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.