Shakespeare isn't a replacement for sincerity.

The other day at work, the regional vice president came through for a visit, which our store had been anticipating for the past week. Everyone from the district was shitting themselves and putting undue pressure on all of the associates to sell, sell, sell! The store manager approached me while I was speaking with another manager, for whom I was acting as a sounding board for how she'd address our guest upon introduction. The general manager pulled me aside and told me to greet and sell to every customer to make a good impression. She said to me "act well the part, for therein all the honor lies". She quoted Shakespeare to me, as if to help me better understand the objective of the visit: to fool the visitor with a masquerade of fake smiles and cheap cliches.

How is it that I have found more honor and legitimacy in actors and artists than in any other people of profession in the world? It's because we're real. A great actor doesn't fake it. A great actor IS it. BECOMES it. A great actor is genuine and sincere. And doesn't need to quote Shakespeare to get through a meeting with another human being.

Let's get back to basics. Let's get back to being real.

I want my life to really mean something. I want my life to be my greatest expression.

I'M IN!!!!!!!!!

WOW! The goodness spilling out of me everywhere is insane. Here's where things are right now:

-I am moving to a work location closer to home, AND getting a raise. :) So I'll finally be stable in one city, making a higher wage (and maybe getting more hours), and I'll be working with a team that I bonded with when I first joined the company, so they like me already and I like them. :) Finally, I'll be working with a team of colleagues instead of doing it all by myself in a separate location. GREAT!

-I have been accepted as a THEATRE MAJOR! Yes! The interview was terrifying. I felt like I gave the BATS coordinator a poor impression of me, saying "I want to be a successful actor whether I'm paid for it or if it's community." He said I was contradicting. What I MEANT to say is "I will do this even if I don't have two pennies to rub together, I will do this if I never see Broadway, I will do this until the day I die because there is NOTHING of this world that I want to do more than perform & express every day of my life what cannot be expressed otherwise. I will never stop until I see Broadway, so essentially, I cannot fail. But I want you to know that this art is my life." That's what I meant. And he must have seen that because he said "I'll give you your chance." He said yes!

He also told me "You have a character look that I see only getting better with age, which is a good thing because we (character actors) work longer." This is true. Most of my favorite and most revered actors are character actors: Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, Molly Shannon, Jim Carrey, Jack Nichelson, Nathan Lane, Jack Black, Sarah Jessica Parker, and the list goes on and on! I guess I mistakenly assume that character actors are ugly or unattractive, but this notion is a faaaar cry from the truth. They have industry "flaws" that make them unique and give them the opportunity to play roles of great wit, profundity, and humor oftentimes; this is my lot in life, and I accept! It always hurts to hear that I'm not thought of as conventionally beautiful, but good to know that I'll have jobs for the rest of my life. :)

GOD IS GOOD. And I am absolutely ready to become.

This is it. Life or death, ride or die time. Not for my physical body, but for my soul. Patience, discipline, and strength and will must be cultivated in me. There can be no turning back. The Lord's strength is made perfect in my weakness, and he then gives me strength. It's ride or die time. No looking back. Only open road ahead. He's made it straight. And I'm ready.

Sometime, it'll all come together.

And then, we'll laugh and sing to God. And the summers won't be hot, though they'll never end. And the sun will never rise nor set, but lay in the sky shining eternally over a land of dreamers and lovers of life. The tears of mourning will dry up, and in their place will flow rivers of gladness from cups overfloweth with life-giving water. This is life everlasting.

I am so thirsty. God, fill my cup.

I don't know how we get so far off the tracks, but the derailment... detour... makes it clear: we're all a little fucked up. Everyone's got baggage. We've all been hurt. Some more than others, but pain is pain. I met with someone today who'd been close to me for some time, and we communicated pain. The pain we caused, the pain we felt. It was terrible and perfect all at once, and I wanted to cry because I STILL communicate too late. Why do I run from love? I can blame so many things and people... my parents, my goals, my fears, all these things... but when it comes down to it, I have nothing to lose by loving, and no one to blame but myself. Rejection is out there, sure... so what? Abandonment is possible, of course, but I'm alone now, so what's the difference? And there's a great chance that he won't understand my passion, but he doesn't need to, does he? If he can love me, that should be enough. The next time around, I don't want to be afraid. I want to be so vulnerable and so unapologetically and crystal-clearly myself. I want to appreciate him, and let him know it. I want to wear my heart on my sleeve and put it in the hands of a gentle man. I have regrets for not letting love in. I have regrets for pushing away and insulting love offered. But I have no greater regret in love than this: not saying it out loud when I have felt it.

I want to be me. I don't want to misrepresent myself anymore by pretending I don't have interest in things or people that interest me. I'm not going to let the exterior mask the interior. Scripture tells me to guard my heart, but nowhere does it say hide it away, lock it up, freeze it, or keep it to myself. I want to be honest about my heart.

I wish it wasn't too late to say I love you. Even if I can't define it, I feel it. And though you'll never hear it from my mouth, I wrote it down. Honestly.

Take a ride and you'll know.

I love riding my bike through the city at night... riding past pizza shops, I can smell the fresh garlic, the doughy crust of a perfect pie. The fragrances of fresh herbs waft out from Vietnamese pho houses, bringing to mind my fond memories of dinners with good friends... the shards of shattered beer bottles sparkle under streetlamps, headlights, moonlight... I encounter the people of the night; some walking aimlessly with no place to go, some walking from a place they wish never to see again. Some gesture and nod, or communicate some things unintelligibly, but I nod in firm reassurance that they have been heard, recognized, humanized. In some ways, we are the same: vagrant bohemians with dreams to fill our heads and pains to fill our hearts. We have dirty hands... we reach to grasp, something, anything... I bike past a penny, but I leave it alone, for not wanting to spoil the speed of my stride, and for hopes that it will be found by hands with less opportunity. I am one of the people of the night. I sleep under a roof and in a bed, but I, too, am an orphan... looking for a city to love, a hand to hold, a people to call my own.