October is a time to shed the old.

Tonight I am happy. I type this entry from my desk under the window, rain pouring outside, vibrant pink flowers spilling out from a canister on the counter, leaning as if to read over my shoulder. I think often about my next great body of work. Will I finally sit down and write a play? Is my next great poem on the horizon? The words on my tongue like scalded tastebuds. September has brought about so much in so many areas of my life that I don't have the heart to try to steer myself in any one direction; I feel truly that the right moment will make itself known to me, the right words will emerge onto the page when they're ready. For now, in the meantime, I write everything else. I write about the moment of writing, the painfully relieving process of letting words spill out of your pen like blood from a wound onto a linen page to stop the blood, but the words keep bleeding. It's terminal. The wound won't heal until you get out the bad blood. And finally, words come along to suture the wound, to stop the hurt. You are free again to write about more than just anything. To write passionately. To write good comedy. To write about the time you couldn't stop bleeding. It's all within reach at the end of your arms. No matter what you write, write with feeling.

It is October now. A new month bearing a new purpose and new feelings. I'm so grateful.

the abbreviation of canyon

My manager Cyn is such a blessing to my life. I worked with her tonight, and got to pick her brain for wisdom. Cyn is 45, black-haired, her body a tattooed canvas of Tim Burton's work. It's occurred to me before, but tonight I became certain that she and I are a lot alike, and I can see myself being much like her when I'm 45. She has a huge heart for helping people, she's funny and sarcastic, and she has a great sense of style and self. Most strikingly, she also survived a terribly abusive childhood and bad relationships, and she was able to overcome all the obstacles. She has a tattoo on her wrist that says "rise above" to represent the struggles she's overcome to be who she is, and to forgive, and I admire her so much for the strength she's accrued over a painful life. We do differ in that her blood has been transfused with red bull, but nonetheless, I appreciate the blessing she is in my life: someone with wisdom, someone with passion, a listening ear, and someone I trust. I'm just really grateful.

Sex and its ism

I wrote the following as a response to a prompt in my theatre class for social change. I analyzed one of my go-to plays, Pizza Man:

Pizza Man

By Darlene Craviotto

Social issue: sexism

Summary and analysis:

The play Pizza Man begins with two women in their mid and late twenties, both struggling with failures in love, work, and life in general. These women, Alice and Julie, are home late one evening discussing the shortcomings in their lives, the inequalities put upon them as women, and they become enraged. Julie is a beautiful, but depressed alcoholic, and Alice is an overweight, dimwitted Jewish woman, who provides a little comic relief for what could otherwise be a very serious play. The women, feeling overwhelmed by their troubles, decide to take control of their lives, and they start by ordering a pizza with the intent to capture and rape the pizza man as a way to be in power. The pizza man, Eddie, is a married man in his late twenties, and he agrees to a drink with the women in hopes of hooking up with them; his intentions, however, are muddled by the women’s secret plot, and they tie him up and gag him. The women are not really sure how to go about raping him, and despite their efforts to oppressively seduce him, Eddie reveals that they would never be able to rape him because, as a man, he would always be willing. This infuriates the women even more, and they become more violent and start leaning toward killing him. Eddie becomes terrified, and struggles to maintain his tough guy exterior. Throughout the course of their warped evening, the three of them bond over their shared failures and disappointments. In the end, the women realize they’ve crossed the line, and they release Eddie, who then feels close to the women. They have all attained an understanding that surpasses gender identity. They are just three human beings struggling to gain control of their lives and be the people they wish to be.

I believe the playwright was successful in breaking down the gender barrier with regard to power, as she was able to volley power back and forth between the characters throughout the work. For instance, these two women started out feeling powerless in attaining the commitment of the men in their lives, or powerless to their bosses’ decisions, and so they decide to forcefully take power. Their actions attempt to take power from Eddie, a man, which he then backfired on them by claiming he could not be raped because he was a man. This type of power is aggressive in that it is unalterable. The women cannot change or negate this fact, so they attempt to overpower Eddie in a gender-blind manner, by threatening to murder him. This genuinely shows the women in a moment of power, however unreasonable. I think this was a great ploy on the part of the playwright because she used this plan of action to demonstrate the helplessness, the desperation women often face to gain equality amongst their male counterparts. By the end of the play, there appears to be no gender-centered power struggle; just a struggle for equal rights to live, which I believe was Craviotto’s intention.

eet

Old typewriters had an eet key, a key like a backspace- it took you back. It didn't erase, but it allowed you to write over your mistakes.
Eet was a way to start over.



"It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song. You can't believe it, you were always singin' along. It was so easy, and the words so sweet, you can't remember, you try to feel the beat, eet, eet, eet." - Regina Spektor (Eet)

Barbra is what I do instead of online homework.

Seriously, I need to not take any more online classes. I'm not getting much done.

Stoked: theatre, life, art

So, it's official. I own my car! I received the title in the mail, and it's mine. It feels weird to own everything I have. That's a first in my life. I don't even know how to celebrate. Maybe I'll get my mirror fixed. Haha

I've been thinking a lot about the discussion in my theatre history and lit III class. We were talking today about why America is one of the only countries in the world to never have established a national theatre. That doesn't seem important to anyone outside of theatre, and it might seem trivial even to those in the profession. Almost like, who cares? First off, we should define national theatre as a theatre that best represents a country. i.e. Russia has the Moscow Art Theatre. America attempted to establish the Lincoln as the national theatre. I speculate there are a number of reasons this did not pan out: first of all, America is comprised of so many different cultures, and so many diverse states, it would be hard to accurately represent us with one theatre touting one type of theatre or style. Secondly, we are so politically divided that it would be a point of contention as to who would fund such a theatre. If the theatre is public, does it then fall to taxpayers to maintain it? And finally, America just doesn't value theatre the way other countries do. We are a young nation, and we have not been as deeply rooted in, well, anything the way some cultures have rooted themselves in theatrical presentation. America is so fleeting. New York is AMAZING, full of culture, and it's the theatre mecca. That said, it is still comprised of all other forms that we've gotten from all over the world. So herein lies the qualm: who are we? Who are we as artists? As a nation? What do we value beyond spectacle? What can we artistically offer to the rest of the world that can be found nowhere else?

Another thing hit me today as I became aware of a play called Machinal, in which a woman becomes so trapped in a world that operates like a machine that she is driven to murder. I am always fascinated by the psychology of people, myself included, and by what drives us to be who we are and to react the ways we do. The idea of this play excites me in two ways. I've been giving a lot of thought to the tempestuous working relationship of Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. Stella Adler is one of the most famous acting teachers of the 20th century, as is Lee Strasberg, but their approaches differed greatly, and were in great contradiction to one another. Stella Adler was a huge proponent of getting into character by observing the given circumstances by way of careful breakdown of the text. Strasberg, on the other hand, developed what's known as "method" acting, which relies on emotional recall for character development. Several notable actors have come up under each of these teachers, but I find Strasberg's method the most controversial, interesting, and dangerous. It is not uncommon, for instance, for an actor getting into the mind of a cocaine addict, when using the method, to take cocaine to really get into it. But the mind is delicate territory. Many people can get so lost in the mind of a character that they will never fully regain their own identity. I have never experienced this, as I combine many methods for character approach, but I cannot stop spinning ideas about how one might use the method to get into a dark character like that in Machinal.

The play also fascinates me in its mechanistic theme. So many days, I am in love with and terrified by the idea of a cyber punk existence. All of humanity walking around with microchips and programmed intelligence. I would never want this to actually happen because I want to stay human, but at the same time, it would be so easy to explain humanity if we were to look at it pragmatically. I wouldn't have to try to explain my emotions or my desires; this is just the way I'm programmed. We would be dead to emotions deemed unsafe for our continued existence: lust, love, hatred, fear, and so on. We would be robots, able to exist without really living, and we would never die...

The more I think about it, I don't want to be a robot. I do want to be emotional. I want to experience myself as I am. I guess it's best to learn how to pragmatically communicate what I'm feeling. No matter how I approach my life, whether by examining the given circumstances or by experiencing my full-blown emotions, I want to live accurately according to who I am. Who am I?


I am a woman. A lover of poetry, art, performance, and expression. I have to see with my hands. I have to analyze everything; it's what I've been trained to do. I am a feminist and activist for equal rights for all humans. I am an adventurer. I will go wherever the moment takes me, even if it leads to trouble. I am smart, and intelligent. I am strong and independent. Sometimes, I let my guard down. Sometimes I get hurt. Sometimes I hurt others. I am a great miscommunicator. I am colorful. I cannot fit into any mold. I was a chorus geek in high school, and always will be. I feel everything passionately. Apathy is not in my emotional vernacular. I value honesty more than almost anything else. I cannot do subtle; I don't know what it even looks like. I am blunt, and I love bluntness in return. I would rather spend quality time with myself than mediocre time with anyone else. I am more convinced every day that everything happens for a purpose. I believe in destiny, and I believe that mine is going to prove beautiful. I want to live a story that will be told for generations to come. I am a dreamer of dreams. And no one can ever program all of that into one being.

i slept with my hand on my heart.

Last night I slept with my hand on my heart. I was in bed early, laying in the dark with my hand on my heart. My eyelids were heavy, but the sound of my own heart alone in the dark was too much. So, I fed my face. And then I fed my new 30 Rock addiction with all of Season 1, disc 3. Then, I went back to feeling my heart alone in the dark. The gentle, steady thumping against my palm reminding me that my heart's not broken; it's beating. I became aware of the rise and fall of my belly as I breathed in, and out, reminding me that I am alive. I let my mind wander from one choppy thought to another. My brain volunteered for the job of separating dreams from reality, a task it has never mastered. It became too much. Not that my brain wasn't capable; just that the ratio of 1,000,000,000 thoughts: 1 head was a bit unbalanced. I had to focus on not focusing on anything. 'How do I do that?' (I once took an acting class that required us to lay on the ground for 10 minutes and think of nothing. Needless to say, I never mastered that, either.) 'No, I have to get this right', I thought, 'for my own good'. So, I forced my hands to be my eyes, and we sifted through the thoughts and finally got to that quiet place, alone in the dark, with the soft go-gong of my beating heart, the blood coursing through my veins, supplying my body with oxygen and air. In that quiet, tremulous place, I found myself. And I took my own hand as we walked off into the deep.

Feeling new.

Today was so necessary. Thank God I had the day to recollect myself. I was able to get back on track and get so much done. I feel like myself again after a month of being a stranger. My place is clean, my homework is (mostly) caught up, and I have been kind to myself.

I was asked to be in a music video today at the laundromat. The folks shooting the video were looking for someone "real", someone doing something real, like loading laundry. Apparently, throwing a month's worth of dirty clothes into the machine with reckless abandon was real enough for them. I turned them down. Orlando is full of real people in real messes, so I'm sure they'll find someone.

I am loving La Roux and Gotye this week; their albums are really reaching me right now.

It occurs to me at the beginning of each week how much closer I am to graduating. We're already more than half way into September. Wow. Time is flying. And before you know it, January 1st will be here, and I'll be in a new year, a year that will hold new things, new beginnings, new places, new people, new opportunities. I so look forward to all of that.

dark blue

Now all I can see are the planets in a row suggesting it's best that I slow down... this night's the perfect shade of dark blue...




I stood in the storm today. The rain blew up under the overhang, and I let it sting my skin. The wind blew, but I could not be moved. I watched the clouds roll and the lightning spark, a tempest of many shades of blue. It was beautiful. Furious and sad, all at once. Powerful, but helpless. A storm can't help what it is; it has to pour. Everyone seeks cover and refuge from this beautiful thing, afraid to get their feet wet or their hair mussed. When did we stop playing in the rain?

Afterward, driving home, the sky was remarkable. Multicolored, covered with clouds that made the sun illuminate the entire sky a burning gold. And in those clouds, I glimpsed a rainbow. Tempest or not, I'm looking toward the horizon, and am ready to get my feet wet.

courage

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow."

Now I'm the fool up on stage at the magic show

Time is literally flying by. Each day, I realize that I've given a day of my life to the world and its people. Whether trivial or important, my agreeing to live is the bargain I made. "Give me magic", I plead. And some days, I wish that Houdini had a heart, or that he'd tell me "it's all a trick". But instead, I allow myself to be dazzled. Because I want to believe in the magic. I want to believe in incredible possibilities.

I feel at odds with realism and magic. One will lead me down the smart, safe path in which there are mortgages and kids and a man to keep me safe. And at the end of that path, there will be a bed of death in which I'll lay my secrets down to rest. I'll have made love and made life routine and safe, and there will be no magic; just the elements exposed.

Or, I can choose magic. I can choose to live in the moments, and feel every emotion x5. I can feel pain and pleasure, fear and hope. I can do what I feel whenever I feel it and let life take me to the ends of the earth where I'll have shaken hands with bums, wiped tears from children's eyes, made love until the sunrise, cried in agony, traveled the world, made friends and promises, and lost loves. I can wear feathers in my hair to make me like the birds: free. Colorful. Beautiful.

I know deep in my skin that I must be both. The head and heart must act together. But when they are at such odds, how can they coexist? How can I teach logic and emotion to love one another, to reason when emotion in its very nature opposes reason? How can I have magic and realism? Magic is not real. It is the technicolor version of the life I want. It is who I am when the sun rises. But when the sun sets, a fire burns in me that despises the real, but must embrace it tearfully in the dark. I DO want a family, and a love, and a place to rest. I just don't want it to be at the cost of freedom. I don't want it to quell the fire. I don't want the colors to fade, or for the magic to end. Don't show me the man behind the curtain, the secret to the trick. Just dazzle me. Let me believe it. Let me believe you, Houdini. And let me love you.

Words

I heard the most amazing words tonight. I went to a poetry reading where my good friend Curtis spit one of his poems that reached me so personally that it's unreal. I'm in a whole new place with myself right now. Thoughts, shifting. Mind, clearing. Fingers, letting go. I'll never underestimate the power of words.

just breathe.

I feel myself breathing for the first time in a week. I've been consumed by my own thoughts and feelings; it would be nice to shut them off so that my mind can rest, but I know life doesn't work that way. I have to feel them, and work through them, so that I can breathe more deeply.

Butterflies

Strange realizations come to me in the midnight hours, musings of lost love.

First love I dated one of my best friends in high school, a boy I loved even before I believed I was capable of falling in love, or that I'd even want to. We were young and naive, the unspoken couple. Jan always did little things to let me know he cared, that he thought of me, and I loved him for it. An artist, he once sketched a portrait of my eyes, which he gave to me, and which I hung up tonight. To have a piece of the unraveled past as a remnant on my wall now is so telling, so surreal.

We met when we were 14 and 15, and ever since, we were peas in a pod. There was this one February I'll never forget. We were 18 and 19, still ridiculous, and I was more in love with him than ever. I stayed with him for about two weeks at Malaluka. It was a strange, dark, and beautiful time. We would stay up each night into the wee hours talking in bed about the future, our desires, God, eternity, art, life, and pain. We painted each others' bodies and made them into art. Little did I know, he was changing that winter, becoming someone I'd hoped he'd never become because I knew it would exclude me. I couldn't deny it; we were growing up and growing apart. The nights we spent together, the dreams we shared, everything would turn to ash. I was heartbroken. We were best friends all through high school, and now we could never go back. I was so in love with him that when it was over, I thought I would never move on (high school is so melodramatic, after all). I couldn't imagine loving anyone ever again, and the thought of him seeing other people, loving them, and sketching them, killed me. Everything about it hurt. That spring was the first time I'd felt pure pain, the pain of love lost.

Looking back now, many years later, I laugh about how foolish we were, and about how ridiculous we must have seemed. We've both moved on, become adults, had our hearts broken by others, and picked up the pieces. We're not so naive anymore. I marvel at how deeply I was able to love him, and wonder how in the hell I ever loved him to such an earth-stopping degree. I mean, it's Jan. We don't see each other often, as our lives did pull us in different directions, but we are friends again. Friends with a history. Friends with limits.

So as I look at this portrait from another place in time, a painful time, I try to go back there. But it doesn't hurt the same way anymore. Looking at it now is like running a finger over an old ragged scar and remembering getting cut, but not the way it felt. On my wall, I've hung a scar from the first time I fell in love.

Then there was Christopher.

Second love I loved Chris. He was the first and only man I ever wanted to marry, and the first man to want to marry me. We worked together for a year before we got together, and I found him altogether contemptible and irresistible. There was something about him. First of all, he was devastatingly handsome. Second of all, he was the poster child for the emo movement. Piercings and tattoos, and always something about which to pout. We poked fun at one another, laughed together, and bonded over nonsense like Natalie Dee, Chris Crocker, and "Shoes" (OMG, shoes). Until the summer came, when we started to fall in love. He was going away to school, four hours away, but it was too late; we had to be together. So, we dated long distance for most of our relationship. Chris was usually the one to drive home on weekends, and we'd fly kites or find food, go to concerts, or go to Dinosaur World because he was obsessed with dinosaurs. At his prompting, we picked out names for our future kids. Yeah... seriously... Then there was the first time he told me he loved me. To hear the words come out of someone's mouth, to be given to me, was ecstasy. After losing love, having it back was the greatest lottery prize of all time. There was nothing more I wanted... until there was.

Chris took anti-depressant medication, which saps one of sexual desire faster than anything. This devastated me. Here I was with the man of my dreams, with our future laid out ahead of us and looking bright, and he did not desire me. He loved me, but could not love me. Despite all of the things about him that made my world brim with bliss, I was falling into despair and out of love. Other men in my life made strong advances toward me, and as desirous as I was of love and interaction, I was faithful to him. We stayed together for a year and a half, time that, though lost, I wouldn't give back. I learned a lot about love from Chris, both what it should and should not be. And for him, I am grateful. We tried to be friends after the relationship, but... there was too much there. There are so many scars from that relationship that, without them, I would look nothing like myself.

So, here is where I am today. It's been close to four years since I've been in love, and I want to be in love again. I want to be with a man who knows how to love me, and does. I am dating now, and am overwhelmed to find that everyone else wants to fall in love as dearly as I do. We all want to be loved. I have forgotten what this looks like. I am a relationship girl, so to be a swimmer in the "dating" pool is a strange existence for me. I'm used to the guy just showing up; I've never had to look for him. Yet here I am wading in the water. I have been on many dates, and have met many interesting people. I cannot say with any certainty that I have met my match. I did share a level of intimacy with someone that has shaken me up, made me hyper-aware of my sexuality, and of myself as a woman. I need love. I need physical love. But as I was apt to find out, there is a difference between sex and love. I now feel myself attached to a guy who has no interest in dating me or getting to know me. For him, it was a purely physical act, and I don't know how to do that. I get attached, I bond. I need love to be involved.

I'm also embarrassed by how pathetic I must now seem, chasing after this almost one-night stand. I want him to know me, and I want to know him. That does not, however, change the fact that we're both still seeing other people, and that he obviously does not feel I possess what he's looking for. I'm smart enough to know that someone who wants to spend time with you will do it, no matter how early he has to get up or what he's got going on. Someone who likes you wants to be where you are. Period. So, this is a time in which I am picking myself up and moving on. I want to think that I can be friends with him, but it is hard to scale back and recover from an investment that didn't yield a return. So, I move on. If he wants to give it a go and get closer, great. If not, at least I won't have been pouring my heart and time into an empty vessel.

Through it all, I know this much: love will always be foolish. It will always be ridiculous, and there is nothing elegant about the search for love. It is gritty, it is hard, it is embarrassing, it is painful. A week into dating, I was already exhausted. It is an arduous process, a misery unlike anything in the world. The attainment of love is the only consolation for its humiliation. So, you take all the material from your dating experiences and you put it into a comedy routine. Or, you leave it untouched in the back of your head to pull out at night, to analyze while you stare at the ceiling and wonder under what ceiling your lover is sleeping at this very moment. I'm not a quitter. I want love. And I want to love someone again. I want to be unable to go without holding someone's hand. I want to willingly drive hours to see someone for mere minutes. I want butterflies. I want someone who'll dance, even if he hates to, because he knows it makes me happy.

That's what I want. And I won't settle for anything less than butterflies.

Waiting for Real Satisfaction

It is better to say no to instant gratification. The waiting for the thing can be ecstasy. The immediate attainment of the thing can be damaging to its future enjoyability. I learned this lesson over the weekend.

It's a strange and beautiful thing.

The past couple weeks have been really interesting, exhilarating, and... totally unexpected. School and work have been keeping me so busy that my place looks like I've hosted five keggers for dirty bachelors. It's pretty gross, but I've been getting my assignments done so far, and that's what matters. I've also managed to make time to start dating. Like, actual dating, not going out with some dick who says he'll call and then doesn't because he's off being a professional dick. No. It's been really exciting, and different. Dare I say, worthwhile. I won't talk too much about it, as I don't want to put a hex on a good thing. I just want to find the right man, damn it.

Nonetheless, life is good. I've hopefully got only this and next semester until (in true Braveheart style) FREEEEDOOOOOOOOOM!!!!! I want to finish school more desperately than Justin Bieber wants not to be gay. God willing, that will be possible. At the very most, some online classes in the summer would be tolerable; I just have to get out of here. I have to move on with my life and be a young 20-something while I still am a young 20-something. I want to make mistakes and eat too many nachos and stay out until the wee hours and pretend I don't know better while it's still cute to do so (or is it no longer cute after 25? Hmmm...).

I really cannot wait to go to NYC. I think about it all the time. The smells, the sights, the NOISE, the hustle and bustle. I fully expect that it's going to be 60% shitty most of the time (because hey, baby, that's New York!), and I cannot wait!

Alright, I seriously have to go wash my dishes before I reconsider a career in science and decide to use my kitchen sink as grounds for research. Live well, friends.