Road Rage

[I started writing the following journal entry before I got the delirious-making news about the play. I’m glad to have such a clear-cut way to illustrate – to anyone, but primarily to myself – how my moods swing and why; what pushes the pendulum and some more insight into why it swings the way it does; maybe even why sometimes it’s a counterweight and others it’s a wrecking ball…]

Here’s another thing that weighs heavy on me - the immense anger. Sometimes it’s directed at the specific criminal, sometimes all the people like them, sometimes almost the whole world* - but usually at a select few thousand. I try not to think about it too hard. There are a lot of emotional trailer parks out there in the world, and if I let myself think too long about every possible and probable suffering kid out there it makes me feel utterly hopeless. I have to keep my bearings and look out for the ones around me – as far around me as I can realistically reach. I’m surprised at how far that seems to be - all the while, biting on the anger that’s as natural, real and present as the scars. The scars don’t even really hurt anymore, they’re mostly numb, but the memories, the reminders, the hard cold facts are pretty… instigative. I hate the times when I wonder if I DESERVE to be angry… in fact, I can’t think of many things that can push me over the edge of anger into burning white-hot fury than finding myself wondering if I have the right to feel angry. !@#$ that. I have a few friends and relatives with serious anger issues, worse than my own, in more ways than one. They never make me feel as if my anger (or really, reasons for feeling angry) is insignificant or shallow. Instead, they just make me feel as if someone understands what it’s like to be at that point of the compass. And sometimes they let me attempt to distract them, which often improves my own mood, if not theirs.:(

The shame comes when I do bad things to burn off anger, things that are either bad for my body or soul. I try to balance these things out and keep them to a minimum, but it’s hard. The worst is when I take it out on Chris. Other people have the automatic protection and courtesy provided by my almost phobic reaction to embarrassment. To me, acting like a ‘fishwife’ (griping, bitching, harping, haranguing, etc.) in public is one of the MOST embarrassing things. No one – not even Chris – gets worse than a sharp and serious, but no matter how serious, still CALM (and hopefully un-embarrassing to BOTH of us) dressing down from me in public, even for the worst of crimes. HOWEVER – the privacy of one’s own home is where one lets their hair down, and the one place where I refuse to bottle up ANYTHING. Like I’ve said before, poor Chris. He sees me with my hair down a lot.

I’m beginning to really think about this whole relationship between me and my brain and this keyboard and you. Yesterday while I was doing chores, I kept thinking about what I was writing here about feeling so pent up and frustrated about all the worlds’ problems and my own puny ones too, and what it does to me and WHY I need to share this; then my mind shifted to yesterday’s blog and there was no question as to why I would want or need to share good, happy news. Ah, revelation!

I admit, there’s a part of me that always feels guilty sharing good news too (Will this depress people who aren’t having good news right now? Will people think I am bragging? How noticeable is it that my moods change drastically, day-to-day, hour-to-hour? Does anyone care? Do I deserve this goodness? Will I fail? Etc.! YUCK! :). But there is that part of me again, the one who remembers when the news was NOT good, was never good, and who now says: You do your part to help shoulder the burden, you try to keep on top of things and be aware of others, you try make the world a better place. You work hard for your bon-bons, why should you not enjoy them? One of my bon-bons is the allowance and assistance that comes from writing and reading and hearing from you and thinking and reading and writing some more. It allows me to see the shape of my life more objectively, more realistically. What a gift! I also really thought about (during my sink-thinking) why I have fallen in so love with theater.

Most of it is obvious. I’m a freakishly skilled creative person who is compelled to both stay busy and volunteer. In my opinion, every theater has to have at least 5 of these to stay alive. I have a flair for the dramatic, love to play dress up and specialize in special effects, props, set design, costume design, makeup and hair. I can sing and dance if I have to, and I have good timing, physically and comedy-wise. I can write fairly realistic dialogue, I am a good character actor, I learn lines pretty quickly, I take direction well, and I am a decent (if too specific and cheesy) director. I’m also trained to teach stage combat and specialize in wench-fighting. And I loved and did ALL of this before I ever auditioned for my first play. I just didn’t know what I was training for those first 30 years.

Then there’s the Freudian side of it. (I especially like it when the sink-thinking takes this kind of direction. It’s helpful to me. It’s like tightening a rope when you’re sailing in hard wind…). You all know my general past. Here I am, presenting myself to be chosen for my skill, talent, beauty, height, accent, attitude, wardrobe, whatever… then, IF chosen to have to live up to that role, and all those expectations. Why would you do that to yourself? Those of you who do it know why. Because if you can do it, and if you get chosen and if you pull it off, you get so much love and appreciation and respect for doing something that you and everybody else knows is not easy and making it look easy and enjoying it all the while. it feels so good. The only thing that’s better than that in that whole arena is the joy of helping others (and with a cast of 40 or more, that is a lot of joy!) get that same exact feeling. Woohoo! Volunteer for your local little theater! Audition at least once! Paint bellies in South Pacific! Treat yourself to a helping of Fantasy-filled Freudian Fabulousness. It’s good for the soul, it’s good for the community.

Ok, almost enough. Just one more thing.
I’d like to thank Mr. Henry Rollins for the third time. We found a copy of the 2nd season of his IFC show on dvd at a coooooool-ass yard sale (FOR A BUCK!) and have been enjoying it immensely. I know some of you don’t like him, and all of you are sick of hearing how much I do and the original reason why, but he has affected my personal motivation for almost 25 years now, and in a good way. God knows I’ve needed it from every possible quarter. His spoken word stuff is brave and silly and smart and raw and filled with real emotion. He writes a lot and he seems to need to as well. He clearly needs to share and a lot of people clearly agree that he has something to say and he does it in an entertaining way. He is fierce and feisty (and also dead!@#$sexy in my humble opinion***) and he has worked hard to earn his soapbox. His rantings and kudos and sarcastic, funny opinions on his show make me feel so good. He reminds me a lot of George Carlin in his opinions and ideals, a cross between George Carlin and Danzig. (Moosh. The man of my dreams. :) All this schoolgirlishness and fun aside****, his writing and ranting and speaking up and digging in have been part of the encouragement for me to write and to speak up. Just like y'all. Thank you.

-s

*very seldom do I get mad at babies or animals for anything.
***not that that really matters, but it is nice when it’s part of the deal, is it not?
****though I’m very glad I can still feel this way about things and people. I’d die without my passions and crushes. Carpe Vini Diesel!

Steel Magnolias auditions were held on Monday and Tuesday night.This is one of those plays I've always thought I'd love to do. It's very southern, very funny, intelligent and open-mindedly philosophical, it has moments of real - but for some, hidden - every day life, it has magic and huge tragedy, and yet some of the funniest lines in any play ever.
Until the last decade, I had fantasized about doing theater but never made it happen. And only in the last five years did I really begin to realize that I was good enough at it that people might want me as more than a volunteer* - meaning they might choose me, from among others, to play certain parts.When I realized this, I began to think 'Who would I like to play, if I could?' Three roles immediately came to mind, ones that I've admired and closet-coveted since I found out the scripts were originally stage productions.
First, without a doubt, Rosencrantz from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Y'all know how i feel about Gary Oldman. I'd pitch 10 Rocks, 2 Vin Diesels and a Johnny Depp off the deck to keep Mr. O on board in a heartbeat. To me,as an actor, he is like a canvas, a painter, the paint, a model, the brushes and the light, all in one tiny little, fairly funny-looking (as the actor species go) package. I adore him. I think he is a character actor too, but I believe his spectrum is very broad and subtle, and includes every possible character. And the moment I met Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Stoppard (and i met them all at the same time) was love at first sight. We joked then and still about those of us in the cast who get the play and those to whom it made no sense. I got it the way Rosencrantz got it, to the heart - to the spine, and that's why I fell in love with him, without Gary Oldman, without Tom Stoppard (sort of), just with him and his perceptions and passions and fears. Oh. I just assumed I would never have a chance to play that role - especially with Hamilton. :)
Nurse Ratched is my 2. For one thing, this is just one of the best plays/stories/films ever. It's brilliant and it's beautiful and, like 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern...' (believe it or not, Elvin), it SPEAKS to me. It has particular meaning to my personal experience that helps me cope with mine and others' daily existence. Nurse Ratched is a completely different kind of character than any of the others I've played (and of course i like the idea of a challenge!), but I kinda' understand her. I work with a part of myself that is like her every day, and I've worked closely with others who operate the way she does. I think in a way that this role for me would be like playing with fire, but then I think about our friend Jesse who is a fire-spinner, and how he handles his medium, and how beautiful and confident he is, even handling this dangerous thing at 60 mph(?). I feel pretty comfortable with this kind of fire. The fear is that it is SO different from other characters I've played and I won't be able to pull it off and assume/project that much control. I know that is a definite possibility, and I am prepared (and even prepared to be relieved!) if someone more adept gets that role. It's key to the play and I definitely don't want to be responsible for making that role be the flat part of the show (it also doesn't hurt that it's been hinted that if i don't get cast, i get to help with music and stage design, and that would make me happy indeed :) ! It's a lasting classic show - there will be other chances, and I'll be ready for sure by then. :)
The third role I've always - ok, i'll say it - coveted - is an easy one to guess. That of Ms. Truvy Jones, beauty expert and neighborhood peacemaker and philosopher in Steel Magnolias. As a kid, I loved all those Glamour Girls. Dolly Parton, Cher (Truvy mentions Cher in the script! :), Farrah, 'Ginger', even Zsa Zsa and Charo... thankfully, I could list a million. There, it's out. I said it. :) Somehow I feel that this doesn't come as much of a surprise revelation, but a part of me is a little embarassed and ashamed to admit that I like something so commercial and pointless and ... foofy. :) but i do. Pink sparkly feather boas (even though they make me sneeze), frivolous, expensive makeup (i feel guilty usually about wearing any at all), time spent doing hair for no one but the mirror. I'm guilty. But the fact is that I MIGHT find an excuse to do any of this once a month, maybe. i buy makeup once every year or two (lip gloss doesn't count), and, with the exception of shows and theater related events and dragon cons, I haven't 'fixed' my hair in 5 years. I want to believe that there's a little Truvy in all of us, that we all feel a little fabulous (at least!), no matter what; that we can help each other feel a little fabulous (at the very least!), that laughter through tears is one of the best emotions and that looking good is at least a good place to start trying to feel good. Let me say here and now that most of you are doing an excellent job. (Sam, you really need to get new pajamas.)
Love,'Truvy'.

*some shows, no matter who shows up or how good/bad/funny-lookin' they are, they get cast.
i love this kind of theater because EVERYbody gets their chance to shine, and they always do.

Currently reading : Steel Magnolias(DPS Acting Edition) By Robert Harling

One of the main problems I have is trying to balance the juxtaposition of then and now. Some of the things that happened were so grim that they are difficult to bury, keep occupied/tame/ in the closet or whatever, so I have to deal with them often, sometimes every day, sometimes all day. The other big problem is that they were such everyday occurrences, the creation of these skeletons, that everything reminds me of them. I’ve always seen things symbolically, and then I learned in therapy to make connections from things that happen now to things that happened then (especially things that triggered panic attacks), so that I could at least identify them and at least – if not completely control them*, not let them completely control me. I do pretty well at that most of the time I think. A lot of the time, I actually enjoy the mental/emotional/social mathematics that I have to keep up with to function. It only gets really bad when I get too close to home, geographically or otherwise. I have a busy, interesting, active helpful life for the most part. I try to keep my public troubles small and still be pretty honest. That’s important to me. I wish I were better at it and not so hard on those who are worse. It’s hard to maintain that inner self and outer self, that past that has scarred me as noticeably as a knife or a sharp rock. I always feel so hurt when people refer to me (or others) as broken, and several people have, but I know a big part of my hurt is that I know it’s true. I never had a seconds’ chance to be whole or normal. It was not in my stars. I know that it was in my stars to be many OTHER things, and so many of them good and satisfying and exciting. But I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to feel these things and not have this brutalized little girl watching it all and consulting the committee before allowing herself to feel the goodness. Instead of being able to first snoopy-dance around and feel the revelation to have to ask ‘have I earned this? Will I fail?’ and of course, feeling immediately sickeningly guilty in the next second for feeling so good when so many others have nothing, or the horrors that are worse than nothing, and those things and voices and opinions whir inside my head constantly as I proceed. I worry very much that we are all like this and feel frighteningly un-paranoid in my concern. It seems to me that we’re all like this. What else can I do to help? I want to help other broken people find and use their pieces. For me, the saving grace is that the original little girl, if never whole, at least had some fairly practical pieces. One of those being a kid who knew deep down that one day she could get to a place where she could look back and say ‘this is what I wanted, needed and deserved when I was 8 and my conscience feels UTTERLY ok with counting my own inner 8 year-old amongst the other kids (ages 0 – 104)I give a huge chunk of my life to! ’ and then grabbing my god-damned snoopy dance while I can, guilt-be-damned.
One of the reasons I think I identify with robots is that the amount of effort I have to put out to achieve anything, much less all that I do, is kind of sick, in my opinion. I know that. I see that. People often comment on it in nice ways, and I tell them the truth: that if I didn’t do all of this, I’d go nuts. I try to make it sound like a joke. Those of you who know me have seen this before - especially poor SDB and Chris. When I crash, I crash as hard as I worked. It’s ugly, and I try to keep it as brief as possible. And there’s the cold fact that machinery wears out. However, the up-side of it is that it is the only sure-fire therapy for me. It is truly occupational therapy. It also satisfies me in other extremely necessary ways. It gets me appreciation, sometimes even respect and admiration, and a lot of the time, it helps pay the bills. I blog in the in-between places, and treasure my mail at the lowest points. People generally forgive me and treat me well when I crash. Then as soon as I’m up again, I keep going. It’s worth it all for the snoopy dances. The part of me that needs to explain and be forgiven is comforted by helping others’ get their great pumpkin waltz on. I won’t be dissatisfied if I die from the effort of trying to stay sane, be useful and enjoy life, or if I never do anything more than that with my life.
It may not be a perfect – or even a great system, but I’m still here. And despite the whispering, clamoring and clawing of the memories***, and the fact that the crash times come harder and faster – and last longer these days, there are still the ‘beyond snoopy dance’ moments. The rarest moments when the clouds break or the rain FINALLY falls or you reach a gentle state of peace and comfort, and for maybe one second (or less, but thank god(ess[es) they SEEM longer – and are easily recalled…) the past is quiet, the future is blind possibility and you are just here and feeling sun or rain.
I was gifted with one of those ‘letting myself feel good’ moments yesterday. There was sad news in my e this week, some of the saddest kind, the death of a friend who I’d just seen and hugged last weekend. When I opened the next letter someone had sent the following email. I will post it anonymously to cover their ‘might-be-embarassed’ factor (which I DEEPLY and sympathetically respect) and yet share and thank them publicly. Great thoughts, great writing, FANTASTIC timing, fantastic friend. May you all at least one such friend in your lives and may I sometimes be one of them.
___
email from “chaucer”:
i wanted to do something "nice" for the world today -- and now it's 2am TOMORROW...so i thought "maybe sam will take this late-night-value-meal-stab-at-niceness."

so here's to you right now. at this moment, you are the one i'm trying to hug back.

you are my rushmore. no, it's more than that, it's deeper than that. you're my my solar eclipse, and also that deeply grey, rainy sky in mid-september. you're the wind against my west-bound train when i'm restless and lonely. you're the white paper bird on my shoulder, the oxygen which permeates the dense emerald forests of west virginia, the pulse of the atlantic as it beats tirelessly against the rocky coasts of maine. you ARE my rushmore, but you're also my dry gloves in february after the tips of my fingers turn pink. you're my morphine, my dream 45' collection, my hypnosis. you're the best beaten-up paperback novel i ever read, the most eerie melody ever played on a harp, you're the lennon, the mccartney, AND the harrison to my ringo. you're the ghost that sweeps through my house some nights, bringing both chills and company when I'm up late drinking coffee and watching slasher marathons on the television. when i need sunshine, you beam yellow and white and golden bursts that dance around my face and draw me to the sky. you are an original, elusive, unpredictable and multi-faceted spirit which can be neither tamed nor understood, a very strange bird indeed, but one which, were someone able to keep, would provide unmeasurable happiness (chris feels this at times, i'll bet) and "childlike wonder..." no, the ordinary birds can only dream of lives of such spectacle. you are sam.

*tips hat*
___

Happy birfday to me! *snif! siggghhhh!** Thank you so much. Friends like you make me want to TRY to be this person.
-s


*it seems to me that we all know that you can’t control ANYthing, not one single thing really.

**Rogers’ grandma.

***ugh, that made me think of the boxes in the attic in ‘The Hunger’!

Once more, I feel compelled to write. Urge, compulsion, dire, desperate need. I don’t understand it, but my shrink seemed to. She encouraged me to write and I did and it helped.

I always have written and/or drawn to “self-therapize”, but I wrote hidden, disguised, and symbolic things for the first 25 years or so… my family was always finding hidden drawings and stories (usually illustrated) that were all thinly veiled metaphors for whatever was hurting me at the time. My mother once “jokingly complained” about the ‘pornographic’ drawings – drawings of people having sex - she found in my attic room at my grandma’s house. I wanted so badly, in the midst of my hurt, humiliation and trying to handle such rude exposure gracefully and lightly, to say out loud to all her family “Maybe it’s because you forced me to witness your own sexual acts so often.” But I didn’t. Right after my youngest brother was born, my father found an illustrated story about a girl who throws away her beloved older doll after she gets a shiny new one. It was stuffed behind his bed. He asked me if it was about feeling replaced in his affection by my little brother – and it was – but I lied and said no and he left it at that.

I suppose I’ve always needed an ear, a considering mind – an audience – to get the full effect of the therapy. I need a response, or just to know that someone got a glimpse of what I was feeling. What I AM feeling. Writing/drawing just for me helps too, and I do lots of that as well. I leave myself little notes and words of encouragement or reminder. Sometimes they are as brutal and surprising as the things I left for my parents to find. Sometimes I find things that I have no memory of penning. Chris has now lived with me long enough to see this happen. He has watched me sit and draw or write (or both) and then put it away somewhere and not remember – even the next day – that I did it. He finds them and shows them to me. It usually takes years for me to find them again, and I have no memory. They just seem like pieces by someone else. Those things/times are fortunately rare, but I write enough for myself that I do remember. There are dozens of notebooks and journals and drawings and sketchbooks – even just scraps of paper, in some cases, filled with my desperate attempts to make sense of myself and this life. Lately, I’ve been trying to keep track of my dreams and how they affect my mood each day. There is a definite clear connection between what I dream about and how I feel, and my subconscious is (luckily) as un-subtle as my conscious. My dream ‘symbology’ is boringly, comfortingly basic and clear, and it makes it very easy for me to see what my subconscious is trying to tell me I need to deal with. I wouldn’t have this simple but truly life-saving tool though, if I didn’t make a point to write it down. The dreams would slip away eventually, or even if I did remember them, I have a hard time seeing the clear facts and symbolic connections unless I take the time to write out and rationally consider my thoughts, feelings and ideas about them.

The fact is that without this outlet, I would go completely insane. I’ve been to the edge of it, maybe even dipped my feet in the water a time or two. All things considered, I’ve probably taken an outright long swim on occasion – but I’ve always written and drawn, even in the midst of it. The worst times, I probably stopped trying and gave into whatever complete soporific was available to me. I’ve tried many, and I have my favorites (believe it or not, books, movies and long tv series are the top three in the top five) , but nothing soothes – and helps make sense of – the madness like telling the story. Somehow sharing the story helps keep it honest and real. It’s easy to lie to yourself, but almost impossible to lie to others – especially witnesses.
I keep trying to explain to myself and others why I need to talk about it. I keep apologizing for it. And in the midst of these explanations and apologies I try to tell the stories, little by little, piece by piece, but that same old familiar fear steps smoothly in, every time, slick as oil sick and 10,000 times harder to wash off. The same thing that made me say no to my father that day; the same thing that made me play off my mothers’ cruelty and shame and be diplomatic and laissez faire about my own ‘transgression’.

I don’t care what the people who did this to me think. There’s even a part of me that wants to hurt them – if course. I do worry about how the other innocents in my stories will be affected, but I trust myself to guard them well enough. I even try to do that to some extent with the criminals, just to keep things simple. My real fear is much closer to home, and so huge that I can’t even make sense of it, and it’s hard to say out loud. It’s that big ‘why’. Privately, I know it’s because I NEED to, for many reasons, other than just compulsion, but that is strong. Publicly, it’s “Why?!” and the guilt of needing to share this, and the fear of no one giving a damn… of being nothing more than a whining nuisance… of not focusing ALL my time and power on others – and herein lies the rub. If I hold it all in, if I don’t tell the story and get the response, then I become useless – worse than useless, a burden - and all that mega-watt battery power that I burn and turn (often, consistently, joyfully usually and with much gusto) on others goes dead black fast.

Is that enough of a reason? It certainly is for me.