A Cautionary Tale

Got this in an email from the director of the short play I'm about to begin working on. Broke my heart in more ways than one.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/i-dated-my-best-friend-a-cautionary-tale/

A sobering, thoughtfully written example of pure emotion in words, by Kat George.

Jiggity Jig

Just returned to NYC after almost a week back home. I've never been so reluctant to leave my family before - clearly this long term not visiting thing is a bit much for me. I MISS MY KITTIES. I'm already trying to plan my next venture home, but who knows when that will happen. My schedule is extremely limiting in regards to more than a few days away from the city.

Had the children's show this morning. It was an interesting experience, I wanted to make note of it before I forget.

We had at least 10 kids, which was a big deal, since the most we've had is 3, and they were very interactive and sounded like they loved it. But what made me really perk up was after the show, when we sit out and talk to the kids and parents, one of the women asked if I did such and such pirate show, because she thought she recognized me. I want to do a pirate show. Hell yes please! And I had convinced at least two of the parents that my characters, the fox and the pig, were played by two different people. Good to know character work is effective even under low budget scenarios.

I'm exhausted. I do have to run out and get bread and milk, though. It might be beans and onions for a good while, methinks. But grilled cheese is a possibility too. So I need bread.

Tony Night

A third post?!

It's Tony Awards night, the biggest awards night in theatre, so I figured that it's worthy of a Spotlight.

All I have to say right now is that I have a warm-fuzzy-feeling-inducing acceptance speech story prepared now for the day when I walk up onto that stage. My first summer living in New York City, and I don't have a TV, and the Tony's aren't online. So my dad makes a Skype and holds it up to the TV at home so I can see Sutton Foster dance and sing, and I realize that I have the greatest parents in the world, and without them, I don't even know what I'd do. They marveled at the puppetry of War Horse and I explained about who I wanted to win and we laughed at NPH, and he made sure I could see the Tony's even as far away as I was.

So thank you, mom. Thank you, dad. If I can grow up to be half as loving and fun as you, I will be a fulfilled woman.

Congratulations to all of the winners (I knew Mormon was gonna sweep it, and there was no way in hell Mark Rylance wasn't getting his award), and a special congratulations to my teacher Sutton Foster for her second Tony. :) We miss you at New Studio!

Lobotomy

Two posts? Well, gol-ly it must be something good.

Aside from my delicious bean sandwich yesterday, it was a rather emotional and pleasantly solitary day. After fleeing the theatre, I found myself glued to Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and then, after I'd finished it, found myself hiding in my bathroom, crying silently so my roomie wouldn't think I'm weirder than I already am.

It hit a similar chord as Next to Normal always does with me. I have a feeling it'll be another one where the more I read it and the more I watch it (I made the heartwrenching mistake of watching the Jack Nicholson film immediately after reading it) that it will sucker punch me more every time.

What is crazy. And I cried some more, knowing that taking away laughter and hurting and crazy makes someone worse than dead. "Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy."

I looked up lobotomies and EST, reading how, before chemicals could run through our blood, they would shock and cut up the brain matter of people like me. Is it self-awareness, now, that makes me different?

Also, I'm not actually insane.

Also, without my brand of crazy, I wouldn't be half the artist I am. It's as much a part of me as my DNA. Oh wait, it's in my DNA.

And, basking in the warmth that feeling a lot of emotions all at once tends to create inside me, like some engine hidden under a dusty old blanket was finally uncovered and was glowing in my core, still chugging away, I found myself lying awake, watching the play of headlights and streetlamps sliding in blind-bars across my ceiling. Thinking too much? Can't sleep? Think some more!

So I got to thinking, not about what constitutes crazy, but about things I shouldn't think much about, exes and flings and mistakes, and I found the root of a certain kind of hurting inside of me. Why I act, maybe, and about my high standards, and about how my heart is slowly growing a coating of jade plating. I'm not sure that, except for brief moments, I have ever felt like every ounce of me is enough. That my mind, my body and my spirit, combined into the entirety that is me, has ever been completely enough for anyone. So I'm in this constant uphill battle to find the face I need to wear, or the words I need to say, or the gestures I need to enact to be enough for myself and someone else. It's not an incompleteness. It's like rearranging a tangram puzzle into a new outline, but with all the same pieces as before.

Which is funny, since I know, deep, deep down, that (and I can't find the blog post about it, but it's around the archives somewhere from this past semester) I am not broken. I do not need to be fixed. I sure feel like I'm missing something, most days.

So. I'll hopefully spend today being productive and not thinking quite so much.

Lots of love.

My horse is tall.

I discovered the joy of cooking poor man's food yesterday. There's this silly little surge of pride within me whenever I successfully make myself a meal of some sort. Shows you how much I do on my own.

The children's show at 13th Street "opened" yesterday. We were told there was going to be a birthday party (in which part of the party package at the theatre includes the children's show), but the darling old woman in charge, 94-year-old Edith, had gotten confused and told us the wrong day. The birthday party is today, not yesterday. We did a rehearsal run through, and then another run through for our director's mother. I felt some kind of anger turning my insides crisp and black.

I come to everything thinking it will be as professional as I am, with this organized, focused attitude and the talent to make it happen, and I find that I am being repeatedly disappointed by maintaining my high standards. Whether it be for the theatre or just for people in general. Like I keep having rocks chucked at me to try and knock me off my high horse, what the hell am I thinking for having such outlandish expectations of the world? (It would explain the random bruises I keep finding all over my arms and legs...)

And it makes me miss high school. Why? Because there, under the cynical and sharp eye of my director, everyone was held to that standard, and a professional, high bar attitude was branded into us. I guess, from then on, I've expected the bigger world to be the same way, and it is on rare occasions that I find anything that lives up to that standard. A blessing or a curse, I can't figure out what it is.

And my darling mama sees me through with a long-distance hug, saying "Having such high standards is bound to cause that [disappointment] more often than not - but you can never compromise either."

And I suppose that's one of the more overarching lessons I'm learning. It's not one giant, brutal moment where a lesson is clear - it's this perpetual, dull beating of something trying to make me compromise, and the success is simply in never collapsing in on myself and allowing myself to.

This internship is kind of a "find what needs to be done and go do it because you're our free labor and the more you volunteer for things around here the more you'll learn." Not what I was expecting, or really exactly in the mood for, considering it's a professional theatre, but hot damn give me my 8 credits and I'll do just about anything.

Headed back to CT for a home-cation in seven days.

Projects

Had a "class" with my intern advisor, Janice yesterday. It's NYU's way of making sure we're actually learning stuff, which I appreciate. Though the 8 page paper is gonna suck.

Got me thinking, since, in listening to the other two intern students who were there, I realized my internship at 13th Street is very much not the typical internship. Janice gave me the project of an organizational chart, to work out exactly who does what around the theatre, including all 30 something interns and whoever actually works there. Because honestly, I have no freaking idea what's going on at 13th, other than it's more than slightly unorganized and I get this atmosphere of unprofessionalism whenever I show up. ((The children's show has been pushed back one more weekend due to poor planning.))

So I'm putting on my Nancy Drew/Mystery Machine Gang hat and I'm going to get to the bottom of this and see exactly how this off-off theatre keeps itself going.

___

Have to have a reading of my short play tonight with the other interns. I really dislike this play, and I wish I didn't have to share it. I know it's probably awful, and will get torn to shreds, because me + romcom = super awkward.

I also recently was reading a bunch about the psychology of solitude versus loneliness (click it), and how one does not innately indicate the other, since I have found myself on my own quite a bit this summer (sometimes entire days go by when I don't actually speak a single word to another human, just songs to myself), and I have often wondered if this is weird or unhealthy or something. But liking my space and quiet and time to myself isn't weird at all. I prefer it to lots of company, always have. Small gatherings are much more pleasant than rowdy parties, or bar scenes, or large crowds of people. So I'm actually okay with most of my quiet time.

But then there are the moments when I realize that I do actually pine for someone's company. I don't need someone around all the time, I don't need to constantly talk, or be doing something, but to at least have someone accessible with whom I can communicate and just sit with, that would be nice. I'm not that far away from the people I miss, since it's truly just a train ride and some schedule planning away from seeing them, but there are definitely days when I feel like there is a giant glass wall between me and the world. Texting fades as other people keep themselves occupied, the internet is no escape, and I read the entirety of Frankenstein in two days because at least then it was like there was someone with me.

So I spend a lot of time reflecting on my own needs as a human and what feelings are valid and what are not.

Now that I've wasted my morning, I'm going to go do my yoga and ballet and plan for my afternoon. A run to Staples to print, possibly grocery shopping for cereal, maybe a long walk up Broadway for no reason other than I want to get out. Or laundry. Laundry is cheaper here than it was in my other building.

Love.

Nobody's Perfect

Been a while since I updated - I'm just really bad at this during the summer, I guess.

Going to an indie flick audition at noon - should be interesting, never auditioned for film before, never done film before, so this should be good experience, at least.

Children's show opens in a week. Woo. I'm so thrilled.

Finished a really crappy first draft script for the literary part of my internship, hopefully it's not too stupid to warrant being produced.

I ran out of milk last night and I forgot about it this morning, so I haven't had breakfast and I am sad.

I'm antsy, lately. This new dorm is fabulous (there's an unfinished post about moving still sitting in the drafts on here... whoops), the location is perfect, everything is smoothed out for now, but I still feel like I just want to get moving and be doing something, though I'm not sure what that something is.

Regardless, I'll use that pent up energy later to buy milk, then hardcore clean the kitchen and bathroom. Too much sticky. Too much shed hair. Ugh.

The glamour of living as a theatre student in New York. Lovely, isn't it?