Two short stories. Both titled “It is what it is.”
I slept really hard last night, but I’m not sure why. I’ve been maintaining a normal sleeping pattern–so much I feel responsible! It’s probably my poor diet. I woke up before my alarm clock, heart beating out of my chest abrupt eye-opening stun. I know I had some dreams, but I remember none of them. Needless to say, I had terrible anxiety when I woke up. So, I was really excited for dining hall meal time with my best, I was hoping that the knot would stop knotting. But then, as if somehow what should have happened to me in high school but thankfully never did, the worst case scenario for the socially awkward happened. It could have been way worse for me, and for the other parties involved, it probably was. It was nothing really but another instance in which I think a stage manager is calling my life too well. I can only handle but so many little tragedies in the span of a week, come on.
—
As I slipped out of the classroom and down the hall that was flooding with people quicker than the streets of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, I began to panic. “Shit, I’m going to be so fucking late.” Luckily, I did the math during class to know just how much to panic… Walking distance: 1 block. Biking distance: roughly 16 blocks. Time: 6:42 As I walked to the block to my bike I telephoned my stage hand, “I was just calling to tell you I will be arriving a little bit late tonight so if you need the extra 10-15 min… … … oh, you’re already there. Well, I’ll be there soon as I can.” Clear headed, the campus was surprisingly packed…or maybe it’s just that I’ve never been on campus at this time… I had to walk my bike an extra two blocks. Finally, I can ride… and hit an intersection. Well the car in my lane is trying to make the same right turn as me, and the car across from us is trying to make a left. I decide its safer to let them go first. They dance, literally the worst inch at a time dance in the middle of an intersection I have ever seen. Finally as the light turns yellow one of the cars books it and so do I. The next intersection is a backed up red light, so I cut in front of traffic to take an alternate route that will undoubtedly have less traffic. It’s bumpy but safe enough that I can keep my own balance and keep my hands nice and warm in my pockets. At this point, I’m fighting tears. “It doesn’t matter,” I assure myself, “this is just another puzzle you have to put together one piece at a time and no one has the right to give you shit tonight because no one else has their shit together.” Make my right. Stuart’s Circle, that’s not a problem tonight. Cut in front of traffic hop on the curb bike down sidewalk to eventually take a left onto Grace. Bike up Grace no problem. “It’s just a stupid puzzle.” Take my right, cut in front of traffic again, hop up on to the curb, cut through the 711 parking lot and make the speed straightaway that is the sidewalk to the theatre. Everyone beats me there, but I surprisingly make it alive and just on time. “So I got all of the cues programmed except for the last one, it’s a little wonky… we gotta fudge it a bit manually every time,” is the first thing I hear when I walk in. I look at the clock 6:54. “You did what? You programmed the board.” “Yeah.” “Thanks for the puzzle pieces.” And then there was stage management.
The Intermediate Phase.
This window has been open on my computer for at least 13 hours now, with the title THE INTERMEDIATE PHASE, set in stone. I was going to write about how all my last post means is that I’m in the The Intermediate Phase. I can’t go back, but I can’t go forward yet either.
I finally read “The Forth State of Matter” from Jo Ann Beard’s book The Boys of My Youth. Funny thing is that when I rediscovered the story, I was reading another blog that noted it, and the link to the story is an ENGL 101 link from my university. It’s terribly heartbreakin and I think it is a really great read.
Welcome to the plasmapause.
Put read “The Forth State of Matter” on your to-do-list. just be prepared to be emotionally exhausted afterward.
Life is hard for a loner, but I assure you it is way more exciting.
I’ve wanted to blog for days, but really there has been nothing to say and I’ve been a poor blogger these days anyway. No content, no respect, all hyperspace waste. But today, oh today, today there is content times two.
I think it was last Wednesday when everything started to fall apart, or came together. That was the night Hope and I accidentally got messed up. That happened Thursday night too. (It’ll happen tonight to me probs, and probs not her.) But I think it was Sunday (?) morning when Hope said, “This is Hope and Shelley full throttle.” No truer statement has ever been spoken over a university dinning hall breakfast. (Not to mention the other things she said…) If you read the two outlets I blog for, you might have read this post on The Standby (mine and Hope’s blog on stage management) in which I discuss cutting the “excess fat.” I think if anything I’ve purposefully and accidentally cut off a lot of excess fat since I posted that just about 4 months ago. Besides some lingering feelings for some undeserving asshole who I get to spend every Tuesday and Thursday with, school shit (note previous post) and some other really personal things, I’m pretty much excitingly fat free! haha.
Hope and I have every class together. With the exception of my Cyberspaces class and her being Assistant Stage Manager on a university show and (soon) Production Stage Manager of a non-university show and me being the Production Stage Manager of a non-university show and the fact that we don’t yet share an apartment, we spend the majority of our awake time together. It’s nice to have a friend again who I don’t run out of things to talk about with. (Aside from the million other awesome similarities and differences between Hope and I.) It seems as if all those other friends don’t reside in Richmond and don’t plan on moving to New York this August (with the exception of Chelsea! who already resides in New York) and thus, those friendships, while they rekindle when I return to my hometown and/or visit them respectively (which I never do), have fallen apart and really don’t matter any more than what they’ve already been. I’ve been shedding those pounds since they started to go off to war, they started getting married, becoming drug addicts, and backstabbing whores. “It’s easier to drink with them, than to talk to them.”
As far as the excess fat I’ve gained since I’ve been residing here in Richmond. Well, I’m ending it the same way I started it. Showering, classing, eating at the dining hall, stage managing, listening to the same music on the same ipod, drinking, being in love with the same fucking person, sleeping, being alone and waking up the next day to do it all over again. I like Richmond, honestly, and I would appreciate it more if I grew up in the fan or if I moved here right after college. But the fact is that to me, Richmond is attached to the three years I wasted in college, and that really blows. I’d come back one day and help the local theatre students revolutionize the awesome theatre this city has the potential to have, but when I leave this place I’ll leave it all behind and lock it in the portion of my brain where memories become blurry and unfamiliar. Cutting the excess fat that is my existence in this city is too easy.
Experience is cheap if it doesn’t matter to the company you keep. I haven’t developed a meaningful relationship since I’ve been here. There is only one friend I made in Richmond who I’ll hope to have forever, and well… we’re moving to New York together. There is only one friend who I met during my “time” in Richmond in which I would like to stay in contact with, but with every passing day our friendship seems a little to inconvenient for the both of us. Regardless we’ll probably stay in touch the way we have been the past year for the next few years. There could have been a story here about a boy with greasy hair and bright blue eyes and a nice beard that’s certainly too tall to stand next to me. (Catalyst.) But even if we worked through the crossing squares of our compartmentalized lifestyles, that friendship is over for good. And so is the unrequited love. And that is what I really wanted to post about, a few days ago.
There is probably less than a dozen theatre people I’ve bonded with since I’ve been here that I’ll “keep in touch with” or run into in the real world and be happy about it. But until I run into them in the real world, I’m just going to keep waking up everyday and going to class and going to sleep and being on repeat, because the only thing I am is the same loyal friend I was when I got here with a lot more scars to show for it than friends and a better understanding of stage management. In August, I trash everything and take my bed to New York and start over. Only for the sake of starting over.
I’ve just never been so excited.
Life is hard for a loner.
I just had to stop for a second and listen to The Microphones- There’s No Disguise That Lasts All Day and All Revoir Simone – Backyards of Our Neighbors. As a result of stopping I’ve lost my point. What’s my point? I don’t know. So I’ll just type.
Hope left my house at 4:56 this afternoon to go to rehearsal. Luckily today is my day off, and boy did I enjoy it. Hope left and I curled up in my bed for a no-pants sorta nap time. It was going to be great until I had a freak out. A cryfest 2008. (= why I’ll be drinking soon.) An oh my gawd, what if my transcript is fucked up and I can’t actually take over 15 credits this summer, what if it is 12 and you can overload to 15 but I need 18. And then I’m fucked because I need only 3 more fucking credits. WHAT THEN?! I can’t have answers now because Founder’s Hall isn’t open and my academic adviser is clueless. I went to him today to ask him if I needed to fulfill the universities silly requirements in order to walk in May even though my actual graduation date would be in August and he had absolutely no idea. No one at this school knows how anything works, and it’s their own devices. It’s so infuriating. So here I sit, hours after the freak out and though, I’ve stopped shaking and crying, my heart rate is still a little wonky and I have a slight headache. It sounds worse than it actually is. I just have to get the hell out of here and do so with a degree. This is all mostly freaking me out because I know this semester is going to FLY by. For instance is already has. Week two is almost over.
It’s not that I don’t want it to go by fast, I do. I mean FULL THROTTLE, right. I just don’t want to miss anything. There is a lot to be done this semester and I feel like the majority of it is really out of my hands. And really, as stage manager-y as I might be, I really hate micro-managing my life. (never balance my checkbook, never make my bed, never ensure that I actually have enough money in my bank account that the automatic withdraw bills can be paid…) To-Do-Lists are one thing, but To-Do-Listing other people and following up on that To-Do-Listing, when it’s their job to do whatever it is I am relying on them to do, is another. It’s fucking Ridiculous. It’s fucking LL Cool J on 30 Rock, ridiculous. (Even though Ghostface on 30 Rock is way more ridiculous. If you don’t know about it, watch. The Ghostface comment is to get you to watch. WATCH IT PEOPLE. Let’s get at least 5 good seasons out of it. *cough* Too late Office. *cough*)
HOLD!>PLEASE!
This morning in bed, and then in the 15 minute shower I took, I looked back on yesterday as a whole.
Yesterday was the funniest day ever.
And everything that made yesterday hysterical is not bloggable. Except that part where my Ethics professor pulled a… oh wait a second, that’s not really bloggable either.
Actually, come to think about it, the past 48 hours have been kinda crazy.
vague, right.
January 18th, 2008, 2:41 am
The song made me think about the Great Divide (stage management stuff, please see The Standby for more information). And then I wrote some non-sense about the Great Divide.
The Shins-Sleeping Lessons
And if the old guard still offend,
They got nothing left on which you depend,
So enlist every ounce,
Of your bright blood,
And off with their heads,
Jump from a book,
You’re not obliged to swallow anything you despise,
See, those unrepenting buzzards want your life,
And they got no right,
As sure as you have eyes,
They got no right,
Just put yourself in my new shoes,
And see that I do what I do,
Because the old guard still offend,
We got nothing left on which we depend
The Great Divide: In which we spend too much talking about how we got into stage management, and the how to of stage management and theatre, we fail to recognize a greater reason as to why.
In which we don’t spend enough time finding the reasons why we bear on our shoulders such a craft, we work with no universal progressive goal that the cultural asset called theatre could provide.
I know this post is stupid. but the final result is much better than what actually occurred on January 18th, 2008 at 2:41 am… that was just a tragedy.
The Monday Rundown.
So, today started off and I wanted to stab myself. In the breast plate. With a fork. Six times. First day of classes…
I woke up on time, but somehow ran late to my first class. I then failed to acknowledge that the university has opened up a new business building, so I reported to the old one and was all, “wtf,” when I ran into my friend Ty. I decided to just skip the class rather than show up on time. I have some issues, I can’t stand being late and also, have anxiety about walking into classrooms late unless they are theatre classes which, this one is not in addition to being a class that super technically I shouldn’t be in because I am not a business major.
So then I ran into a bunch of people and grabbed za with Hopie. We went to Shakespeare class, where our professor is pretty adorable.
And my third special topics class which will meet once a week for 160 minutes is canceled. Boo.
But I have rehearsal at 7, in which, I will repeat why I don’t like giving specifics about my opinions when the director asks for them, because I like credit for my work and ideas. And they aren’t giving me a who’s who in the playbill, and I also won’t be in the booth for the show. DOUBLE BOO.
meep.
Juno, but more importantly emotevomit.
I’ve been putting off blogging until I built up enough steam to blog about Juno. Everyone has been raving about the movie and yes, I liked it to.
I’ve been in this awful work related rut recently. Usually my stage management blogging efforts are published on The Standby. But I don’t know. This is too much of a personal rant than anything else. I’ve just been getting extremely annoyed lately with people I work with. I can’t stand when someone tells me how to do my job when they do not have a tenth of a clue as to what my job really is, but I guess that’s something I need to get used to. I don’t mind it when it’s a technical person and I particularly don’t mind it when it’s another stage manager. But when it’s an inexperienced director, no matter of the directors age or “theatrical experience,” man, there is no faster way to increase my pulse. The pay for my current show is really good. Not really good. But good for this city. It’s actually the most I’ve ever been paid for an actual play. I just realized that.
I haven’t slept well for the past week. As a result I’ve been drinking often, cause drinking then getting tired means that I’ll pass out the second my head hits the pillow.
2008 has been good so far, don’t get me wrong. And classes haven’t even started yet. I’m just not happy. Blahhh. Maybe a good jog will snap me out of it.
Weather.
Have you been outside today? I rode my bike with just a T on. IT WAS AWESOME. Today was beautiful. And A+ riding conditions if I do say so myself.
You’re a part time lover and a full time friend
The monkey on you’re back is the latest trend
I don’t see what anyone can see, in anyone else but you
[the moldy peaches- anyone else but you]
SERIOUSLY.
Today marks day THREE of being woken up by my Technical Director.
1. I’m not going in to the space to work today because my back hurts.
2. Something about the director…
3. Can you resend me the schedule because I deleted it.
This really boils my noodles.
If it happens again, I’m going to say I do not take any stage management related calls until after “lunch” (1pm).
