cher Horowitz. I saw someone's jaw drop. I saw someone cry. I felt a calm. It's still breathing.

It's All Jobs

Witch Hole Pond, 2017.

It's all jobs.

Dunno

I like thinking about that first improv teacher I had assuming, possibly knowing, so deeply I must be a kid who signed up for the wrong class, and this was going to be one of those once in a weird adolescent lifetime experiences that I try to forget, or do forget, as soon as humanly possible. If there had been anybody in the entire comedy summer school class she would have bet money on to burn rubber and never look back, she would bank it all on the girl who actually refused to play Freeze and could not speak in conducted story. That teacher will never know I was actually observing and thinking about what everyone did, and judging too critically to participate.

I like thinking about that teacher (I would kill to know who it was--we probably have mutual friends) because sometimes you just don't know where what you have said and what experiences you have created and who you are will go as attached to another person.

Great

It's been an exceedingly good week.

All the past versions of me would be proud. No matter what age, if I dropped off a dossier of life facts for Alice 2018, she would be relieved. Your solo show opened to a warm sold-out house. You found a puffy art installation outside the restaurant you went to for your five year anniversary and kicked off your heels and climbed in. You are creating content for two new college theatre courses. You had a candy bar and sparkling cranberry juice for lunch. This week two lit managers and one television producer got back to you. Two risers in Power Step class. This portfolio is golden, and I know it.

And yet. I wonder when it started. My meditation app asks me to rate how I'm feeling mentally from "poor" to "great." I am never going to press "great." I'm just not. How could I with Syrian refugees and landfills? The dozens of hanging "cancelled due to low enrollment" signs in my school. They rise up in the draft I make waking by. I believe in doing one's best, and I know it doesn't help the starving to feel guilty when I bite into vegan thai chili wings, and I have seen the power of joy beyond the self. It's been heightened of course since DJT was sworn in. In someways I feel less alone. And maybe if I'm less alone, that means more good is happening. I'll flip that coin into the good luck fountain. But the bad luck fountain has been a bubbling muck since I was I don't know when. What was the happiest I ever was? (The last time I could be thoughtless?) Maybe when Obama was elected, so I sailed on the what would be. A year later or so. I will never forget the woman with no teeth who asked if I had a lawn that needed mowing. She probably wasn't supposed to be in that Bread Co. It's snowing, lady, I thought. "Just trying to get by," she said, and maybe that was when it happened, when there would never be a great again.

The Difference Between

The difference between girls who only eat the top of the muffin and girls who cry when they lose gift cards--I think the girls who only eat the top of the muffin know it's the best part and then, like, whatever, why would you subject yourself to less than the best? You certainly don't need the calories. I start with the stump because it's my least favorite part. And I get through it to enjoy the crisp hat. That was someone's hard-earned money, I think.