"It's a great script. It needs rewrites but basically it's a great script. I know I've told you all this before, but it's just that if I don't keep saying it I'll forget it's the truth."
-- Rita, in George F. Walker's play Beyond Mozambique
--
I think I've always been afraid of things.
The first thing I remember being afraid of was the boom of footsteps I heard in the ceiling above me. I knew that in multi-level buildings, one man's ceiling could be another man's floor, and the thought of who--or what--was walking around up there kept me awake at night. I think this was shortly after watching Jurassic Park in theatres. I imagined that if there was a clear plastic cup half-filled with water on my nightstand, that with each boom from above the water would ripple, shivering, quivering, like me wrapped in my blanket.
Until high school, I was nervous every time I had to speak to a stranger in a public place. I remember being in a McDonald's and wanting more fries. My mom gave me two dollars and told me to go to the counter and order some medium fries. I was terrified because I didn't know what would happen if two dollars wasn't enough. I told her that, and she said it was enough. I shook my head. She gave me a quarter and said that it was for the tax. This ritual repeated itself during several McDonald's meals, and every time, two dollars was enough, and I returned sheepishly with the unused quarter and random change from the two dollars.
These days, I think I'm afraid of my writing.
--
I think that's why I stick to midlength blog posts. Rarely do I have to write things for work; the two-and-a-half plays I've written recently are an exception. Sometimes I wish I was like my journalist buddies, whose blogs consist of teasers for their stories that appear on the websites of the newspapers they work for.
Blogging is self-publishing. Self-fulfilling. Vanity disguised as self-expression. One only expresses oneself because one is presumptuous. That's one way of looking at it. Another way: it is self-expression disguised as vanity. One only appears pretentious because one needs an expressive, written outlet.
--
The play I wrote for TCTC has its dress rehearsal and staff watch tomorrow morning. I'm afraid of 11:00, an hour of reckoning, a litmus test, a group of people who know me but who don't know my play. People who don't read this blog. Co-workers, some with the power to decide whether I ever write for TCTC again.
I hope they laugh, I hope they cry, I hope they lose fifteen pounds.
--
Tomorrow is a big road-trip day. I'm going to a resort south of St. Louis to meet my family for Thanksgiving. Turkey Day.
When he was little, my dad's nickname was Turkey. He never climbed into an oven, no. Apparently the name comes from a game he and I both played when we were little. My mother called it "killing your enemies," and my grandmother called it "running around making funny noises." In my version of the game, I would reenact action sequences from cartoons and movies, leaping onto couches like I was hopping the tops of city buildings, pointing a garden-hose nozzle like it was a laser gun, imagining explosions that shattered my mother's Precious Moments figurines into dust and fritzed out my father's stereo with a shower of blue electric fingers, seeing scorchmarks and bullet holes appear in the white walls of our house while masked combatants sprayed ammunition at me, and on and on.
When my dad did it, I imagine the scenarios were much of the same. The sci-fi noises coming from his throat sounded to my grandmother like the warbling gobble of a turkey. Hence: "Stop running around, you little turkey."
--
I'm not afraid of turkeys.
11.24.2009
11.23.2009
Puppies
"We talked about literature and I was in heaven--also in a sweat from the spotlight he was giving me to bask in. Every book new to me I was sure he must have annotated with his reading pen long ago, yet his interest was pointedly in hearing my thoughts, not his own... Then there were the great novelists, whose spellbinding names I chanted as I laid my cross-cultural comparisons and brand-new eclectic enthusiasms at his feet--Zuckerman, with Lonoff, discussing Kafka: I couldn't quite get it, let alone get over it."
-- Philip Roth, in The Ghost Writer
--
I killed a lot of puppies today.
UrbanDictionary.com says the phrase, "killing puppies," either refers to smoking marijuana, or to asking a stupid question or giving a repetitive/stupid answer.
What I mean by the phrase is this: in writing, to get rid of something that you think is really good. That's not to say that the process of editing and cutting your own work down is a bad thing; in most cases, it's good. If it hurts you to highlight a section and hit delete, chances are the piece is now better than it was when it had accrued the extra baggage. What many writers consider their own genius, others consider extraneous, dull, and a form of literary masturbation.
A professor or high-school teacher of mine used the phrase, and I thought it was perfect. And I've continued to use it up to the present, when I say to you in the least flowery terms I can muster:
"I killed a lot of puppies today."
--
How?
Well, the play I wrote for ArtReach was running long. I hadn't budgeted enough time for the long songs and dance numbers, and when we timed it last week, it ran 1:06, an hour and six minutes. ArtReach guarantees a one-hour show and Q&A, and in general, that means a fifty-minute play.
Sixteen minutes (0:16) had to go.
And so, down the drain went the puppies. "Away!" I cried, with fingers flying over the keys. "Away with the joke about 'forgetting the forest and seeing the trees'! Away with thin comedic bits! Away with the heartwarming final scene where the moustachioed villain gives back the bags of money! Away, away, and away you go!"
(Or something like that.)
In a creative process of any kind, and especially in theatre, I believe you have to have at least one other person telling you which ideas are full-grown, healthy, Pedigree dogs, and which are diseased, runtish, awkward puppies. Children's stories like Charlotte's Web tell you to save the runts, but with the abstract goal of creating an ideal product, the runts have to die.
(Die, die, DIE! Away and away!)
And in many rehearsals, I think, the person with the most puppies is the director. With no one but a stage manager to kill them, these puppies continue to grow until, like a rash or boil, they are too large to be ignored. In this particular case, it's the opposite. I'm the playwright. I have loaded down my play with written-in puppies. The director is the one who has been asking me if it's okay to kill them.
All of these puppies have met their Maker, who has condemned them to oblivion. Adios, perros. So be it.
--
After all the cuts, we are down to fifty-two minutes. We did it. All's fair in love, war, and the massacre of small, metaphorical mammals.
And now, it's lunchtime.
-- Philip Roth, in The Ghost Writer
--
I killed a lot of puppies today.
UrbanDictionary.com says the phrase, "killing puppies," either refers to smoking marijuana, or to asking a stupid question or giving a repetitive/stupid answer.
What I mean by the phrase is this: in writing, to get rid of something that you think is really good. That's not to say that the process of editing and cutting your own work down is a bad thing; in most cases, it's good. If it hurts you to highlight a section and hit delete, chances are the piece is now better than it was when it had accrued the extra baggage. What many writers consider their own genius, others consider extraneous, dull, and a form of literary masturbation.
A professor or high-school teacher of mine used the phrase, and I thought it was perfect. And I've continued to use it up to the present, when I say to you in the least flowery terms I can muster:
"I killed a lot of puppies today."
--
How?
Well, the play I wrote for ArtReach was running long. I hadn't budgeted enough time for the long songs and dance numbers, and when we timed it last week, it ran 1:06, an hour and six minutes. ArtReach guarantees a one-hour show and Q&A, and in general, that means a fifty-minute play.
Sixteen minutes (0:16) had to go.
And so, down the drain went the puppies. "Away!" I cried, with fingers flying over the keys. "Away with the joke about 'forgetting the forest and seeing the trees'! Away with thin comedic bits! Away with the heartwarming final scene where the moustachioed villain gives back the bags of money! Away, away, and away you go!"
(Or something like that.)
In a creative process of any kind, and especially in theatre, I believe you have to have at least one other person telling you which ideas are full-grown, healthy, Pedigree dogs, and which are diseased, runtish, awkward puppies. Children's stories like Charlotte's Web tell you to save the runts, but with the abstract goal of creating an ideal product, the runts have to die.
(Die, die, DIE! Away and away!)
And in many rehearsals, I think, the person with the most puppies is the director. With no one but a stage manager to kill them, these puppies continue to grow until, like a rash or boil, they are too large to be ignored. In this particular case, it's the opposite. I'm the playwright. I have loaded down my play with written-in puppies. The director is the one who has been asking me if it's okay to kill them.
All of these puppies have met their Maker, who has condemned them to oblivion. Adios, perros. So be it.
--
After all the cuts, we are down to fifty-two minutes. We did it. All's fair in love, war, and the massacre of small, metaphorical mammals.
And now, it's lunchtime.
11.19.2009
Trumpet
"When rehearsing a Walker play, it's useful to raise the stakes higher than you imagine they could be and to increase constantly and mercilessly the size of the obstacles to understanding and communication among the actors. The more awesome the barrier, the greater the energy released to smash it and the more complete and desperate the emotional exposure. Intensify the desperation even more by removing cool intellect, by doing everything you can to nourish an instinctive response to the moment; free-fall through the words, do the unexpected, surprise each other, never let the bodies be a safe distance apart; make them too close or too far, but never leave them safe or settled. Discover by attempt, by ceaseless, active, breathless attempt. Do a scene over and over and over and over without pause until you work yourself into a thoughtless, lucid, present-tense fever, so that understanding comes from the gut, from living with the plays where they live, trusting to their extremity, taking a leap of faith across a bottomless emotional canyon, a leap justified by experience on the other side, experience inaccessible by creeping, incremental analysis. Set a punishingly swift pace and make the progress buoyant. Otherwise, the speech becomes considered, the bodies take a nap, the emotions hide away, the bravery is no more."
-- from Stephen Haff's "The Brave Comedy of Big Emotions: An Introduction" to Shared Anxiety, a collection of plays by George F. Walker, who wrote Zastrozzi
--
That description (above) of a rehearsal process sounds like heaven.
Which would mean that the current rehearsal process qualifies as earth, purgatory or hell. Take your pick.
--
Confrontation among co-workers is never pretty. Even uglier in theatre. Because the personal(ities?) and the business intertwine in a kind of Medusa headpiece, all vipers hissing at each other when the pressure is on.
--
I have returned, as I always do, to my refuge of books. A friend from last show's cast dropped by today with his new puppy and some gifts. Among those gifts was a paperback copy of my favorite E. B. White book, The Trumpet of the Swan.
I had to read the thing in sixth grade, right between The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. Loved it. If I get the chance, I may reread it tonight, between The Fantastic Toy Shoppe and Holiday Follies.
--
Back on track as far as the identity theft goes. Got a new driver's license and the other cards followed, and I've reverted to an older, torn wallet. New cards, old wallet. One in, one out.
My cubicle is a mess. Props for the holiday touring show have been my main assignment for the last week or so. There's a narrow trail from the entrance to my chair, and piles everywhere else. There's a pair of scissors on the floor. There are no longer scissors on my floor.
--
Have the third in a five-workshop series this evening at a local community center. Because we originally advertised that it was going to be taught by another TCTC staff teacher, who specializes in (among other things) teaching music and voice, the parents have begun to complain that they aren't getting what they paid for. Little me, in a room with six kids for an hour, and only acting exercises to show for it.
So: Today, I launch my new campaign to teach children how to sing and dance. In the remaining three classes. I feel unqualified despite qualifications--after all, my degree is in Theatre, not Music, and not Musical Theatre. I have three hours, over the next few weeks, to teach six kids at least one song, voicewise, dancewise. Nothing else for it.
Sometimes life is a test. To see how well you achieve goals beyond your grasp. To see how you perform without a script. Or how good you are at faking your own abilities.
Talk the walk.
--
In my little world of books, I can read about experimental theatre, post-apocalyptic survival, mute swans, and jungle doctors performing Frankenstein-esque operations on unsuspecting natives. It's a good little world.
Good little escape, too.
-- from Stephen Haff's "The Brave Comedy of Big Emotions: An Introduction" to Shared Anxiety, a collection of plays by George F. Walker, who wrote Zastrozzi
--
That description (above) of a rehearsal process sounds like heaven.
Which would mean that the current rehearsal process qualifies as earth, purgatory or hell. Take your pick.
--
Confrontation among co-workers is never pretty. Even uglier in theatre. Because the personal(ities?) and the business intertwine in a kind of Medusa headpiece, all vipers hissing at each other when the pressure is on.
--
I have returned, as I always do, to my refuge of books. A friend from last show's cast dropped by today with his new puppy and some gifts. Among those gifts was a paperback copy of my favorite E. B. White book, The Trumpet of the Swan.
I had to read the thing in sixth grade, right between The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. Loved it. If I get the chance, I may reread it tonight, between The Fantastic Toy Shoppe and Holiday Follies.
--
Back on track as far as the identity theft goes. Got a new driver's license and the other cards followed, and I've reverted to an older, torn wallet. New cards, old wallet. One in, one out.
My cubicle is a mess. Props for the holiday touring show have been my main assignment for the last week or so. There's a narrow trail from the entrance to my chair, and piles everywhere else. There's a pair of scissors on the floor. There are no longer scissors on my floor.
--
Have the third in a five-workshop series this evening at a local community center. Because we originally advertised that it was going to be taught by another TCTC staff teacher, who specializes in (among other things) teaching music and voice, the parents have begun to complain that they aren't getting what they paid for. Little me, in a room with six kids for an hour, and only acting exercises to show for it.
So: Today, I launch my new campaign to teach children how to sing and dance. In the remaining three classes. I feel unqualified despite qualifications--after all, my degree is in Theatre, not Music, and not Musical Theatre. I have three hours, over the next few weeks, to teach six kids at least one song, voicewise, dancewise. Nothing else for it.
Sometimes life is a test. To see how well you achieve goals beyond your grasp. To see how you perform without a script. Or how good you are at faking your own abilities.
Talk the walk.
--
In my little world of books, I can read about experimental theatre, post-apocalyptic survival, mute swans, and jungle doctors performing Frankenstein-esque operations on unsuspecting natives. It's a good little world.
Good little escape, too.
11.12.2009
Banking
"Mr. Banker, Mister, please,
How much does money mean?
Won't you reconsider, Mister?
Won't you do this thing for me?"
-- Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Mr. Banker"
--
Opened a new account today at a regional bank. It's step #24 in my list of 3,000 things to do before I can feel secure again in my identity and finances.
My new Kentucky driver's license was a breeze to get. It's highlighter-green, and it won't expire for four years. When I'm carded and the other person can't find the birthdate, I may never again have to explain, "It's under the last A in Nebraska." Now, it's in red. At eye level. Below the other lines of red writing. Which is a harder explanation to give, but they're more used to the KY licenses around here, so it's kind of a moot point. I'm probably the only one who will have to look around the card until I find the information I want.
That's what I'm getting at: It's just a driver's license, not too different from the one I had but different enough, and as a result, it doesn't feel like mine. It feels like someone else's ID. I paid $20 for something that doesn't even belong to me.
Funny how one's self-image is affected by a piece of plastic.
--
Had a meeting about music this morning. Met with the director of the holiday touring show and the musician who wrote the score, and we went through my adapted script cue by cue, song by song, making decisions about what stayed, what had to go. It took about one minute per page, and there are 43 pages. We sat and played tracks that were recorded probably over a decade ago. I noticed a lot of flaws in the script from a structural, nuts-and-bolts point of view: cues unnoted, lyrics miswritten, and even one troubling moment where all four actors were onstage and there was no one backstage to hit Play.
I have fixed said flaws. I think.
Tomorrow is the first read-through and rehearsal, and since I'm once again in charge of finding/making props, I've got a nice little project ahead of me. My biggest and most important task is to find two puppets: a teapot and a jack-in-the-box.
I have no idea where they are.
--
My workshops have been going well. I've done the "Rough-Face Girl" workshop close to twenty times in the last two weeks, and I've got it down to a science. It's my favorite kind of workshop. We take an existing work of art--in this case, the book The Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin--and teach the children to duplicate it through some simple theatre exercises.
Here's how it breaks down. First, I read them the story of the Rough-Face Girl, an Algonquin Cinderella story. While I read, I ask them to act out certain moments while they remain seated. So for example, they pump their arms back and forth to simulate running. Then, we talk about the fairy tale and relate it back to the Cinderella story. (My favorite part about this discussion is when I write the name "Cinderella" on the board, and we dissect the word. The first part, "Cinder," refers to the soot that covered the girl's skin, and the "-ella" denotes beauty; quite literally, the name represents the character's journey from ugly to pretty.)
The second part of the workshop consists of the kids creating their own fairy tale using a madlib. They give three ideas for each category (good character's name, bad character's name, the setting, various verbs, a magical event, etc.) and then they vote. Once we have all the blanks filled, I read their fairy tale while they act it out, this time on their feet.
It's a huge hit (if I may say so myself). I certainly enjoy this one much more than the vague, social-conditioning workshops preferred by parochial schools in very rich or poor neighborhoods, the Bullying workshop, the Manners one, or the Self-Esteem one.
Give them something more concrete, and less vague, I say. Let's take works of art and imbue them with human life, through enacted experience. Theatre is the art that can combine all arts into itself; as such, we should use it whenever possible.
--
Especially at a time when I need the release and escape that only theatre can provide, when I need to appreciate the value of real life through the vitality of fake life, these workshops can be a godsend.
At the bank this morning, the accounts manager sat behind his desk and I saw he had silver cuff links at the ends of his sleeves. They were the size of Superbowl rings.
"Are you employed, Mr. Stewart?" he asked.
"Yes. I work at the Children's Theatre."
"Oh? And what do you do for them?"
I told him. When I had the unsettling feeling that I had talked for too long, I stopped.
"Sounds fun. And interesting." He continued typing, those silver cuff links hovering over the plastic keys (so many letters and numbers and words) like chrome-plated angels sitting silent sentry over a dark city filled with depressing, depressed buildings and towers; and I told him that at the end of a really rough day how nice it is to remember that I get paid to share my talent. He said, "That is pretty cool."
"Yes," I said. "It's pretty cool."
How much does money mean?
Won't you reconsider, Mister?
Won't you do this thing for me?"
-- Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Mr. Banker"
--
Opened a new account today at a regional bank. It's step #24 in my list of 3,000 things to do before I can feel secure again in my identity and finances.
My new Kentucky driver's license was a breeze to get. It's highlighter-green, and it won't expire for four years. When I'm carded and the other person can't find the birthdate, I may never again have to explain, "It's under the last A in Nebraska." Now, it's in red. At eye level. Below the other lines of red writing. Which is a harder explanation to give, but they're more used to the KY licenses around here, so it's kind of a moot point. I'm probably the only one who will have to look around the card until I find the information I want.
That's what I'm getting at: It's just a driver's license, not too different from the one I had but different enough, and as a result, it doesn't feel like mine. It feels like someone else's ID. I paid $20 for something that doesn't even belong to me.
Funny how one's self-image is affected by a piece of plastic.
--
Had a meeting about music this morning. Met with the director of the holiday touring show and the musician who wrote the score, and we went through my adapted script cue by cue, song by song, making decisions about what stayed, what had to go. It took about one minute per page, and there are 43 pages. We sat and played tracks that were recorded probably over a decade ago. I noticed a lot of flaws in the script from a structural, nuts-and-bolts point of view: cues unnoted, lyrics miswritten, and even one troubling moment where all four actors were onstage and there was no one backstage to hit Play.
I have fixed said flaws. I think.
Tomorrow is the first read-through and rehearsal, and since I'm once again in charge of finding/making props, I've got a nice little project ahead of me. My biggest and most important task is to find two puppets: a teapot and a jack-in-the-box.
I have no idea where they are.
--
My workshops have been going well. I've done the "Rough-Face Girl" workshop close to twenty times in the last two weeks, and I've got it down to a science. It's my favorite kind of workshop. We take an existing work of art--in this case, the book The Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin--and teach the children to duplicate it through some simple theatre exercises.
Here's how it breaks down. First, I read them the story of the Rough-Face Girl, an Algonquin Cinderella story. While I read, I ask them to act out certain moments while they remain seated. So for example, they pump their arms back and forth to simulate running. Then, we talk about the fairy tale and relate it back to the Cinderella story. (My favorite part about this discussion is when I write the name "Cinderella" on the board, and we dissect the word. The first part, "Cinder," refers to the soot that covered the girl's skin, and the "-ella" denotes beauty; quite literally, the name represents the character's journey from ugly to pretty.)
The second part of the workshop consists of the kids creating their own fairy tale using a madlib. They give three ideas for each category (good character's name, bad character's name, the setting, various verbs, a magical event, etc.) and then they vote. Once we have all the blanks filled, I read their fairy tale while they act it out, this time on their feet.
It's a huge hit (if I may say so myself). I certainly enjoy this one much more than the vague, social-conditioning workshops preferred by parochial schools in very rich or poor neighborhoods, the Bullying workshop, the Manners one, or the Self-Esteem one.
Give them something more concrete, and less vague, I say. Let's take works of art and imbue them with human life, through enacted experience. Theatre is the art that can combine all arts into itself; as such, we should use it whenever possible.
--
Especially at a time when I need the release and escape that only theatre can provide, when I need to appreciate the value of real life through the vitality of fake life, these workshops can be a godsend.
At the bank this morning, the accounts manager sat behind his desk and I saw he had silver cuff links at the ends of his sleeves. They were the size of Superbowl rings.
"Are you employed, Mr. Stewart?" he asked.
"Yes. I work at the Children's Theatre."
"Oh? And what do you do for them?"
I told him. When I had the unsettling feeling that I had talked for too long, I stopped.
"Sounds fun. And interesting." He continued typing, those silver cuff links hovering over the plastic keys (so many letters and numbers and words) like chrome-plated angels sitting silent sentry over a dark city filled with depressing, depressed buildings and towers; and I told him that at the end of a really rough day how nice it is to remember that I get paid to share my talent. He said, "That is pretty cool."
"Yes," I said. "It's pretty cool."
11.09.2009
Piece
"Take a look ahead
Take a look ahead
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Woo!
Now everybody's got advice they just keep on giving
Doesn't mean too much to me
Lots of people have to make-believe they're living
Can't decide who they should be
I understand about indecision
But I don't care if I get behind
People living in competition
All I want is to have my piece of mind."
-- Boston, "Peace of Mind"
--
Just got some good news from the Kentucky DMV. The letter reached Nebraska; the DMV in Lincoln faxed over my driving record; I can have a photo ID again no later than 4:30pm, today.
It was a good phone call.
--
Getting a new driver's license is the first step on a long ladder back to Normalcy. Like so many things, you never realize how often you need a photo ID--even if only for your peace of mind--until you no longer have one. The same goes for significant others and food, I guess.
New cards are arriving in the mail every day. I used to sign my credit cards where it says "signature" on the back. Now, instead, I write: PHOTO ID REQUIRED.
The things we do for thieves.
--
Speaking of thieves: Just found out that some of my relatives have been stealing from other relatives for years. Cashing Social Security payments, forging checks, and on, and on. The great irony is that the victim in this story feels guilty for it. I suppose if some stranger steals your identity, you feel that it is a random occurrence, that it was merely a matter of time before it happened to you; but when a loved one does it, you are caught in a tempest of confusion, betrayal, guilt, and specialized, intense, focused anger. You know the person who did it. They know you, too. You are sitting in the same room, at the same table, and they have stolen your plate.
It's like humanity is all around me in a kind of cosmic luau, innocent-faced boogey-boos lined up in a chugging, dancing limbo line. One by one, my perceptions of folks are shot as more and more people demonstrate their baser selves: How low, how low, how low can you go?
--
The Covedale drama program's show this weekend went off without a hitch. I was relieved. When your budding reputation is in the hands of intrepid youngsters telling a story about haunted houses, witches, cheerleaders and magic necklaces, all you can do is dress nicely, make an awkward pre-show speech, and stand by the ghostlight backstage, smiling nervously as children panic at the prop table, tiptoe behind the black curtains, and flip furiously through their scripts to remember their cue lines.
And after, you smile as parents tell you that it was cute, that they were sure their little one had so much fun, and that you have done a good job. Cute, fun, and good job. You take what you can get.
No children ran terrified from the theatre screaming that they would never get in front of a group of people again. So basically, it was a success.
Take a look ahead
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Woo!
Now everybody's got advice they just keep on giving
Doesn't mean too much to me
Lots of people have to make-believe they're living
Can't decide who they should be
I understand about indecision
But I don't care if I get behind
People living in competition
All I want is to have my piece of mind."
-- Boston, "Peace of Mind"
--
Just got some good news from the Kentucky DMV. The letter reached Nebraska; the DMV in Lincoln faxed over my driving record; I can have a photo ID again no later than 4:30pm, today.
It was a good phone call.
--
Getting a new driver's license is the first step on a long ladder back to Normalcy. Like so many things, you never realize how often you need a photo ID--even if only for your peace of mind--until you no longer have one. The same goes for significant others and food, I guess.
New cards are arriving in the mail every day. I used to sign my credit cards where it says "signature" on the back. Now, instead, I write: PHOTO ID REQUIRED.
The things we do for thieves.
--
Speaking of thieves: Just found out that some of my relatives have been stealing from other relatives for years. Cashing Social Security payments, forging checks, and on, and on. The great irony is that the victim in this story feels guilty for it. I suppose if some stranger steals your identity, you feel that it is a random occurrence, that it was merely a matter of time before it happened to you; but when a loved one does it, you are caught in a tempest of confusion, betrayal, guilt, and specialized, intense, focused anger. You know the person who did it. They know you, too. You are sitting in the same room, at the same table, and they have stolen your plate.
It's like humanity is all around me in a kind of cosmic luau, innocent-faced boogey-boos lined up in a chugging, dancing limbo line. One by one, my perceptions of folks are shot as more and more people demonstrate their baser selves: How low, how low, how low can you go?
--
The Covedale drama program's show this weekend went off without a hitch. I was relieved. When your budding reputation is in the hands of intrepid youngsters telling a story about haunted houses, witches, cheerleaders and magic necklaces, all you can do is dress nicely, make an awkward pre-show speech, and stand by the ghostlight backstage, smiling nervously as children panic at the prop table, tiptoe behind the black curtains, and flip furiously through their scripts to remember their cue lines.
And after, you smile as parents tell you that it was cute, that they were sure their little one had so much fun, and that you have done a good job. Cute, fun, and good job. You take what you can get.
No children ran terrified from the theatre screaming that they would never get in front of a group of people again. So basically, it was a success.
11.06.2009
Bottled
"I do the best imitation of myself."
-- Ben Folds
--
Tuesday was my sister's twentieth birthday.
That night, my workplace was robbed--while a rehearsal was going on, while a bunch of kids were singing and dancing downstairs. Robbed: three laptops (including mine), some financial documents from upstairs, my leather coat (with wallet and keys in the pockets), and my briefcase.
In the briefcase: library books, the laptop, my checkbook, my passport.
Life. It happened.
--
So I'm back to square one. I don't want to go into angsty specifics, but let's just say I've been very conscientious about speed limits for the last few days.
Until a very important piece of mail arrives, I am powerless even to obtain temporary papers for this hiatus, these absurd doldrums, in which I find myself stranded: a shipwreck survivor waiting for the message in a bottle to float in on the tide, unable to send one.
Having no form of photo ID, I feel like a no-man, a non-entity making my way through the public places of the world where people don't ask questions and don't care who you are. Sidewalks, parks, parking lots. I feel safe in my apartment, where I can brew tea and watch movies. I feel nervous leaving my car anywhere, knowing Someone has a key, has a keyless entry remote, could be cruising around with their thumb on the unlock button. Listening for that tell-tale honk. Watching for the tell-tale beacon.
Nothing like identity theft to make a person hate bureaucracy, too. My desk is covered with Post-It squares in a loose flow-chart, first This Form, then That One, before I can go to That Office and get This Card, and so on...
--
What's the point of paying for insurance that provides no assurance as well?
The insurance company is trying to weasel out of covering the personal items that were stolen. Including my ID cards. And the cost of basically everything.
I am an actor. I was at rehearsal. I was working, at my workplace. As such, I ought to be covered by my workplace's insurance. Yes?
Fuck that, apparently.
Fuck them, too.
-- Ben Folds
--
Tuesday was my sister's twentieth birthday.
That night, my workplace was robbed--while a rehearsal was going on, while a bunch of kids were singing and dancing downstairs. Robbed: three laptops (including mine), some financial documents from upstairs, my leather coat (with wallet and keys in the pockets), and my briefcase.
In the briefcase: library books, the laptop, my checkbook, my passport.
Life. It happened.
--
So I'm back to square one. I don't want to go into angsty specifics, but let's just say I've been very conscientious about speed limits for the last few days.
Until a very important piece of mail arrives, I am powerless even to obtain temporary papers for this hiatus, these absurd doldrums, in which I find myself stranded: a shipwreck survivor waiting for the message in a bottle to float in on the tide, unable to send one.
Having no form of photo ID, I feel like a no-man, a non-entity making my way through the public places of the world where people don't ask questions and don't care who you are. Sidewalks, parks, parking lots. I feel safe in my apartment, where I can brew tea and watch movies. I feel nervous leaving my car anywhere, knowing Someone has a key, has a keyless entry remote, could be cruising around with their thumb on the unlock button. Listening for that tell-tale honk. Watching for the tell-tale beacon.
Nothing like identity theft to make a person hate bureaucracy, too. My desk is covered with Post-It squares in a loose flow-chart, first This Form, then That One, before I can go to That Office and get This Card, and so on...
--
What's the point of paying for insurance that provides no assurance as well?
The insurance company is trying to weasel out of covering the personal items that were stolen. Including my ID cards. And the cost of basically everything.
I am an actor. I was at rehearsal. I was working, at my workplace. As such, I ought to be covered by my workplace's insurance. Yes?
Fuck that, apparently.
Fuck them, too.
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