Archive for January, 2008
Captions without words seem to say more than I ever could
I’m living in an unacceptable amount of chaos right now. And what I mean by that ladies and gentlemen, is the pile of suspiciously ambiguous clothes that currently towers next to my lofted bed- which I, awkwardly enough, have found myself dressing out of the past several days. It’s not a pretty picture, and I’m fairly certain it’s had all kinds of negative effects on my psyche over the past few days. The fact that I’ve stayed calm long enough to write this paragraph is a miracle in itself.
The touring cast of River Dance that currently resides above me just had the gall to stomp their feet in protest over my mildly loud music. Excuse me, but if it’s ok for you to clog at all hours of the day and night, I think I can play my newly burned Jay Brannan at a pleasantly reverberating volume. Honest to Pete, I’m going to shit a brick.
This is what a messy room does to me.
I’ve stated it before, and I’ll state it on this blog. Whatever state you find my room in, it will most likely match up to whatever emotional condition I’ll be steeped in at any given moment. My room is in chaos, and my life is in chaos. It’s only fitting, I mean who has time to tidy when you’re stuck in a whirlwind of mainstage time, and homeowork and directing, and being an art-teest, and all that sod. I just need to get me to London, and soon.
There may or may not be a boy on the horizon, but it’s nothing I’m willing to invest in just yet. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Coulda been a whistle, coulda been a flute.
I may just be crazy, but I noticed tonight in the gym that there’s nothing entirely special about it when you’re completely alone, or when you’re surrounded by several other people. There is however, something undeniably awkward and intriguing about being in the gym with a single other person.
A connection, perhaps (?) that slowly develops over the course of your workout routine. An unspoken agreement to not stay on the good treadmill as long as you normally might. Never let any seemingly out of place moans or grunts catch your attention. To avert your eyes respectfully when you’re nameless workout partner does something truly bizarre on the floor behind you. You avert your eyes only because you expect him to do the same thing when you enact similarly uncomfortable thrusts and stretches in a few moments as well. Unspoken rules like these always seem to apply. Unspoken rules that you always break. Well I do anyway. I can’t help but watch Jocky McJock perform awkward thrusts and stretches on the monochromatic carpet that lines the Woods workout room.
When I arrive in the gym and find it inhabited by just one other person, I always sigh in disappointment, because I know that I’ll feel perpetually judged and gawked at for the next hour. And if it’s one of those freakishly in-shape people, as they tend to be, I have to make sure that my workout lasts until they leave. Obviously I can’t arrive after them, and depart before them. I’ll look lazy. Or something.
But then that moment comes when they finally leave while you’re doing your sit ups on the carpet. And you pause for a moment and wonder if you should nod at them, or wave even as they leave. You did just spend the last forty-five minutes jogging and trying to avoid eye contact with this person. Should you really just let them go like that?
I don’t think I’ve ever been in the gym alone with the same person before. One of us doesn’t like to keep a regular workout schedule, and I think it’s me.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more completely unprepared for a semester to begin before. I know everyone says that. They spend the final day of their break complaining that school is about to start, and attempting to get the random errands that they neglected over break finished while usually a handful of obnoxious friends sit around reciting all the reasons they can’t wait for classes to start up again. I hate those people.
And today I hate the former as well. Because I am legitimately unprepared in almost every way you can imagine. I don’t have my final class schedule yet, and so of course I haven’t really bought any books yet. I’m not sure if I’m going to get kicked out of the classes that I need to take, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve double booked myself at 2:00pm on T/TH, and I’m wondering how the computer let that slide.
I’m convinced that my classes don’t make sense. Why am I in two performing classes? I’m having an emotional crisis. I have no clue what I want to do, and more and more I’m pretty certain it isn’t perform. But then I flip-flop. I’m the John Kerry of choosing an emphasis.
Maybe I’m feeling like I’m giving up on something. Performing was always all I ever wanted to do, no matter what. Then I got here and suddenly doors were opening in places that I didn’t know existed in the theatre. Suddenly I’m a director, and a playwright, and a stage manager and a dramaturg, and throughout all that my “identity” as a theatre artist is getting lost. I no longer know what I want, or more specifically what I want to learn. I don’t know if I can pour myself into anything anymore.
People always tell you that the answer in these cases is simple. That the solution is “staring you right in the face” or “trust your gut.” Well I think that’s all completely bullshit, because I’m looking straight ahead right now, and I see no solution, and when I think about my gut all I want to do is vomit all over the computer. And I really can’t afford to replace it right now.
So here I sit on the eve of my spring semester sophomore year of college, and I have no idea what classes I’ll be taking, what books I need, or even what I need to learn before I leave here. Great.
I’m searching for a sign, and all I keep looking at is my “horoscope a day” calender sitting on my desk right now, and it’s telling me “Just keep telling yourself it will resolve perfectly.” I really hope that it’s right. But somehow putting my faith in a four dollar, rip-away calender isn’t giving me the peace of mind I need to sleep right now.
Fuck me.
We caught a wild aligator
Back in Decatur, and it sickens me how comfortable I am in this town. Comfortable being relative to how comfortable I was in Plainfield, which all things considered, I should be more comfortable there- in Suburbia, rather than here- the Soy capital of the United States. That was an awkward sentence, and I considered briefly revising it, but I just don’t have the energy.
Something happens to me when I’m back in Decatur, and I suddenly develop a new sense of responsibility that is unfortunately absent when I’m in the ‘burbs. It probably has a lot to do with the awkwardly nervous, frantic energy that consumes me when I step onto this campus. Gotta geddit done. Keeps running through my head, I can’t help but to make lists and prioritize. It’s incredibly annoying, but I have to say it does tend to be efficient.
So far I’ve gotten a great deal of work done on Arcadia, run more errands than your average soccer mom, and picked out a handful of prospective plays to direct this semester. All within the span of a few days. I’m proud of me.
I also enjoyed all this responsibility while still managing to intoxicate myself for at least half the day.
But school starts soon, and I go back to work tomorrow morning, so inevitably the awkward, nervous and frantic will only expand themselves and overpower all other aspects of my personality. Be prepared for that.
It’s a solitary sequel, to never knowing anything at all
So I may have been a bit hasty in deleting the Nanny Diaries post. But live and learn. Ce la vie, and all that. Hopefully I’ve distracted everyone with the new layout.
I decided to do it. To take myself out on a date tonight. I am, I have decided, the best company I could choose for myself right now in the absence of anyone else I could choose.
The night started out nice enough- dinner, a trip to the book store. There’s nothing I adore much more than schlepping around the book store for a few hours without any serious intentions of buying anything at all. It’s harder to do that in Decatur, considering there are no book stores located anywhere I’m aware of.
-Interestingly enough, firefox’s spell check recognizes “schlepping” but does not recognize “firefox.” Funny.
I always expect that I’ll find my true love someday on one of these solitary dates. Hopefully in the bookstore. Finding my soulmate in a bookstore would amount to the perfect amalgamation of every fantasy I’ve ever had about meeting a man. Probably why I keep finding myself in bookstores, and probably why I haven’t found my true love in Decatur yet.
After my excursion to the bookstore, fruitless in both love finding and book buying, I headed over to the movie theater to partake of the cinematic gem Dan in Real Life. I loved this movie. There’s something about movies that try and recreate the human experience that get me every time. Those movies that aren’t exactly romantic comedies, and aren’t exactly heart wrenching dramas- the ones that fall somewhere ambiguously in between. Those movies I like. A lot. Dan just did it for me, in every possible way a movie could have possibly pleased me at the very moment that I was watching it. Probably not the most poignant piece of cinema that has every hit the silver screen, but honest and unreal in not altogether conflicting ways. There’s something unbelievably likable about Steve Carell in this movie that kept me on his side the entire time. Dane Cook couldn’t even ruin it for me.
Norbert Leo Butz was in it, and he got fat. The only disappointing thing I could find about this movie.
There was something incredibly ironic about watching the story of a man who is completely alone, in a movie theater- completely alone. Ha. Maybe more funny than ironic.
My night was a success in that it both picked up my spirits considerably and I got out of the house for a much needed few hours. Speaking of the house, we’ve come to the decision that this is probably the last prolonged stay I’ll be having in Plainfield. At least with the fam. We’ve all agreed that there’s something- off about having me around for so long. So I did it today, I got that storage locker to house those things that I don’t necessarily need at school, but don’t need to burden my parents with, and am bringing the rest of it back to my apartment. I don’t really know where I’m going to go over breaks, but after this month of constant awkwardness, staying at my place in Decatur doesn’t seem so bad.
I won’t have any bookstores to frequent though. Love can wait I guess. Ha!
The art of deletion.
It happens sometimes. There was nothing wrong with the last post, but I didn’t feel like looking at it anymore. There aren’t many things I can control right now in my life, but my blog is one of them. If I don’t want to look at it, I’m taking full advantage of the delete button.
It’s frustrating, y’know?
The title of my Juno post has really gotten me a lot of hits. Apparently titling your posts with Moldy Peaches lyrics really brings in the googlephiles. I doubt this is exactly what they came looking for though.
More on life later. Right now I just needed to get rid of that heinous post, and move on with my life.
Breathing gets harder, even I know that
What could be a better way to usher in the new year, then by downing an entire bottle of wine (along with other assorted spirits) with a close friend. It’s hard to believe that I’ve spent the past several December 31’s with the same person (sans last year’s Saint Louis debacle, which I would prefer to forget about sooner rather than later). But Sarah and I, no matter how close we are or aren’t always seem to find each other on New Years. It’s nice, and it’s a tradition that I wouldn’t mind keeping.
In a way the new year is all about breaking traditions though, right? I mean, the new year resolution and such. People always ask me what mine is, and I seldom have a good answer for them. It’s not that I don’t think about it, because to be honest, around this time of year it’s hard not to think about what part of your life needs to be exorcised in attempt to make yourself a better man. People can’t help but throw theirs in your face. “I’m quitting smoking,” they’ll say, as though in a feeble attempt to get you to help them somehow achieve their goal. Why do I need to share that with anyone? It only makes it more embarrassing when you have that cigarette. I guess I understand why you’d want someone to know about all the positive changes that you’re attempting to make in your life, but I still hold to my belief that it’s better to keep those kinds of things in your life secret.
For the record, I haven’t had a cigarette in months.
In an attempt to completely eulogize 2007 however, I journeyed back to my trusty xanga to review. I figured that within the various literary gems that I wrote last year, I would find various things to reflect upon. Lost loves, important people coming and going from my life, life changing events that occurred in 2007 that would give me pause. I didn’t find much to make me mildly change my pace, much less pause. Was 2007 truly such an empty year?
Or perhaps I’m being too picky. Truth be told 2007 probably wasn’t as exciting as 2006 was. But only in the most maudlin sense of the word “exciting.” I didn’t fall in love this year. I didn’t graduate from anything, I’d done the whole “living on my own” thing a year earlier than most people, and I didn’t accomplish much more than should have been expected of me. I think that someday when I look back on the course of my life, 2007 probably isn’t going to be one of those milestone years that sticks out in my head.
Looking on the bright side of this slightly gray picture though, there is far less to say goodbye to. Part of the reason I’m finding it hard to eulogize 2007 is there is far less that requires paying tribute to. I left a lot of baggage at the door at the beginning of 2007, I headed into it with a bright outlook and a fresh perspective. I think 2007 kind of melted into 2008. I’ve still got a lot of “spillage” I guess you’d say.
This New Year’s feels less like a beginning and more like just a complication.
We’ll see where this year takes me. Hopefully I’ll look back at these blog entries next year and be able to write something decidedly more interesting than what you just finished reading, eh?
