I do this thing in the bath, I plug my nose and curl up under water, on my back and my knees to my chest, so I don't float to the top. I recently discovered I can cover my eyes so light doesn't shine through my lids. It's like sensory deprivation. I don't strain too much--well, sometimes I do, but not these days--and sometimes I curl into the fetal position. I don't ever feel any kind of spiritual womb rebirthing thing, but for a few moments after I resurface, my mind is clear as my senses adjust once again to the stimulation they so love/hate/never don't have. And as my mind is never clear, that's pretty nice.

"I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again. I woke at intervals until... the intervals of waking tipped the scales, and I was more often awake than not. I noticed this process of waking, and predicted with terrifying logic that one of these years not far away I would be awake continuously and never slip back, and never be free of myself again." (Annie Dillard, An American Childhood)

Who Am I? Write 20 different statements in response to the question "Who Am I?" "I am..."

1. a feminist comedian- and no, that's not a contradiction in terms.
2. madly in love with Jennifer Saunders.
3. in support of a united Ireland.
4. from the beautiful city of Providence, Rhode Island.
5. a big fan of The Clash, and an even bigger fan of The Decemberists.
6. a blogger, blog-reader, voyeur, introvert, and verbal exhibitionist.
7. an Internet nerd (since 1995).
8. cynical- as in "cynic" meaning a pessimistic idealist.
9. a communist at heart.
10. obsessed with photos of myself.
11. a Taurus, though I'm not entirely sure what that means.
12. fascinated with carnivals, by which I mean the hey-day of the American traveling carnival.
13. a three-time survivor of sexual assault.
14. a three-time survivor of internships.
15. a two-year Americorps alum.
16. usually called "creative" on recommendations/references.
17. a high-school drop-out.
18. a former pot-head, by which I mean high all day, every day, before bed, etc.
19. perpetually struggling with mental and physical illness.
20. a descendant of Benedict Arnold.

Mr. Cassidy was an Englishman who stayed, once a month, at the Strathearn, the hotel where I worked in Scotland. For a few of his visits, we found ourselves talking for several hours at the bar of the Wishart Suite once my shift was over. He told me, in the midst of one of these conversations, that he wasn’t surprised that I had Irish blood in me. Half-Irish himself, he had spent a lot of time in the country, and he saw that, culturally, they cherished melancholia—considering it a state worth experiencing on the level of other so-called “positive” emotions.

I’m not sure what led him to say that, to see that in me. I don’t recall having said anything particularly melancholic that evening. One of the last things I remember doing before he said that was musing about the moon or something. Perhaps, in that, he saw wistfulness and nostalgia, which tend to emerge when I muse, no matter what I’m musing about.

( Read more... )

1. to move only once
2. to have Jennifer Saunders' babies
3. to write/journal/document/analyze compulsively more- but not beyond the point of contributing to my growth as an individual to the point of being unhealthy, pathological, neurotic, etc.
4. to not once be more hungover than I was drunk
5. to continue my somewhat successful path to well-being
6. to be more aware of moments
7. to get out of my head more
8. to have more ritualized "quiet/'me'" moments
9. to understand better the effects of socialization on people (and on myself) thereby being more tolerant of them (and of myself)
10. to write creatively more and better
11. to redefine and resolidify my online presence
12. to be influenced and inspired by my surroundings/ to surround myself with influences and inspiration
13. to stay in touch with people better
14. to be more like Henry Rollins

At what point does it become fruitless to do anything but treat the symptoms? Is recognizing—and therefore at least attempting—to come to terms with the fact that you will always suffer—in one way or another—crippling pessimism or the healthiest thing you can do? Why is it a sin to try to relieve pain in the most efficient way you can think of, when all else has failed? (Or at least, you’ve done all you can, and it’s gotten better, much better, but it’s never been complete, and occasionally you lapse into things again, is it temporary or will it all come flooding back?, you ask yourself, terrified and anxious, wanting nothing more than for it to go away, sometimes knowing the source and sometimes not, knowing it will probably be gone in the morning, you just have to get through the night, so why not get through it with a little artificial help? When does it become better in the long run, to dull and shelter and not pointlessly confront?)

When does it become acceptable to give in, without fear of it being called giving up?

( Read more... )

I imagine people who act or direct regularly and connections they make with other actors or directors. As a mostly backstage worker in the past- there's a connection but it's different, it's much less- I don't know- visceral. Do these connections last? Or do they fade away and become awkward nostalgia, like so many personal connections do with time and distance? How depressing. I am never moving again. Well, eventually.

Do these connections bleed something into us internally, forever effecting our character, our personality, or at least our social self, our perspective? What will my connections from this show become? Will they morph into something else? Can friendships such as these last? Can spiritual siblinghood endure? Does it want to? Do I want it to? How much more cryptic and annoying can I be with this endless stream of questions? Should I rename my blog to indicate said endless steam of questions? Would that inspire me to think of answers? Or just more questions?

The only thing that's really been going on with me lately is theatre. Theatre, theatre, and more theatre. Pity, because now that I've actually got a bit of a holiday, it's the last bloody thing I want to think about. So, really, what else can I say but that?

It's not that I'm sick of it, mind you. It's just exhausting. It's the people thing, mainly. (Plus the theory thing, but that's another post entirely.) I'm too much of an introvert. I disappear a lot. To recharge. I've been used to being able to disappear whenever I wanted to. It's one freedom I always made sure I had. But now... It's still there, I suppose, just not so readily accessible. And even when I leave, my mind doesn't. It's the last thing I want to think about, yet it's the only thing I can think about. Theatre. And people. Theatre, people, and more people.

The weekend before last saw me as the lead role of "Spinning Into Butter" by Rebecca Gilman. (They're making a movie out of it; Sarah Jessica Parker will play my role; I don't know how I feel about that; well actually I do but since it's not nice I won't say it.) Then the Open Stage Variety Show and particularly a sketch that me and Jill as The Pathological Upstagers performed took over the following week. Plus there's a plan for an additional Open Stage event, the last week of class, in another space on campus, as a collaboration between the theatre (well, me) and the Dean of Students and Wellness departments. The show I'm stage-managing is in full-swing-mode. And tomorrow I'm meeting with a fellow student who's putting on The Vagina Monologues next term; I'm directing it. And I must start thinking more about my senior project soon. My advisor returns from Africa next week, we're supposedly having a meeting about it.

So yea. Theatre.

3 words to describe my personality:

1. funny (hopefully!)
2. moody/volatile
3. compulsive/obsessive

Ok so that's technically more than 3. I have problems with being succinct. I like adjectives a lot...

Anyway. What others said:

1. unpredictable
2. focused
3. generous
4. ballsy
5. nostalgic
- friend of 4 years (littlemidget)

( Read more... )

i wish the decemberists could make me feel like this all the time.
i wish anything could make me feel like this most of the time.
i wish i could feel like this, and be in it, and remember it. keep it with me forever.

then, life could be... lively. if only i could maintain this level of passion for more of life. i suppose, though, that if life weren’t boring most of the time, i couldn’t be passionate some of the time. the pendulum thing, needing one extreme to even recognize the other...

but still.
maybe it’s just that i wish real life could make me this passionate. on a more regular basis. and without all the bullshit.

Even if it is unattainable, at least I know what I want.

Know what I mean?

The phone rang at work. I picked it up. A man with an extremely sad, pitiful tone said, "I don't know if I have the right number, I have a personal problem and need to talk to someone, is this the number to call?" I told him that it wasn't. "What is this number?" he asked. A theatre, I said. "Oh. Well, could you talk for a little while?" I told him that I was busy, that I was really very sorry, but that he could call information and they could help him find the right number to call, I know there are numbers to call for that, they should be easy enough to find. "Oh, ok, thank you." I wished him luck.

It was quite disturbing. He sounded so upset. Right after the call I thought, I should have talked to him. A news broadcast ran through my mind: "After calling various random numbers and finding no sympathetic ear, a man committed suicide this afternoon..." I felt so guilty.

But what could I have done? Just listened, I suppose. But while on the phone, as I tried to figure out what to do, I was just plain creeped out. It sounded so serious, it just felt wrong. At the time I thought that staying on the line was a bad idea. I felt that I could make it no better, only worse, and that I would have gotten too personally affected, that I would have taken his despondency as my own. It wasn't until some time after I hung up and that feeling passed that I began to feel any differently about it.

Besides, I was at work, I was busy, prone to constant interruption, distraction. Once again, the trials and tribulations of day-to-day work-life interfered with me reaching out and possibly making a real human connection. For better or for worse.

I’ve tried to deny it for years, for a lifetime, but I just can’t anymore. I’ve got traitor blood in me. I need to stop rejecting that fact and accept it as an inherent part of me. My family left me with a lot of legacy, and so much of it’s really great, and I’m proud of it—the military might, the great business sense, the pride, the cunning wit, the survival skills, the revolutionary dissent, the great genes, all of it. But in order to be truly proud of who I am I need to accept the bad along with the good. And I’ve got traitor blood in me. And that’s ok. As long as I don’t feel shame about it. Because it’s not my fault. Hell, it’s not even his fault if you want to know the truth, but this isn’t the time for a history lesson. Fact is, he was who he was, he did what he did and generations later came me in the same line, the same stock of people, and I am who I am. I have seen the best people in my family ruined because they’ve tried to deny their blood, their traitor b lood. They have been ashamed of it, but I won’t go down that path. Oh no. I am going to fully embrace that part of my history, my family, my genes, my blood, my self—and not apologize for it. I will announce it loud and clear and proud for anyone who wants to hear it—I am a descendant of Benedict Arnold, and that is why I changed coffeeshops.

Attempting to get a new blog project, Lenny & Vee's Madness, off the ground... but my partner-in-crime (namely, Lenny), is a bit of a slacker!

i guess what it is, ultimately, is that i’m looking for simplicity and, therefore, the simplest route to simplicity. it’s the search for the simple route to simplicity that’s complicated and annoying.

The darkening sky is threatening to put an end to my holiday. Gray clouds are gathering and literally falling, rushing to cover the remaining white bits. The seagulls are hectic, quickly flying willy nilly, rushing to greet with some preparation the impending storm.

Behind me are a plethora of school buses and high rises. In front of me, a plethora of water and sand. The boardwalk serves as a definable border between these two unlikely neighbors. I’ve never seen Coney Island look like this—the sky this dark, without the lights of the parks it looks even sketchier. It is losing its glow and spark and gaining a ghostly air.

I finally made it to Brighton Beach. That’s where I train’d in. Pretty much exactly like Astoria’s main streets only Russian. But I didn’t come for that, not really. Straight to the water, follow your nose. Hot sand, cold water, and the first time I’ve been able to breathe in a while. I didn’t eat at Moscow Restaurant but at a place right next to it. A waitress outside talked me into it. And sure enough, I’d been sitting there only a little while when a man came up to me and said something in Russian, something that sounded like a question. “Sorry?” Again, Russian. I think he said, “You don’t speak Russian?” shaking his head. “Sorry, no.” Off he went nodding.

Due to my hearing problem, a lot of times when I hear a different language, at first I think it’d English and that I just can’t hear it right. (This isn’t uncommon when people speak English.) The closer the cadence is to American English (or British English), the more time it takes to realize it isn’t English.