You’re never going to read this

July 31, 2009

“Monday day could work well! Where’s good for you? I could come down to Raleigh, you could make the trek to Chapel Hill, we could meet halfway in Duke country…or we could surprise Ethan and make a roadtrip to Texas.”

Two years ago today, George died.  I’ve written a few posts about it, I think.  Today was just…difficult.  It was hard.  It was mentally a challenge to face the day.  Go into work.  See people and not want to scream.  I dressed in light colors, thinking that would make me a bit more cheerful today, but I started tearing up as soon as I got on the bus this morning.

George and I never met for lunch during the summer of 2009.  We put it off and put it off and then, he was gone.  I found out George was gone in the most brutally awkward way possible: by seeing a sudden influx of pictures and updates and notices about George on my facebook newsfeed.

While social media is fantastic, it is probably the worst way to find out that one of your best childhood friends has died.

I frantically messaged the afore mentioned Ethan, a super close friend of George’s and friend of mine from childhood as well, to find out what happened.  It was most unfortunate.

My life has been interesting, for lack of a better word.  It has been spotted with death, not only in my career choices, but in my personal life.  I can no longer count on one hand the number of friends and acquaintences who have committed suicide.  I am not proud of this fact, and this has caused me to be more than a little jumpy when I notice people becoming more withdrawn, or sadder than usual.  Walking around thinking that any one of your friends, at any possible moment, will just off themselves and no longer be with you is not a comfortable way to live.

A little less than two years ago I wrote George this letter.  I sent it to him (thanks, Facebook!) and of course, any time I go to his Facebook profile and click “Message,” it’s still there.   But I’m afraid one day his Facebook profile will disappear.  And I don’t feel much different today than I did when I wrote that message.  And I like to share awkward and weird things with you, The Internet, because I feel like one day, someone will see these things and know that they mean more to people than maybe they realize, and know that people out there love them, and need them, and would hate the world without them.

I will shit myself if he ever writes back.

February 22, 2010

I’m still having a really hard time with this, I think we all are, and if passed experience has taught me anything, I will always have a hard time with this.

There’s stuff all over Facebook about how today is suicide awareness day, and I’m pretty sure everyone you’ve met and who feels the loss of you doesn’t need to be anymore aware than we already are.

There is so much that I will never get to say to you, and so much that I regret not being able to. Dude, you lived so fucking close to me and we never got together, just kept pushing it off.

Wherever you are, I hope you’ve met up with my friend Andre. I imagine he’s showing you the ropes. He was an awesome guy. Troubled, but there for you in a pinch. I like to think he found you right away because I know he watches over me and he knew your name from when Ethan called me. This is how I deal with you being gone. You’re with another friend who made me more aware than I wanted to be of life and death.

You know after Andre died, I had to quit working at the funeral home because I hate having to deal with people who were so upset their old relatives died. I was a huge dick to everyone. And the my first autopsy when I got back to the hospital was a suicide by gunshot, and I couldn’t fucking handle it. After that, everyone I saw down there felt like someone I knew, and someone I needed to help.

Talk about a weird complex.

I don’t know why I’m going on like this. I just want to talk to you. I’m not trying to change the past and nothing I could ever say to you could change your mind. I’ve been telling myself that since Andre died. I don’t believe it yet because I’m an idiot and I still think I can fix everything, even when it’s obviously broken. But I don’t think you were broken. I don’t know. I guess we’re all a bit broken?

You keep popping (for a minute I thought I typed “pooping” and that is weird and possibly also accurate) into my head and sometimes I close my eyes and see you walking down the street or something, lumbering, slightly bow-legged, or at least growing up. You kept me sane (or passable for sane) in high school and I’ll never forget you. I have so much more I want to say but I didn’t even mean to go on this long and I have to leave for Raleigh in a second anyhow.

Find Andre, if you haven’t already. He’s like 5’3 or so, light brown hair, glasses I think, fit but a bit stocky. He’s a great guy and you two will hit it off.

I seriously can’t end this without sounding superqueer. I love you.

Take all of your advice from Radiohead

Aloha, y’all!  I’ve been doing an incredible amount of things, just lots of things, to get my head straight.  I believe the last time I wrote (more than just that I was going on hiatus), it was right before I moved.  The move went alright, but my emotions got the better of me and I’ve since made some pretty serious lifestyle changes in order to start taking steps to become a better person.

Things got really dark and ugly pretty quickly for me.  I’ve been trying to believe that I’ve been fine since February, but I have not.  The way to handle a problem is not to ignore it; you need to face it head on.  The thing is, I couldn’t.  I wasn’t equiped to do so at that time.

A lot of my friends mentioned how incredibly well I was handling the break up.  I was, because I was ignoring it.  My attitude towards Alex was either angry or ok for about ten minutes and then straight to angry, even though little of that anger actually had to do with him.  It was mostly anger at myself, misdirected towards him and eventually, to most everyone.  Living with someone right after you break up is really fucking hard, and I don’t recommend it unless absolutely necessary, because, even though it might be slightly comforting occasionally, that they’re still in your life somehow when you really need to step back from the situation and maybe get away for a while to clear your head, well it can be mentally dangerous.

So a few days after I moved out, I went back to collect some things, but majorly lost my shit on Alex which was really bad.  I got back to the new place, smoked my last cigarette (sorry mom but also hey I quit!), and decided that things were just going to be different from then on, no matter what.  I made a list of things to start to work on.  I needed to be better.  I didn’t want to be me anymore.  I really hated me, even though I kept lying to myself that I was TOTALLY fine!  You really shouldn’t lie to yourself, because yourself will start getting you into serious trouble to show you how fucked up you really are.

The next day, I went back to the gym.  I wrote up a real budget where I would keep far better track of my money.  I kept with the not smoking.  I smiled at myself and told me that I was going to be alright.  I called a shrink to make an appointment to work on my mental makeover to keep up with the entire “be better” makeover.  I am finally working towards really caring about myself.

Some of these things, I want them. Fitter Happier by Makavelithedon, words by Radiohead

There have been rough days, yes.  This past Monday, I pretty much fell apart.  I finally had my “Oh my god, what the hell have I done?” moment and I cried, for eight hours, and ended up looking like I rubbed poison ivy all over my face for the next few days.  But it felt good (the crying.  Please don’t rub poison ivy all over your face).  I had the rumored “Good Cry” about everything, three months later than I guess it should have happened.

Many people will tell you that you need to love yourself before you love someone else.  It’s true.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many people that I love dearly, but in order to love someone in a romantic and honest way, you really do need to take care of yourself.  Which leads to the improv part of this post:

I have now completed AP5 with Susan Messing.  This class was the most eye-opening class I’ve ever had (I feel like I say this a lot but hear me out), as it helped me learn so much about myself as both an improvisor and a person.  I learned that I don’t live in the moment.  I don’t get the most out of my time with people.  I am not specific when speaking with people.  I don’t give people the teeny details who make me who I am.  I am “Ambiguous Smiley Face,” that person who’s character never gets named in a scene, in both improv and in real life.  I can be forgettable, even if I might add something to a scene or to a moment.  Punchy and witty is good, but smart and memorable is better.

We did this exercise last week based solely in the idea of specificity.  Be as specific as possible.  We were tasked with the object work of cleaning something, as ourselves, with two other people.  The scene would start, just cleaning and talking, and at some point, someone would say “This reminds me of…” and go off on a monologue.  The thing of it was, just because you started your monologue talking about how something reminded you of puppies, that didn’t mean your monologue was about puppies.  For those curious about the whole exercise, after a while, another person would interject and say “that reminds me of…” and begin their monologue, and so on until everyone had done a monologue, full of truths, full of detail, full of specificity.

My monologue started out, I think, about how I was allergic to dust, (I think? I don’t even remember) and ended with me talking about how, in the town I lived in ’til I was 17, in North Eastern Pennsylvania, people had southern accents and confederate flags on their cars.  I intended on talking about doctors.  I never got there, because that just wasn’t where my specificity took me.

Instead, my specificity took me to a town that I haven’t really spoken about in almost 12 years; a part of myself that I have kept out of sight as best I could and only occasionally reference by talking about how much I hate Pennsylvania and never want to go back.  I’m really sorry if you love Pennsylvania and are offended by what I am saying, but my time there was spent mostly with me thinking about how to either run away or kill myself.  I didn’t have the balls to do either, and I’m pretty happy that I didn’t.

The improv lesson that I learned was that specificity is what keeps your audience hanging on.  They want to know all the details, and you can get a reaction out of something as small as giving them the name of a town or an ingredient.  Give the audience a break and give them all the minute details.  They’ll eat that shit up.

The life lesson that I learned was that I don’t share things about myself.  I’d rather listen to you talk about what you had for breakfast for the past week and then be like “Oh I’m not interesting.” rather then tell you about that time I almost had my first kiss in middle school but when the boy I was “dating” hugged me I accidentally  smashed my face into his hockey stick (not a euphemism) or that I once went on a road trip to Maryland with one of my best friends from high school, and on the way back, we broke down and this trucker stopped to help us but we were both pretty sure he was going to try to kill us so we made him stay back while we yelled to him that we were alright and I kept flashing my cell phone like a rich little badass (it was 2002 and I had a Nokia…SO I WAS AWESOME) even though I was total white trash.

The main takeaway, regardless of real life or improv situations, is that I don’t know how I expect people know me if I don’t let them.

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Sometimes it’s hard to be a (fill in the blank)

Good evening! I’m not overly political, typically.  I vote.  I read articles. I typically know enough to nod and spout some random cohesive thoughts and ideas with regard to upcoming elections. I know things, guys! I try not to really discuss politics unless I am wasted, though, because I get very passionate about certain topics, like poverty, education, war, human rights, and so forth.  It’s just getting more and more difficult to keep my mouth shut, and here is the end result: I’m blogging angry and sad, with a heavy heart, and an aching back.

Right now (well, for a while now), I am really, really, REALLY disappointed with the laws being passed left and right, and how they affect women.  How they affect men. How they affect children.  How they affect the elderly.  How they affect couples who don’t fit the archaic stereotypes of what a family is “supposed” to look like. How they affect single-parent households.  How they affect single (or relationship-having but not married-) people.  How they affect healthcare. How they affect education, from the beginning of a person’ education and all the way through.

I feel helpless.  I read stories about how people are losing the right to their privacy, being strip searched for little, if any, reason.  I read about how women in some states are being traumatized by having to carry stillborns full-term because of certain laws that are in place. I read about people being treated more harshly every day simply because they’re not your “average” white, Christian-looking American.  I read about kids whose parents know they won’t live through their teens because of street violence.

I feel so helpless.  I don’t like what I’m seeing.  I don’t know what to do about it.  I understand that there need to be laws, but I don’t understand why the laws have to be so regressive and detremental to such a vast array of people.

I’m not a moron, and I know that not everyone is going to be happy no matter what laws are in place…but to make so many people so miserable?  What good does this do?  Who are the law makers and the law passers actually helping?  I’m getting upset just typing this. I am so worried about the future that I couldn’t imagine ever bringing a child into this world, which will, and has, become so restrictive.  We’re moving backwards!  We are moving backwards, as a society, and as a culture, every day.

I don’t expect everyone’s problems to end just because the world is sad as fuck.  I know there are things out there that make our lives worth living.  I see hope in the eyes of people all the time.  But not enough.  Not enough hope, and not enough people holding on to it.

I wish I had some sort of a solution, and that I could say or do something to make things better, open up people’s eyes, show the people who keep coming up with, and passing, these ridiculous laws that these things should NOT be.

I am thankful for the creative outlets that I have, and for the people in my life who are equally, if not more, outraged and incensed by what is going on, with whom I can laugh about our (potentially?) bleak futures, and plot our escape.

I know I am not less of a person because I am a woman, and I wish there weren’t people out there who think I am (not to say that you do. I should hope you don’t think that). I don’t think anyone is less of a person because of their sex, orientation, religion, politics, etc.  But I will judge the shit out of you if you’re a dick.

I don’t go to sleep to dream

Welcome to my sleep difficulties follow up post!  I’ll (try to) keep this short and sweet, but definitely not lacking in the crazy and weird and kinda dumb!:

I <3 MELATONIN!!! 

I’ve been sleeping a lot better thanks to either Melatonin or a belief in the fact that it will assist me with sleeping.  I don’t know which, and I don’t really care!  I’m going to keep on taking it until my brain decides it’s not working, or it actually doesn’t work!  HAHAHA!  HAHAHAHAHA!  HAAAHAAAAAAHAAAAAA*HAAA!

Things are still a bit off-kilter in Jessicaland.  I keep getting on the wrong trains and not realizing it for quite a while.  I’ll attribute this mostly to not really paying attention to most things as soon as I put my head phones on because I’m too busy imagining situations where the music I listen to would be heard by everyone, and suddenly we’d all break into dance**.  And yet, I want bigger, better headphones.  The ones that cover my entire ear.  I had those back in my New York days, and they are fantastic.  Just try to pry me from my synchronized dancing alternate reality once I get some of those!***  Uh, I also have caught myself staring into people’s eyes while on the train, but not while I’m thinking about it (Like I’m not doing it on purpose).  It isn’t until the person smiles slightly or looks away that my brain finally sends the “CREEPSTER, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” alert.

Because I’m sleeping again, my dreams are coming back (at least, in a capacity where I can remember them).  The good side is that I’m not having horrifying nightmares, as I am wont to do.  I can’t even tell you how many times I have been killed in my sleep.  The bad side is I keep having dreams that lull me into this false sense of everything being wonderful, and when I wake up…well, it’s not ‘horrible’, but it’s not my dream.  An example:

Over the weekend I had a dream that I was getting married to one of my friends who, in real life, is dead.  The wedding was sweet and perfect, though I didn’t get to see him much afterwards because we were talking to friends and family, etc.  When I woke up, I had a splitting headache not unlike one you might have after spending an evening (and the wee hours of the morning) drinking some serious fucking martinis (I had not a drop of the devil’s liquid the evening previous), and the ever-depressing realization that everyone I’ve made an “If we’re not married by the time we’re 30, we’ll marry each other!” pact (which I realize using the word “everyone” makes me sound slutty but it’s good to have options AND by the time I made each pact, one of the other pact makers was already dead).

While on one hand, it’s really fucking depressing, on the other hand, my morbid and jesty brain can’t help but think “I guess they didn’t want to make good on their pact, SO badly in fact, that they took their own lives.”  Yes, in case you were curious, my brain enjoys rhyming a bit for dramatic and comedic emphasis.

I am not so deluded to think this is actually the case.  Believe me, I’m not that damaged.

What’s up, getting super off-topic!

I am still going to try the rest of people’s suggestions, partially because my sleep isn’t feeling very restful and also because last night I tried to fall asleep sans Melatonin and my brain just laughed and laughed at me as I thought the same thoughts over and over.  Also I just read over this.  What am I even talking about?

Maybe this is how I’ve always been and I’m just realizing it now?  Or maybe it is how I was before and it’s all coming back.  Either way…parts of it are fun.  Other parts are frustrating. Here’s a picture so you don’t feel like you just had to read crazy ramblings for like, however long it took you to read this:

I can't put into words how much I miss North Carolina right now, but I feel like this does the trick.

*I think I’m sleeping, anyhow.  I could be completely wrong.

**So you see, I’m descending into madness pretty quickly.

***Don’t.  I’ll bite you.

Dream Lover

What’s the happs?  Sorry I’m not updating frequently.  I’ve quickly turned back into the most inconsistent blogger, which is great*!  Seriously, though, things have been super busy, which has its ups and downs.

The main problem I’m having, in life I guess, is that I’m not sleeping well.  I haven’t been sleeping well for the past month or so, and I thought this might sort itself out naturally.  It hasn’t.  At night I lie in bed and listen to the sounds of the house.  I daydream (if you daydream at nighttime, is it still daydreaming?) about various places I would like to go to, or things I would like to do.  I try to stay away from the computer but every now and then I pop that sucker open and scroll through Tumblr, or Google Image Search, for hours. The lovely dark circles under my eyes have become darker and almost, one morning, to the point where I thought I might have hit myself in the face at some point whilst night-daydreaming or something.

I am assuming, at this point, you might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, go get some nighttime sleepy over the counter medicine and take care of that shizz” and you’re right.  I totally should.  I might!  I’ve been saying that for a few weeks now myself!  But I’ve always been the type of person who thinks things will just sort themselves out over time.  I’m also worried about side effects, like waking up even sleepier, and the lesser known side effects, which I always seem to get (violent nightmares and itchiness…I’m looking at you, Vicodin).

It’s not like I’m not sleeping at all; I am catching a few hours here and there.  Unfortunately, those few hours here and there aren’t restful, and as my delightful yet diurnally (S.A.T. WORD WHAT!?) frustrating alarm plays the theme from the Legend of Zelda, which grows increasingly louder and louder, I begin to wonder why the world won’t just let me sleep.

It's because my parents never got me a bed like this when I was little, like I wanted. I wanted SO HARD.

The other night though, I fucking fell asleep!  It was so exciting!  It was Friday night, and I don’t even remember what I did when I got home on Friday…that’s how exhausted I’ve been!  I have no idea what is going on anymore.  Anyhow…I fell asleep.  My head hit my pillow and I just fell right asleep!  For like an hour.

Suddenly OscarCat was screaming in the kitchen and I woke up.  He’d just come back in from outside, where there were apparently a group of Bros headed for him.  Ok.  Ok.  I completely understand.  I avoid the Bros as well.  Smart cat.

I returned, in a zombie-like state, back to my bed.  My sweet, sweet bed.  Again, nessling my sad little head deep into my three (oooh yeah.  THREE) pillows, I returned to sleepylandtimes.  For like an hour.

Now, I may not remember much about Friday night, but what I do remember is that I was sleeping with the windows open because there was a nice cool breeze going on outside.  Apparently, one of my neighbors had their windows open, too…and forgot to shut them as they (unexpectedly?) found themselves entangled in a passionate, uh…they were doing it**.  The sex.  They were doing the sex.  Loudly.  So loudly…well, she was.

Hey man.  I understand.  Sex just kinda happens sometimes.  I’m not saying it shouldn’t happen.  I’m just saying, there is a sexy way to walk over to your windows, shut them, and then go back to sexy sex times.  I really don’t want to hear you having sex.  On purpose.  At like 2AM.  When I’m trying to sleep.  Or ever.  I mean, don’t get me wrong…go you!  Enjoy that sex!  Or, you know, fake it, because girlfriend…that’s kinda what it sounded like and I was just feeling a bit embarrassed for the three of us at the point when I went over to shut my window and grab some ear plugs.

There’s an ad on the El that’s like “Houses in Chicago are on average 26 inches apart” or something like that.  It’s good to pay attention to these ads, because then you can avoid situations where it sounds like there are people fucking on your back porch.  Amiright?  Nawmean?

Anyhow, here’s where we get to the good part (for me.  If you’re more into the sexy bits…YOU HAVE COME TO THE WRONG PLACE. *Waves hand* THIS IS NOT THE BLOG YOU’RE LOOKING FOR): After the cat screams and the sex noises and the insertion (lulz) of the industrial strength ear plugs, I slept.  I fucking slept SO HARD.  I slept all up in your motherfucking grill.  I slept!  For four hours!  I think!  And it was glorious.  And then…

I woke up, ate some breakfast, AND TOOK A NAP!  WHAT!?  WHAT?!  HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?!***

Luckily, that whole restful feeling hasn’t lasted very long, and I’ve gone back to shit sleep.  I have a few ideas on how to fix this (start going back to the gym all the time like I was for a while, uh…I eat pretty healthy so it’s not like that’s really doing anything…uhm, ok maybe the gym thing is the only idea I have), but what suggestions do you have?  What works best for you?  Something natural and happy.  I’ve tried candy.  Apparently that doesn’t work.  Weird, right?  But jogging and sleepy-time tea are the only things I can think of…but yeah. Oh, and no “warm milk” suggestions because I can’t drink milk, and the idea of that makes me gag a bit anyhow.

I know that this is mostly stemming from being incredibly stressed out right now.  But everyone’s stressed out most of the time.  So, on top of your sleep remedies, what do you do to decompress?  Let’s talk about stuff guys!

*Sarcasm

**We’ve discussed my maturity levels (super low) previously, yes?

***If it’s your first time here, sometimes I get unjustifiably cocky.  And yell at no one.  I’m like an adorably misguided puppy.

Follow Up – One Week Later

Hello.  I’ve seriously tried writing something bloggy for the past several days, but being all chipper and “Hey, here’s some interesting stuff!” is proving to be really exhausting.  Don’t get me wrong, really good stuff is going on, Chicago-wise.  Life is good.  I’ve been spending a lot of time with my friends here, eating lots of food and watching lots of improv.  It’s been pretty decent.  It’s just that, every now and then my mind wanders and I get stuck.

These are the thoughts on which my brain gets stuck, for clarification: I don’t want to have another awkward first date.  I don’t want to have an awkward “nice to meet you” handshake.  If it’s the dead fish handshake, specifically, I will mentally check out*.  I don’t want the awkward hug at the end of the night, regardless of whether or not the awkward first date went well.  I don’t want to have another awkward first kiss, because nothing could ever top our awkward (and oooooh it was awkward) first kiss.  It’s way too soon to worry about shit like this, but these are the thoughts that appear.  I don’t want to have to become intimately acquainted with someone else.  It’s a lot of effort and it’s effort I just don’t feel like putting forth.

I’m sure my mind will change, but right now it just seems pointless.  It could be that I’m more than a bit jaded, not going to lie.  Because, I know as well as anyone, that if I get swept up in being in love again, everything will be all sunshine, smooches, and lollipops.  The idea of first dates, handshakes, hugs, kisses, etc will suddenly seem exciting and blahditty-blah life will be amaaaaaazing**.

This is exactly how my week has gone. Thanks for sticking with me!

*Nothing is better than a nice strong handshake, amiright?

**I’ll resume normal posts soon and stop being such a sarcastic dick. Seriously.  Hey, I got  part in a play!  I’m doing fun volunteer stuff!  And I’m writing a bunch!  Not everything sucks right now!

EDIT: I have no problem being alone/single, etc, but I’m just kind of going through my own thing here.  I’m not being “weak” or “crazy”.   This is just how I choose to get out my thoughts.   Let’s just let it happen.  It’ll be done soon.  Or you know, feel free not to read my posts about this.  Either way.

Everything does and does not hurt

Things have been a bit more than uncomfortable in my personal life lately, and I have been avoiding talking about it because it’s just difficult to talk about.  I’ve been speaking with friends of course, which has really helped.  As I have previously mentioned, there has been a shroud of depression wrapped around me for the last several months.  I thought maybe it was just me having difficulty with adjusting to Chicago life and not wanting to tear myself out of North Carolina just yet.  But it’s been about six months, and my initial “I’m cheating on my friends and places that I love” feelings started to dissipate quite a bit around the four month mark here.

I have adjusted pretty much to life here.  Except something more was/is wrong.

It occurred to me over the weekend that my recent behavior (from about Thanksgiving and on) has been consistent with behavior I typically exhibit during a break up.  I want to sleep all the time.  I go back and forth on wanting to eat and wanting to vomit.  I watch things on Netflix that are nothing to cry about, but I cry.  And speaking of crying…I can’t help but do it, and randomly…and in public places sometimes, and it’s really embarrassing.  I inadvertently created a playlist on my iPod that is filled with breakup songs.  I have been doing all of this for months now.

Last night, February 15th, 2012, we broke up.  And it is both terrible, and a relief.  And I feel badly for saying that.  For saying all of that.

I would be lying to myself if I didn’t write this, because I need to get my words out.  Words and music will help me right now.  Music helps me so much.

There was no screaming or fighting.  There were a few tearful outbursts on my part, yes.  I needed to get my words out then as well.  I would highly recommend, if you are planning to have a very serious talk about the future of your relationship with anyone, NOT to order a bunch of food prior, because you’ll just end up tearfully poking at it for a while while you both focus very hard on not throwing up all over the place.  In fact, if you are planning to have this sort of conversation with someone, you should probably make a huge batch of macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes the day prior, maybe pick up something fried to eat later, or you know, Chinese take away or something.  Whatever your go-to hangover food is, really.  Just in case the outcome of the conversation is not exactly peachy-keen.

Mostly I am writing this because I want to remember the way that I feel right now.  When all was said and done last night, I needed to remind myself to really feel the moment, and remember how I felt, and remember that it wasn’t going to feel like this forever.  I also said “fuck” a lot,  had to really try hard to remember how breathing worked and stared at bright lights in order to stop me from crying as I read somewhere once that this is supposed to help.  I think we need new lightbulbs.

It’s funny, the little things that you focus on when your brain wants to forget about the world.  Oscar, the cat.  He’s not mine.  He is Alex’s, and then he became kinda mine when we were together (my step-cat, I called him), and now he’s just Alex’s again.   I find too difficult to even explain how I feel about this.  But I should have prepared for it I guess.  That is my fault.

I am lost and messy and ok and emotional and calm and filled with blank stares and pain and overwhelming feelings of desperation and fear and hopefulness.

I will probably close part of myself off to stop feeling some things, but I wanted to remember how this felt.  just not right now.

I am sorry.

Train Stories: #1 (FICTION POST)

Welcome to my first fiction post!  Remember when I was all “HEY I AM GOING TO WRITE FICITIONAL STUFF SOMETIMES!” like seven months ago and then never did?  Well guess who has a ton of ideas now for short story things?

Enjoy!

I don’t know who you are, but I want to.  I mean, God, you smell amazing.  Your jacket keeps touching my wrist just slightly; I’m not sure you know.  I’d really like to keep it that way.  I thought your jacket might be itchy but it’s not.  Thank you.  Thank you for buying this jacket.  Thank you for wearing it today.  I’m sure that you didn’t buy it thinking that some stranger might need to feel the sleeve graze their wrist just to feel close to someone.  Just to feel like a real person.  I exist.  I exist because of you.  Because of your smell.  Because of the softness of your jacket.

Where is your stop?  You’re standing next to me, but I’m all the way in the back.  Thank you for holding on to the same pole as me.  Of all the poles on the train that you could have chosen, you chose mine.  Mine isn’t the best in this car; it’s not even a pole, really.  It’s just this skinny little handle. Most of the trains I go on are missing these, I think.  I guess they detach pretty frequently.  Most people would go for the sturdier poles that go to the ground or attach to a seat.  There are quite a few for you to choose from.  But you chose mine.

Do you remember when you first arrived on the train and were wearing gloves?  And after a minute, you took your gloves off?  I think that you have very nice hands.  I could easily see our fingers eventually entwined and, as our hands get closer with each bump and bounce along our track, my dream of eventually entwined fingers becomes more and more possible.  Anything is possible with you here.

A few minutes ago you took your headphones off as well.  You couldn’t tell, since my right hand is in my coat pocket, but I turned the volume down on my music, just in case.  Just in case you wanted to talk to me.  Tell me something.  I mean, if that was something you wanted to do.  You don’t have to.  You didn’t.  You haven’t.  You don’t need to.  You never have to.

Your hand stopped slipping and the underside of your jacket sleeve sits draped gently over the top side of my wrist.  Is that your soap?  The smell is not as strong as cologne.  With each lurch of the train, I can tell you become warmer because the smell becomes more apparent.  More comforting.  I wish the train would lurch in such a way that your body moves closer to mine and I can feel more of your warmth.

I forgot to breathe when your firmly planted yourself into the space beside me, when you first boarded the train.  You didn’t even look to see if there were any empty seats (there were).  You didn’t even look at me (I don’t think).  You just made way for this empty space next to me.  It was as though you just knew you were supposed to stand right there.

I was worried at first that my hands, with their dried, cracked skin and random bandage strips would scare you off.  But either you didn’t notice, or it just doesn’t phase you.  I hope that I don’t smell strange to you.  Everything usually smells burnt to me; it has for months.  The whole city smells like it’s burning; I don’t even know what I smell like anymore.  But with everyhing that is wrong with me, you just don’t seem to care.  You’ve accepted me for me.  And my senses have chosen you.  Is that your soap?

You probably won’t remember me, and soon, neither will I.  But I hope to remember that I was real.  I was a person.  And briefly, whether we remember or not, we were in love.

Working Title: Brain Tumor

High-fiving yourself is more that just clapping (Part 4) plus bonus materials!

That two week break from improv classes felt more like it was three months or something…jeeeeez.  It was really awesome to get back to classes this past Saturday.  As you know, I’d been doing  all sorts of   other stuff to   take up my time, so the return to class was good!

This week’s class was a pretty mellow one.  In that I mean we did our typical warm-up scenes to get back into the swing of things, and then revisited the exercise where two people do a scene and then two more people over-play their characters, and then two more people over-play them, until there’s no really good way to over-play them anymore.  I really like doing that.  It’s just really funny, and a great energy builder.  It would make a fantastic warm up before a long form show (hintily-hinterson, anyone who actually reads this blog for improv-related things!).  But aside from that, we did one exercise.  Believe me, though, it was pretty awesome.

We did something which took a while because only five people did it at once, and there were 15 of us in class.  This was good for not only character building, but also heightening characters/deals.  Everyone lines up on the back line, and the first person sets the tone by saying a simple sentence and giving that character a voice and some posturing/movement.  EX: a little kid swinging his arms around say “I am so happy to be at Beatles’ camp!”*  The next person takes that same voice/stance/movement and adds one thing, (ie: “I’m so happy to be here at Beatles’ camp, playing the drums!”), and this continues down the line, with heightening of the character’s being as a whole (ie: “I’m so happy to be here at Beatles’ camp, playing the drums, on my Birthday!”  “I’m so happy to be here at Beatles’ camp, playing the drums, on my seventh birthday!” “I’m so happy to be here at Beatles’ camp, playing the drums, on my seventh birthday!  It’s so fucking cool!  Yeah my mom lets me curse!”) until you get to the last person and let that person go off on a super-heightened monologue as that character for a few minutes.  So, to recap: Person one: character level 2/3. Person two: character level 4/5. Person three: character level 5/6/7. Person four: character level 7/8.  Person five: Character level 9/10 and beyond.  If you don’t know what that means, the numbers after the person really are just the increase in how intensely** you are that character.  It’s a steady build up.

Once that happened, everyone rotated so that everyone could have a chance being different levels of all different characters.  Hence, this being such a time-consuming, but well worth-while, exercise.

The most important thing to remember, as was expressed to us several times and really honestly, is easy to forget, is that heightening your character’s deal does NOT mean screaming and just going nuts.  You can heighten louder characters in this way, sure, but heightening shouldn’t compromise the ability to understand what your character is saying, nor should it potentially inflict unintentional harm to your scene partner, unless they’re cool with being slapped, in which case do that ALL THE TIME.

Quite a few of our starter characters were more low-key.  By the time that character gets to the fifth person, it is really hard not to want to be incredibly frenetic and all over the place.  RESIST!  Just keep going back to some of the more memorable things you may have already said, or repeat the original offer of the character to get yourself back a little bit.  Don’t go from zero to insane, unless the character calls for it.  A slow-witted posh-Brit butler shouldn’t be a fast-talking, Drop Dead Fred-esque cockney by the time he gets to number 5.

Don't do what Donny Don't does.

And that was that.  Any questions?

I also had an audition on Sunday, and it was ok, but definitely not good enough (and I’m not saying this in a snotty way.  I have a long way to go, guys).  Remember that awesome audition I had at Second City where I left feeling really good about it and it was like angels were tousling my hair and everything was peaches and gum drops?  I now am aware of one of the major things that I am doing wrong at auditions, and just so happened to not do that the Second City audition!  Read on!

After my audition Sunday night, I was pretty bummed.  Like, to the point where I did that thing I do where I’m like “Ugh, I should probably not do improv…” because I get super pathetic and am the hardest on myself.  That’s how I do.  I got an email from the folks who held the interview to let me know I didn’t get a call back, but that they would give feedback on the interview if we wanted.  So I emailed to get feedback, which is the smartest thing I’ve done.  EVER.  EVER.  Pertaining to auditioning, anyhow.  No one else ever offered, so I was pretty pumped to figure out what I could improve upon and how to become a better auditioner/improvisor in general.

Well, it turns out I’m what I would like to refer to as a “nervous-asshole”!  Seriously.  My characters are combative and negative!  And my scenes don’t really go anywhere because I’m not supporting my scene partner; I’m too busy freaking out because I’m so fucking nervous.  So then what happened at the Second City audition?  I don’t know.  I guess when the director told us to “have fun and do some fucking improv” my brain actually paid attention and had a good time.  Perhaps I need cursing to understand the importance and value of what people are saying?  Let’s not get into what that says about me.

NOT IMPROV RELATED: So, at the gym on Tuesday night, I had my appointment with the personal trainer.  It rocked, and I’m sure I’ll tell you alllll about it soon enough.  However, prior to that meeting, I was sitting and waiting for 6:00pm (ie: the time of my appointment).  Some dude came and sat nearish me, and after like ten minutes he goes “HEY LOOK AT THIS!” and shows me this following picture:

lulz weather bewbs

Thank you, stranger.  I almost made it one day at the gym without getting boobied.  Almost.

*I do use real examples from class most of the time.  I loved this offer so much.

**INTENSE: adjective. 1. existing or occurring in a high or extreme degree…NOT SCREAMY.

High-fiving yourself is more than just clapping (Part 3)

I have a very love/hate relationship with this time of year.  I love that people are in good spirits but I hate that everything’s so crowded.  I love that people are doing awesome things for others, but I hate that not everyone takes that same courtesy and places it into the other parts of the year. I hate that I can’t give people the presents they deserve, and while I like getting gifts, I feel like mine will always pale in comparison.  And every year, I tell myself that I’m going to be a better person and do things for people “just because”.  And every year, I feel like I don’t, like I could have been better, like I didn’t do enough, like I was just in it for me.

Let’s break out the booze and have a ball…

But this is not a depressing and angry Christmas post!  I refuse to have a depressing and angry Christmas post!  Let’s talk about improv, guys!

Saturday was my last improv class for the next TWO WEEKS.  What am I going to do for two weeks?  I am going to get back into painting and photography, that’s what!  Yeah.  I’m pretty excited.  I’ll have more things to share with you!  AND THEY WILL BE GLORIOUS!

So let’s go back for a second, to the end of Level 2.  I was given the challenge of bringing more absurd situations into my ‘grounded in reality’ style.  But first, I read somewhere that people are more likely to look at a blog post if there’s a picture.  Below, please find a picture:

It was kind of hard to do this with so many people walking around behind me at work.

We did a few exercises this week that brought us into a wackier and more absurd way of playing.  They were both an obscene amount of fun.  For the first one, two people would do a scene.  Two people would them come to replay the scene but mock the hell out of their characters.  Mind you, we weren’t mocking our classmates, but merely the characters that they brought to light.  Now…I say that because I know this fun, enjoyable, hilarious exercise could turn into a lesson in assholery if placed in the wrong hands.  Anyhow, after those two went, two more went to mock the characters that the previous two players used to mock the initial characters.  So, it was a double mock.  And so it went, until there was really no way to top how outrageously bizarre each character was played.

This reminded me VERY much of a game/warm-up we used to play on Really Special People.  It was called (don’t judge me, I didn’t name it) Chinese/Retard.  It’s a good team warm-up, actually.  It’s a lot of fun and hard not to giggle like an asshole through it.  Everyone stands in a circle, then one person starts by making eye contact with someone else and moving towards them while saying a short phrase.  Each person goes and mocks the person before, their movements more exaggerated and their voice more bizarre than the previous person.  Additionally, depending on who might be on your team, there might be some dry humping, licking, or ball-grabbing.  My balls were never grabbed*.  Why is it called Chinese/Retard? Because you either end up sounding like an Asian stereotype, or like someone making fun of a mentally disabled person with a very severe speech impediment who likes to dry-hump strangers.

So, playing this as two person scenes was actually a lot more fun that having to top another person’s over-mocking on your own, in my opinion.  It was almost easier not to laugh until it was over, since you had someone else to focus on in keeping you in the scene.  Also, and Ill be honest…when I’m making an ass out of myself alone, I’m a lot more self-conscious about it than when I’m making an ass out of myself with someone else.

After that, we working on pimping each other out.  A quick explanation of what that means in improv!:

Pimping out another improvisor is essentially playfully fucking with the other player.  Example:  You come out on stage dribbling an improv basket ball and I say “You really do have a way with handling kids Alan!”  Now you have to continue your sweet-ass basketball moves, but in a child-care-situation context, and you and I live in a world where this is how one takes care of a child.  So, to hand me the kid, you might pivot and toss a chest pass over to my side of the stage, or to put the kid to bed, you might motion like you’re making a free-throw.  This example works well if you know stuff about basketball, too.

To start this exercise, one of us would stand in the corner, facing the wall, while another would start doing some object work off our person (ie: sewing a dress, fishing, making a cake).  Our teacher would tell the person in the corner to go and, without looking at the other person, we needed to deliver our first line which would comment on what they were doing but not in the context of how they were doing it.  (ie: you’re vacuuming, and I say “Those cupcakes smell amazing, Sheila!  You’re such a great baker!” while turning around and entering the scene. The acceptance by both yourself and your scene partner that this contrary behavior is actually not at all on the contrary is really funny to watch from an audience perspective.

This is something that I want to work on more…not pimping out my scene partners, but accepting that suddenly, the idea that I was working with is now the appropriate way to do whatever idea my scene partner was working with, and that is ok.  People have told me that I am adaptable in scenes and will pick up whatever my scene partner needs me to, but believe me when I tell you that nothing makes me more nervous and gets me way into my head more than that.  I falter momentarily, and struggle to regain my footing for a bit.  This exercise, though, is one that I would love to revisit, either in class, or with people (a team?  whatever) at some point.  Let’s call it Corrective Pimping, because a) that’s a funny name and b) it’ll correct my apprehensive feelings with regards to pimpery.

The two week break will be weird, but I plan on going to move shows and getting out there more.  It’ll be good.  It’ll be chilly.  I will eat lots of cheese.

*FACT:  I have ovaries…not balls.