Kavanaugh Hearings

I am so full of emotions I don't even know where to begin. I am grateful I work in a mostly female office and we could watch and yell at the TV. I felt truly scared by Lindsey Graham. This is who we have governing us? This angry, powerful toddler? How dare you ask if the probably assaulter has gone through hell. His life is not ruined. At the end of this he will be in charge of my life or be filthy rich and underemployed. I do not feel sorry for you.

My brain does not compute this level of lying. He must have forgotten? There is an alternate reality? I believe Dr. Ford. Why would she lie? Have I lied before? Have I been confused before? He is so sure. I was raised to think people are good, so when people lie so confidently I start to believe them too. A girl I went to summer camp with was a kleptomaniac. There was proof on proof of everything she stole. Our counselors had us sit in a circle with her. I still don't know why--hoping for confession? Hoping for forgiveness? She lied and lied and cried and lied and I said, "Okay, I believe you. I am sorry. I believe you." There's no way she didn't do it. I just didn't understand how she could be so strongly dishonest. I could never. I don't understand.

I don't care you got into Yale and have good grades. I don't care you have friends who are girls. You'll notice your victim didn't need to spend an hour reading letter from people saying she is honest. Because that's nuts. She is honest because it didn't occur to her she wasn't. I hope your lies eat you from the inside like mold. You couldn't stop yourself from lying even to admit you watched Ford's testimony. It came so easy to you. You want to control my body. You lifted weights and had difficult football camps. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.

I asked my co-worker, "What would you do if you were him and it was true?" She said kill herself. I say I'd step down. If it weren't true, if it might be true, if I don't remember I'd step down. This is bigger than you. The country doesn't revolve around you. You are lucky to have been considered now can we please have someone Good? It's not fair. You would know that if you hadn't been given every privilege in the book. Sometimes you don't get the job for a reason you can't control. Sometimes you don't get the job for the best reason there has ever been.

I try to organize my new bookshelf but I lay down and read all the women coming forward with their stories. It is disgusting we have to band together to share our traumas to make some people believe there was a possibility Ford experienced hers. A writer shares her rape on Instagram in the morning and smiles coming in an hour later. It's our job to make you know we are okay. I don't want to be seen as overdramatic or too gloomy. I cry on the bed and when I finally come up for air I say, "I'd be down for a Purge."

Moved

On moving morning I woke up for reasons unknown when it was still dark. I shuffled on my Birks and went to the rooftop pool. Dawn swimmers with flipping in their caps and I sat with nothing in a slated deck chair watching the sun come up one last time.

It feels both more real and not to be living in a new city because we drove. It took four hours longer to pack the van than anticipated. Pillows and sugar containers being flung into the trash. A homeless man walked by and asked if we needed help. I kept shrugging. We’re almost done. Puhg paid him ten bucks to bring our mattress down. I sat on the curb in my sports bra. Cried during the final walkthrough. “This was perfect for us,” we repeated, and then we just had to get out. Pie in Joliet. It didn’t seem so bad. An envelope labeled “snack emergency.” The drive to St. Louis soundtracked by my high school mix cds. I never thought they’d come back, but here they are in a Hello Kitty case. Mom and I stayed up until 2 talking over fake chicken.

In Oklahoma City we had a cold room and blue lemonade. I ran two fast miles in the gym before a hip biscuit joint. I try to imagine living there, and all the places we pass. It is a coping mechanism to know if one city falls apart there’s a whole country to choose from. But I don’t think I like football enough. Although I bet there are lots of people who don’t like football enough, and they may need more friends who also don’t like football enough. The marsh gives way to dust, and soon it’s Albuquerque. I feel right in the desert. It’s in my bones and always has been. We have sopapillas and a pretty city light view.

The AC busts, and we try frantically to get it fixed in Payson, but everything is shut or full. We stand outside for an hour with a mechanic. I buy a stress cherry donut. The windows are down and the seats are hot. Salad with family merged into pizookie with my girls. We don’t even talk about anything important, but I sneak in the front door flying high from the memories and ice cream. The latter wakes me up at 5:30, and it’s just as well. I give myself a sloppy wet top knot and pack ice cubes. We make a break for it, and although it’s loud on the highway, it’s okay until about three hours from LA. The traffic is stopped and the sun beats in, and I feel insane. I haven’t eaten. There’s nothing to eat. I almost give up two miles from the final destination. Head on the steering wheel. And then do we rest? Oh no. We unpack and unpack, a dozen trips up and down back and forth. And when it’s all scattered everywhere I find a towel and shower and we walk a block and eat overpriced delicious tuna sandwiches. My first dinner in Chicago four years ago was a Butterfinger from Walgreens, so I get one from the Albertson’s and eat it in bed, asleep by 9 PM.

I didn’t know my last full day would be my last full day. Puhg says people are obsessed with cinematic endings, and that’s never how it is. He's probably right. He didn’t care where we had dinner, didn’t know his last time at the gym would be, in fact, his last time at the gym. I shook and hemmed, took in a final walk to my coffee shop, felt blessed by the sparkles on the lake. The sun was setting in the empty living room. We sat on the floor and watch the sky hot pink to grey.

Last Saturday in Chicago

I always bring a book, but Saturday I didn’t bring a book. I would rush from one show to another, I knew. My last performances in Chicago. The two theatres I fell in love with decade+ ago. Dal asked me to arrive early to i_. So we could talk. Before I go. I arrived five minutes late after shoveling kale and sesame oil into a biodegradable box across the street. The bar was quiet. The show was pushed two hours earlier for a festival, light house, some staples of the ensemble missing.

I didn’t do a big thing. I texted four people actually. I am not afraid of leaving people as much as my study carrel in the library and my coffee shop with the sunny patio and sugar-free cookie dough syrup.

The first show was good. Not as good as two weeks ago with the booming sold-out laughs. It’s easy for me now. I don’t warm-up, and I don’t question everything I did while passing Philly’s Best at midnight on my walk home from the train. But also this time is a different kind of good, the kind you don’t need validation to hold. An audience member asked what his partner should do to quit having nightmares. I started singing to myself about my sleep mask, and every time I got into “bed” (sitting on a chair holding a fake comforter next to Dal) I’d remember I had to feed my bat or something. I finally turned out the light and confided in Dal I was scared. He reassured me, so I asked him to take off his clown makeup. Lights.

The show was only 1:15. I hadn’t known we weren’t doing two full acts. I had an hour to kill. Cast cleared out. I wandered outside and asked a stranger to take a photo of me. No book. For once no book. I decided to forego my usual Saturday Uber and walk to SC. The evening was perfectly pink and humid. I could feel my curls loosening. I listened to Wilco. That teeny pilgrimage both heavy with August and light with leaving. “Burn down the missions”: lyrics I’ve decided I now understand. I bought the last walk-up ticket for Puhg.

Show Two. It was a new girl’s first go—something right, something cycled. The ensemble sang a warm-up about me. Our title was “Grease-y” so I got to be an updated Sandy. Flood initiated a drag race drag race. We go together.

Back at i_, I saw just the fewest sweet friends, and I was very happy. Gor said, “You were right about everything,” and Kram told me I was the girl he would miss. Roma was babysitting, so when it was time to go home she met me at Philly’s Best, but they were understaffed and not making fries. We went to the dumb ol’ corner for crinkle cut ones instead.

Skeletons

Been going through family photos, all the family photos, because my mom asked me to a year ago. They've been in the corner of the living room, behind the couch. A stupid coffee table. Now I'm moving, so I started scanning last week. I finished a couple days ago. So here. They're all digital so everyone can have them. But after staring at dozens of shots of the same baby in the same outfit and hundreds of now divorced newlyweds and many grainy shots of cars or strangers, I think I'd be good with a handful. And seeing one's whole life and one's family's whole life in snaps and snaps, back bent as I hunched over, something roared up inside of me. It claws. I shut the rubber tubs. I can't wait until they are gone.

Two weeks ago while I was visiting my dad I hunted for my old Gameboy. Found it under my twin bed, still working. I popped in the one game I never beat, Zelda (barely touched it, was too hard for ten year old me). I've been playing about an hour a day since. Usually after I run an errand or I am tired of talking to people. I have half the instruments for the Wind Fish. Today I got to the Catfish Dungeon and I couldn't for the life of me kill this jumping skeleton. I finally caved and read the cheat for it online. I needed to use bombs, not just my sword. Once I beat it, it ran away. I knew I'd meet it again, later, probably stronger and faster. Then I did, but it was the exact same. Just had to do it twice.

In my initial Nintendo search I was reminded of just how much stuff I had amassed at Dad's. Around 20 boxes in the basement. Some full of camp stuff, others Chicago debris, personal junk, clothes out of style, and, a few heaps of college stuff, last touched on my graduation day. Books on books about theatre. I had thought I'd keep them for when I got a bigger place with more shelf space, but I hope I never have more shelf space, not for what I can forget about for years. I sweat through my middle school basketball shirt and ripped my fading blue shorts on a tack. A van-load of very full, very big bins to Goodwill. I emptied them carefully into a cart while the employee upturned and dumped. There's something that hurts seeing it go. But it hurts to more, a dull distant ache, to know it was all there, under the front door, under the earth. Four left. Two of letters and photos. I need more than a day to sort those. And two of old t-shirts in case one day I want to make a quilt.

Meeting Women

Went to Squid's birthday a couple weeks ago. I sent a selfie of myself to Puhg while I was in the car burbs-bound to the lady of honor's favorite tiki bar. He wrote back, "Who's there?" And I told him it was a few girls I knew OF, but no friends. He said he would not put himself in that situation. I guess logically on paper, who would? I was stranding myself an hour outside the city, sitting at an intimate table with three gals I could hate for all. But it didn't even cross my mind because I like and trust Squid, so I assumed the best of her people. Plus, when do I not enjoy meeting a stranger woman? It's so rare that I really had to think hard about it just now. Really, what woman don't I have something in common with? Can I not learn from? Will not answer an intriguing question? In fact, a girl I had never met gave me a ride home and we bonded so rapidly that I got her husband a job on a movie Puhg is producing. Behind every good man.

"Tribe"

Comedians and their tribes. It's an idea I think most people credit to Amy Poehler (her whole "find your tribe") quote, but it's been true forever and always. You roam around doing your thing in basements and mid-afternoon when everyone else has real jobs and you share this unique pain of being unbearably vulnerable and usually getting rejected or at best making $100 for a show that had eight hours of unpaid rehearsal. Eventually there's a group of "you." No one does it alone.

Tribes were simple where I came from. In high school I joined the speech team and became borderline obsessed with every person on it. I liked making weird little theatrical art my whole life, and so did my new pack. Tribe. My college had a ten-person improv team comprised of essentially every student on campus interested in entertainment. Tribe. I found the one way to do improv in St. Louis (and would drive an hour to do shady barprov). There were like five people I thought were funny, and then they were Tribe. And in Arizona I worked obsessively on making good comedy (for kind of no reason?). The three women I clung to became Tribe. I assumed when I went to Chicago Tribe would be there too.

Instead everyone already had Tribe. I did things out of order? I earned success, then took more classes, then always had to get up at 6 AM to catch the train before rush hour so I could sit down (and grade papers)? I already knew too many people I trusted? In Conservatory only one other person ever seemed to do the work, and we weren't compatible. I toured with bitter melons. When I graduated a comedy school, none of my peers asked me to be on their indie teams, but three peers asked me to direct them and they all assumed I would say "no," "above it." (I said "yes" to everything.)

What this means is when I have to do something really scary, and I need support, I talk to my odd cluster of Tribe. This past weekend, when I submitted for _____, I got all my feedback via email and text. Siev was, let's face it, a waste. Cowsk brought her legitimate eye. Jack helped me be line perfect and steer, Puhg gave me pats, Cobra was generally excited, Shell reassured from a viewpoint, Another a couple "okay"s, Kale a little of everything, Roff analyzed why it was working, and Henne questioned why it might not be and shot highlights. He emailed me, "You. Are. Ready." after a final pass. A ten person Tribe I can never find around one diner table, but one I am supremely grateful for.

It's hard to believe I might get anything. Ever. Because odds. Oof, odds. But in a sliver of attempt to not be pessimistic, I do know not everyone has ten trusted readers, and of the people who do, how many are as "you can do it" as mine? I know work doesn't define a person's worth, but it I can't not believe it helps. So I will try my best to hang on to this scrap that ten people believe in me based on what I did even if it doesn't amount to a single thing ever ever again.

Tink

My musical had it's third workshop performance this weekend. I sat in the far back corner, as I like to do. I can't even comprehend it anymore. I feel like a meteorologist in the theatre. Ticking down laughs and quiet spaces. I can answer a question for the director, recognize a complication in a line, and revise lyrics immediately. I love that feeling. But when I watch generally, it's mush. I've spent years with this story. I treat it like the painting of Buddha in the kitchen. Nine times out of ten if someone mentions "the Buddha painting" I ask, "What are you talking about?"

An interesting thing about my work is I am an educator at heart, but people don't love to be educated for some reason in theatre. I do. I love being educated in theatre. But, okay, I guess sometimes I recognize I prickle when I feel a piece is teaching me something I know. And then I have to be very patient, when, for example, a pretty good play at The Goodman right now has a huge section of text about why some people prefer "they" as their gender pronouns. I'm like oh come on did I just turn on Degrassi? (Also I love Degrassi, so my complaints are even more obnoxious) But then I remember The Goodman's average viewer doesn't know about "they" stuff. Heck the gay bi-racial, interfaith artist couple I worked for when I first landed here hated the concept of "they." "Bad grammar" they both cited over and over.

So like, how do you educate without letting anyone know you're doing it? And how to you not mansplain inside comedy? And also 80% of the time I feel like this little "art for social change" is stupid because children are in cages and I donated money and contacted Congress and I know I am kidding myself that's barely reason to feel like I worked for change. And I worry it will not be resolved and I worry I will become complacent because it's just so much easier. I'm sorry, I tell the golden egg inside myself. I'm sorry I am lazier than I want to be. But then I run an improv workshop for social workers and they feel so proud of themselves and laugh so hard and tell me how it's going to help so much, and then I'm like, okay okay I believe again. I clap my hands for Tinkerbell.