At one point during tech tonight, my light designer added a cue and stopped to give me a note on the cue number and it's placement. My sound designer respond with, "Way to show me up, Kristeen. I was just having her GUESS where all my cues go." We all laughed about it and started to joke that our tech table was The Hunger Games and we were all trying to outwit each other to survive.
I so love the camaraderie that can form up at a tech table. It doesn't always happen, but when it does I feel safe and warm and supported. Today I felt a little like my light and sound designers' kid sister, but in the best way. They joke with me, they trust me, but they're also looking out for me.
The bonding feeling of tonight reminded me of my last tech in the Winningstad. Same theater company, same director, same TD and same production manager. But that is where the similarities stop. The mood, the difficulties, the joys, the message have been so unalike, I hadn't really compared the two before tonight. I also had a very different light designer to my right and a very different sound designer to my left. Stinky Cheese Man may feel warm and fuzzy, but Storm in the Barn was momentous for me. I learned a lot at that tech table. It was not even a year ago, though it feels so much longer. My first professional SM gig, my first chance to really prove myself to the people of Portland theater.
I have very different relationships with the two men who flanked me at that tech table last April, but some things are true about them both: they are both brilliant, they both throw themselves into their work, they both pushed me to be good enough to support their designs and I grew from that pushing. They are also my two favorite men in Portland theater, hands down.
I was having fun tonight, but I had a moment when I missed being in the trenches with those two. Not "but," actually, but "and:" both feelings existed together because I get to/got to live and feel both experiences. My current designers are lovely, my past designers were inspiring. I got to sit in the middle of that tech table, and I get to sit in the middle of this one. Squished in middle, intellectually cuddled up and safe.
Sometimes, a girl gets lucky with who she's surrounded by.
Thursday, February 28
On: Surroundings (Stinky Cheese Man Tech - Day One)
Today is my director's birthday. I pretty much adore this woman, so I was thrilled when she invited me to join a small group of OCT people for a drink to celebrate after tech.
My director chose Higgins bar, which I immediately recognized as a fancy place because the people who run ART took the Artists Director candidates there when the were in town. Not a place I would ever go with my friends, since none of us can afford it.
I am in the last group of people to reach the bar, because I stayed to clean and lock up at the theater. When I get there, I am undeniably the "one thing not like the others." Everyone else at this gathering is at least fifteen years older than me, and they have all known each other for a minimum of ten years. Someone made a joke about owls and tootsie roll pops and then said, "That's not funny to anyone under forty!" and I was the only one who didn't laugh.
At one point the conversation turned to what everyone was doing the morning of September 11th. My director had just flown back from working a gig in San Francisco, my music director was on the tread mill before work, an actress in my show had been up all night, drinking and knitting with a friend who's brother-in-law died that morning.
They were all so swept up in remembering that I did something I hardly ever do: I withdrew, I observed, and I did not speak. I watched this group of people interact and I thought about how extraordinary it was that I was there at all; how marvelous our profession that it allowed me to be. I thought about my friends, and how few of them are my age. And I was proud of myself for a moment, proud of the people I choose to surround myself with. Proud that my director asked me, along with a few of her closest career friends, out to celebrate her birthday and all the fabulous years that have made up her life. I hope that when I'm having a birthday when I am old enough to joke about being only 33, I can bring a young woman along too and show her what it looks like to be a grown up in the real world.
(And: for the record, I was twelve when the planes hit the towers. I remember waking up in my middle school bedroom to the news blaring from the radio, as opposed to the music I usually had. I went to school anyway, though I had no idea of I should.)
My director chose Higgins bar, which I immediately recognized as a fancy place because the people who run ART took the Artists Director candidates there when the were in town. Not a place I would ever go with my friends, since none of us can afford it.
I am in the last group of people to reach the bar, because I stayed to clean and lock up at the theater. When I get there, I am undeniably the "one thing not like the others." Everyone else at this gathering is at least fifteen years older than me, and they have all known each other for a minimum of ten years. Someone made a joke about owls and tootsie roll pops and then said, "That's not funny to anyone under forty!" and I was the only one who didn't laugh.
At one point the conversation turned to what everyone was doing the morning of September 11th. My director had just flown back from working a gig in San Francisco, my music director was on the tread mill before work, an actress in my show had been up all night, drinking and knitting with a friend who's brother-in-law died that morning.
They were all so swept up in remembering that I did something I hardly ever do: I withdrew, I observed, and I did not speak. I watched this group of people interact and I thought about how extraordinary it was that I was there at all; how marvelous our profession that it allowed me to be. I thought about my friends, and how few of them are my age. And I was proud of myself for a moment, proud of the people I choose to surround myself with. Proud that my director asked me, along with a few of her closest career friends, out to celebrate her birthday and all the fabulous years that have made up her life. I hope that when I'm having a birthday when I am old enough to joke about being only 33, I can bring a young woman along too and show her what it looks like to be a grown up in the real world.
(And: for the record, I was twelve when the planes hit the towers. I remember waking up in my middle school bedroom to the news blaring from the radio, as opposed to the music I usually had. I went to school anyway, though I had no idea of I should.)
Monday, February 25
I Dream of Genie
I had a dream last night that I was working a show in an enormous theater. The deck was made of old, rich wood and the stage was rigged like an elevator, only impossibly so. The entire stage floor could drop the basement AND up to the grid. No one needed a genie to focus, because the stage was essentially a gigantic genie. The electrics crew just all climbed aboard and up, up it went.
One day, while working on this show, I went in to go check out the space and stepped on to the deck. I was standing there talking to a certain carpenter of my acquaintance when all of a sudden, the three feet of the stage we were standing on started rising. We had no safety rails, no nothing to hold us in. I was terrified.
Without thinking about it, I grabbed on to his arm in a vice grip. He laughed (good -naturedly) and told me not to be afraid. Eventually, the floor started to lower again and I began to calm down. Just before it touched down, however, it changed direction and rose again. Up and up, and this time I held his arm tightly and did my best to hide my fear: no shrieks, no flailing. I stood stock still and tried to be calm, telling myself that if he wasn't afraid, I didn't have to be either. We reached the highest height of the elevator and stopped there, 15 feet off the ground. The floor swayed, the way genies do.
That was when I saw him looking at me differently than he ever has before (in real life or the dream). He moved very slowly, so as not to fall, but turned until we were facing each other straight on. Then he kissed me, softly, on the mouth. Only once. There was really no passion in the kiss, just overwhelming tenderness. And then I wasn't afraid anymore.
One day, while working on this show, I went in to go check out the space and stepped on to the deck. I was standing there talking to a certain carpenter of my acquaintance when all of a sudden, the three feet of the stage we were standing on started rising. We had no safety rails, no nothing to hold us in. I was terrified.
Without thinking about it, I grabbed on to his arm in a vice grip. He laughed (good -naturedly) and told me not to be afraid. Eventually, the floor started to lower again and I began to calm down. Just before it touched down, however, it changed direction and rose again. Up and up, and this time I held his arm tightly and did my best to hide my fear: no shrieks, no flailing. I stood stock still and tried to be calm, telling myself that if he wasn't afraid, I didn't have to be either. We reached the highest height of the elevator and stopped there, 15 feet off the ground. The floor swayed, the way genies do.
That was when I saw him looking at me differently than he ever has before (in real life or the dream). He moved very slowly, so as not to fall, but turned until we were facing each other straight on. Then he kissed me, softly, on the mouth. Only once. There was really no passion in the kiss, just overwhelming tenderness. And then I wasn't afraid anymore.
Saturday, February 23
Paint
Yesterday was my last day at Artists Rep. I woke up early to write thank you cards and the tears started straight away. I'm sad to be leaving this job and this community but most of all, I am sad to be leaving my boss and the boys in the shop.
My boss is, hands down, the best boss I've ever had. She and I get along really well, communicate easily, joke about everything, and get stuff done. We are productive like gangbusters, let me tell 'ya. And in the past seven months I've come to rely on her for a lot of things outside of work. She was the first person I called when Ribbons started to spin out of control, partly because I needed to tell her I wasn't coming in to work but mostly to cry and say over and over again, "I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do." She has taught me so much about professionalism and leadership.
The scene shop boys have, by some strange stroke of the Universe, become two of my best friends in Portland. They're not my closest friends, but they are two people who always make me smile and only ever make me sad on accident. That seems like such a simple thing, but really it's not. People are complicated, relationships are complicated, and being a good friend is hard.
The boys and I have had a running joke all season, which started with And So It Goes... I came down to the shop while they were painting flats, and immediately went and stood against the wall. I talked to them from about fifteen feet away, until Eddie finally asked me why I was not coming closer. "The paint," I said. "I don't want you to accidentally get me." Now, I am not really all that much of a girly-girl, so this cracked the guys up. And, of course, inspired them to try and paint me on purpose. There was a but of running about the shop and some brush flicking, but I escaped paint-free.
After that though, there was always the threat that they were going to sneak up on me and paint my face. For seven months, they talked about it, I was nervous about, they schemed about it. But it never happened. So in the last couple of weeks, as my last day approached, I got a little cocky and teased them: "you're running out of time...", "I'm watching you", and "you're not ever gonna get me." I didn't really ever expect what happened.
I got in to work yesterday and found a huge box, wrapped in bright paper and big pink bow, sitting on my desk. There was a bit of white gaff on the said that said: DO NOT TIP OVER and a nicely drawn scissor line across the top, for me to cut it open. When I cut open the paper, I found a blue tub. Inside the tub was: a bowl of black paint, a mirror, two rags, a bib, and easy-to-follow (hand drawn) instructions on how I was to paint my own face.
It pretty nearly broke my heart right in two, to see all the work and love those boys put into my last day. I just stood at my desk at a total loss. What I really wanted to do was go down and sob into their t-shirts; I wanted to never let them go; I wanted to tell them how seldom I feel this truly loved and appreciated by people at all, my friends in particular and men specifically. I didn't do that though, because I knew it would scare the crap out of them. Instead, I put my index finger in the tub and ran some mat black paint across my cheekbones.
So, yeah: they won. I ended up painting my own face and not a single shot fired.
My boss is, hands down, the best boss I've ever had. She and I get along really well, communicate easily, joke about everything, and get stuff done. We are productive like gangbusters, let me tell 'ya. And in the past seven months I've come to rely on her for a lot of things outside of work. She was the first person I called when Ribbons started to spin out of control, partly because I needed to tell her I wasn't coming in to work but mostly to cry and say over and over again, "I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do." She has taught me so much about professionalism and leadership.
The scene shop boys have, by some strange stroke of the Universe, become two of my best friends in Portland. They're not my closest friends, but they are two people who always make me smile and only ever make me sad on accident. That seems like such a simple thing, but really it's not. People are complicated, relationships are complicated, and being a good friend is hard.
The boys and I have had a running joke all season, which started with And So It Goes... I came down to the shop while they were painting flats, and immediately went and stood against the wall. I talked to them from about fifteen feet away, until Eddie finally asked me why I was not coming closer. "The paint," I said. "I don't want you to accidentally get me." Now, I am not really all that much of a girly-girl, so this cracked the guys up. And, of course, inspired them to try and paint me on purpose. There was a but of running about the shop and some brush flicking, but I escaped paint-free.
After that though, there was always the threat that they were going to sneak up on me and paint my face. For seven months, they talked about it, I was nervous about, they schemed about it. But it never happened. So in the last couple of weeks, as my last day approached, I got a little cocky and teased them: "you're running out of time...", "I'm watching you", and "you're not ever gonna get me." I didn't really ever expect what happened.
I got in to work yesterday and found a huge box, wrapped in bright paper and big pink bow, sitting on my desk. There was a bit of white gaff on the said that said: DO NOT TIP OVER and a nicely drawn scissor line across the top, for me to cut it open. When I cut open the paper, I found a blue tub. Inside the tub was: a bowl of black paint, a mirror, two rags, a bib, and easy-to-follow (hand drawn) instructions on how I was to paint my own face.
It pretty nearly broke my heart right in two, to see all the work and love those boys put into my last day. I just stood at my desk at a total loss. What I really wanted to do was go down and sob into their t-shirts; I wanted to never let them go; I wanted to tell them how seldom I feel this truly loved and appreciated by people at all, my friends in particular and men specifically. I didn't do that though, because I knew it would scare the crap out of them. Instead, I put my index finger in the tub and ran some mat black paint across my cheekbones.
So, yeah: they won. I ended up painting my own face and not a single shot fired.
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| Present and bow |
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| The necessary components. |
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| One of those pictures where I try really hard to smile. but you can still tell just how heart broken I am by my eyes. |
Friday, February 15
My 200th Blog Post
Celebrate!
Or: I-have-time-to-kill-after-rehearsal-and-there's-no-one-in-the-building-except-me-and-these-here-pom-poms...
Thursday, February 14
My Valentines
Okay, SHOCKER: I have never had a boyfriend/friends-with-benefits/hook-up/gentleman-caller in my life on this oh so auspicious day of love. It's just never played out that way for me. I guess February is my down month? (Ha.)
The point of this is that I've never had the regular old "Valentine." My Valentine is always someone who loves me, whom I love, though we are not IN love. It's worked out okay for me thus far.
In the name of John Cusak and High Fidelity, here are Olivia Murphy's top five all time best Valentines.
5. Lamby, the dog my parents let me adopt when I was 13. He was a Bichon-Frisée mix and he looked like a puppy his whole life. He was white, fluffy, my little mutón. He got me through many a sad middle school Valentine's Day.
4. Tim W, my "boyfriend" in 7th grade who I completely forgot about when I wrote the beginning of this blog post. The only man to ever give me anything on Valentine's Day, he sent me a singing candy gram to my History classroom. The chamber choir sang "Hanging by a moment," by Lifehouse which was a custom chosen song he asked them to sing to me. I think it cost extra to pick something other than the five the choir had already learned? I was so overwhelmed. In the best way.
3. Ali W, my friend from college. She and I took a cross country road trip in February of 2010 and we happened to be on the road for Valentine's Day. We agreed that we'd each do something for the other on February 14th. We both ended up doing silly hand made inside joke cards and exchanging them in Florida.
2. Miss Mona Mae, the love of my life, my only wife. Whether we were drinking apple cider on the hood of Velma or pouring each other wine at The Manor, she's always been my number one gal, my main lady. If I do live until I am officially a spinster, I don't doubt she'll let me live in an apartment above her garage and scare her children.
And the number one slot goes to:
1. Lawrence Jay Probstein, my grandfather.
Rampah was the first thing in my mind this morning when I woke up, because this is my second Valentine's day without him. My grandparents sent us cards every year, and at the bottom Rampah always asked me to be his Valentine. I remember his loopy handwriting in an even line at the bottom of the card, signed "your Rampah." It didn't matter to me that I knew he asked Tesssie too; my Rampah, my big, successful, clever, kind hearted, warm Rampah wanted to be MY Valentine and I always wanted to be his. I feel like a lot of people say "Be Mine" on this day and I don't really think many of them mean it. My grandfather meant it. He asked me every year, and he always meant it.
Wednesday, February 13
Dreams of Titanic Porportions
Ba duum SHUUH.
I'm hysterical, really I am. You should read my blog.
Anyway: yes, I had a dream totally about Titanic, the movie. Well, I guess about isn't the right word, since it was totally about me: but Titanic played a major role. This dream exists in two seperate parts, which were connected. You'll see. Here we go.
*Ahem*
PART ONE
In Which Olivia Lives Every Girl's Dream and Plays Rose DeWitt Bukater
The dream begins when I am crawling along the side of someone else's back porch. They live in one of those houses that line West Cliff in Santa Cruz: the big houses, with parts of their architecture built on cliff faces above the Pacific. This house has a wide, beautiful, deck that sticks out beyond the cliff edge and I am inching along the side of it, trying not to look down. I can see into the family room of this house and a friend of mine is there, with her husband and three children. (N.B. I do not, at this point, recognize this friend as anyone in my real life.) I start to pull myself up over the railing and the husband of my friend sees me outside. A jolt of recognition shakes me and he runs outside to me while I practically shout: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"
He pulls me on to the deck, touching my face and arms and hair, dazed, shaken, kissing me and saying, "Rose? You're alive? Rose? Rose?" We hold each other for a moment before his wife, my friend, comes out on to the back deck to say hello to me. We spring apart and my friend takes me into her bedroom, where she is folding laundry, so we can chat. She (I assume) has no idea about me and Jack, and thinks I am there to see her. She talks at me while she folds and her children sit in front of a TV, watching a show about bugs. I am totally not listening to her, but instead thinking about Jack just a hallway away. (N.B. At this point in the dream, this house has become my parents' house. I am sitting on my parents' bed [but not parents' in the dream, friend's in the dream] and Jack is in my parents' [his] living room.) At some point, the bugs start to crawl out of the TV and the children are overjoyed. I am totally grossed out and use it as an excuse to go to the living room.
Jack is sitting on the couch, watching TV but not actually watching it at all. I sit down on the opposite end of the couch, without saying anything. He doesn't look at me but says, with this terrible sadness in his voice, "Please don't sit so far away from me." I move closer to him, until our legs are touching. Then he reaches for me and I move so that I'm straddling him and we kiss. We kiss like this for a while, until I hear the sliding glass door to the porch open. His wife enters the room as we both stop kissing, turning to look at her. It is obvious that she has stood in the dark on the porch and watched us for some time before entering the room. I slowly get off of her husband's lap and she sits in the chair opposite. They pick up conversation and no one mentions what just happened. At all.
PART TWO
In Which Olivia Lives Some Particular Men's Dream and Plays Jack Dawson
In this part of the dream, the Titanic has already hit the iceberg. The front half of the boat is totally submerged and pulling the second half of the boat upright, just before it snaps. I am in the submerged portion of the boat, on a very specific mission. I have either seen this movie before or played this video game before, so I know exactly who the bad guys are, what they want, and how to thwart them. I know that in the steerage level of the ship, there is a huge amount of dynamite that the bad guys need. I have a host of incredibly unhelpful and actually hindering characters with me, but I succeed in collecting all the keys the bad guys need and escaping with them. I lose my annoying entourage as more and more bad guys chase me. I am eluding them through this movement that is part swimming (we are in the underwater part of the Titanic) and part parkour, though I think maybe a better description of this is the flying in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (N.B. I have never had a dream where I fly proper, but I have had a lot of dreams where I fly in this jumping/pushing-off-of-things manner. This form of movement always requires some source of engery and I usually get it from bouncing off of walls and people. Like the way you play with a balloon to keep it in the air.)
I am parkour-ing away from these bad guys when I enter the dining room of the Titanic. I guess this is, somehow, not submerged because the room has tall, beautiful, windows instead of walls and is lit with soft sunlight. There are two people in this room: Sophia Bush and my real life not-so-much-friend, who we will call "Ruth" to protect her identity. I know immediately that Sophia Bush is the ultimate bad guy, and the person that has sent all the other goons that are chasing me. I also know, immediately, that Ruth was the wife in the first part of my dream, except instead of making out with her husband, in this dream I had been stealing her wife. (Played by a woman I work with, oddly enough). I assess the situation and decided I need to get out asap; both women will want to do me harm. I start to try to parkour away and Ruth catches up to me, pulling me down, offering to help me. I refer to her wife, and the pain I've caused her, and she just says, "This is life and death. That doesn't matter now."
I am so relieved, so I hug her and we start to parkour our way out of the room and away from Sophia Bush. We make it to an open window and are nearly home free. I push myself out the window and Ruth suddenly grabs my legs, throwing me to the floor at Sophia Bush's feet. "Here you go," she says. "Have him." (Remember, I'm Jack in this part of the dream.)
Sophia Bush takes me into this dark room, that seems to be above where the grand chandelier should be in the Titanic's dancing hall. Instead of the chandelier, there is a concave in the floor that is filled with thin wire netting. If someone were to fall on to it, the netting would give way and the fall-ee would plummet five or six stories to their death. All around this pit are a panel of old white men, there to judge me. Sophia Bush keeps trying to throw me into this pit but I keep parkouring off of her, trying desperately to stay out of her reach. While she circles the pit and we play a deadly game of keep away, the panel of bad guys tells me my crime.
They describe how I kept their agents away from the dynamite in the steerage of the Titanic; something I will admit to doing because I know it was right. What the panel explains is that their agents were going to use the dynamite to sever the two halves of the Titanic, thereby allowing the back half to remain afloat. It would not have stayed upright for very long, but thousands of people would have survived until the rescue boat arrived if the second half of the Titanic hadn't sunk. I hear what their saying and the truth of it sinks in: I have, inadvertently, killed all of those people.
That's it. That's the end. Crazy, no?
I'm hysterical, really I am. You should read my blog.
Anyway: yes, I had a dream totally about Titanic, the movie. Well, I guess about isn't the right word, since it was totally about me: but Titanic played a major role. This dream exists in two seperate parts, which were connected. You'll see. Here we go.
*Ahem*
PART ONE
In Which Olivia Lives Every Girl's Dream and Plays Rose DeWitt Bukater
The dream begins when I am crawling along the side of someone else's back porch. They live in one of those houses that line West Cliff in Santa Cruz: the big houses, with parts of their architecture built on cliff faces above the Pacific. This house has a wide, beautiful, deck that sticks out beyond the cliff edge and I am inching along the side of it, trying not to look down. I can see into the family room of this house and a friend of mine is there, with her husband and three children. (N.B. I do not, at this point, recognize this friend as anyone in my real life.) I start to pull myself up over the railing and the husband of my friend sees me outside. A jolt of recognition shakes me and he runs outside to me while I practically shout: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"
He pulls me on to the deck, touching my face and arms and hair, dazed, shaken, kissing me and saying, "Rose? You're alive? Rose? Rose?" We hold each other for a moment before his wife, my friend, comes out on to the back deck to say hello to me. We spring apart and my friend takes me into her bedroom, where she is folding laundry, so we can chat. She (I assume) has no idea about me and Jack, and thinks I am there to see her. She talks at me while she folds and her children sit in front of a TV, watching a show about bugs. I am totally not listening to her, but instead thinking about Jack just a hallway away. (N.B. At this point in the dream, this house has become my parents' house. I am sitting on my parents' bed [but not parents' in the dream, friend's in the dream] and Jack is in my parents' [his] living room.) At some point, the bugs start to crawl out of the TV and the children are overjoyed. I am totally grossed out and use it as an excuse to go to the living room.
Jack is sitting on the couch, watching TV but not actually watching it at all. I sit down on the opposite end of the couch, without saying anything. He doesn't look at me but says, with this terrible sadness in his voice, "Please don't sit so far away from me." I move closer to him, until our legs are touching. Then he reaches for me and I move so that I'm straddling him and we kiss. We kiss like this for a while, until I hear the sliding glass door to the porch open. His wife enters the room as we both stop kissing, turning to look at her. It is obvious that she has stood in the dark on the porch and watched us for some time before entering the room. I slowly get off of her husband's lap and she sits in the chair opposite. They pick up conversation and no one mentions what just happened. At all.
.JPG) |
| Me, right now. I SO need to be working and not blogging. |
PART TWO
In Which Olivia Lives Some Particular Men's Dream and Plays Jack Dawson
In this part of the dream, the Titanic has already hit the iceberg. The front half of the boat is totally submerged and pulling the second half of the boat upright, just before it snaps. I am in the submerged portion of the boat, on a very specific mission. I have either seen this movie before or played this video game before, so I know exactly who the bad guys are, what they want, and how to thwart them. I know that in the steerage level of the ship, there is a huge amount of dynamite that the bad guys need. I have a host of incredibly unhelpful and actually hindering characters with me, but I succeed in collecting all the keys the bad guys need and escaping with them. I lose my annoying entourage as more and more bad guys chase me. I am eluding them through this movement that is part swimming (we are in the underwater part of the Titanic) and part parkour, though I think maybe a better description of this is the flying in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (N.B. I have never had a dream where I fly proper, but I have had a lot of dreams where I fly in this jumping/pushing-off-of-things manner. This form of movement always requires some source of engery and I usually get it from bouncing off of walls and people. Like the way you play with a balloon to keep it in the air.)
I am parkour-ing away from these bad guys when I enter the dining room of the Titanic. I guess this is, somehow, not submerged because the room has tall, beautiful, windows instead of walls and is lit with soft sunlight. There are two people in this room: Sophia Bush and my real life not-so-much-friend, who we will call "Ruth" to protect her identity. I know immediately that Sophia Bush is the ultimate bad guy, and the person that has sent all the other goons that are chasing me. I also know, immediately, that Ruth was the wife in the first part of my dream, except instead of making out with her husband, in this dream I had been stealing her wife. (Played by a woman I work with, oddly enough). I assess the situation and decided I need to get out asap; both women will want to do me harm. I start to try to parkour away and Ruth catches up to me, pulling me down, offering to help me. I refer to her wife, and the pain I've caused her, and she just says, "This is life and death. That doesn't matter now."
I am so relieved, so I hug her and we start to parkour our way out of the room and away from Sophia Bush. We make it to an open window and are nearly home free. I push myself out the window and Ruth suddenly grabs my legs, throwing me to the floor at Sophia Bush's feet. "Here you go," she says. "Have him." (Remember, I'm Jack in this part of the dream.)
Sophia Bush takes me into this dark room, that seems to be above where the grand chandelier should be in the Titanic's dancing hall. Instead of the chandelier, there is a concave in the floor that is filled with thin wire netting. If someone were to fall on to it, the netting would give way and the fall-ee would plummet five or six stories to their death. All around this pit are a panel of old white men, there to judge me. Sophia Bush keeps trying to throw me into this pit but I keep parkouring off of her, trying desperately to stay out of her reach. While she circles the pit and we play a deadly game of keep away, the panel of bad guys tells me my crime.
They describe how I kept their agents away from the dynamite in the steerage of the Titanic; something I will admit to doing because I know it was right. What the panel explains is that their agents were going to use the dynamite to sever the two halves of the Titanic, thereby allowing the back half to remain afloat. It would not have stayed upright for very long, but thousands of people would have survived until the rescue boat arrived if the second half of the Titanic hadn't sunk. I hear what their saying and the truth of it sinks in: I have, inadvertently, killed all of those people.
That's it. That's the end. Crazy, no?
Sunday, February 10
Praying to Our Lady of Fifis
This a joke a friend of mine and I have.
Dan Savage refers to your feelings as your "fifis" and since both of us are fairly irreverant and non-religious, we've decided to adopt the good ol' fashioned Catholic system and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, I have a patron Saint: Our Lady of Fifis.
Unlike our Lady of Eternal Solitude or Endless Sorrows or something, our Lady of Fifis is pretty sassy. She likes to throw feelings at you in the middle of the work day, when you're suposed to be out having a good time, when you change the radio station in your car. She's got something that sets her apart, this not-always-benevolent-mystical-power woman. Sometimes you love 'er, sometimes you loathe 'er. She's a saint, she can take it.
Our Lady of Fifis has not been kind to me of late. She likes to throw me around a bit all the time, but these last two weeks have been more like a dryer on high heat. With, you know, some spikes also in the dryer. With me. Just to stab me. When they can.
So now I find myself with a shockingly typical Sunday night. I had the whole day off, I've gotten a little work done, and I am now looking ahead to the next week and what I need to do to prepare for it. I've done my grocery shopping, I've shaved my legs, I've even cleaned my room. Now I think I just need to take a deep breath and sit quietly for a while. I know that I'll probably be back in the dryer starting tomorrow morning, but tonight I'll just try to sit still.
(And hope that, eventually, she'll elect another poor sinner to pick on.)
Dan Savage refers to your feelings as your "fifis" and since both of us are fairly irreverant and non-religious, we've decided to adopt the good ol' fashioned Catholic system and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, I have a patron Saint: Our Lady of Fifis.
Unlike our Lady of Eternal Solitude or Endless Sorrows or something, our Lady of Fifis is pretty sassy. She likes to throw feelings at you in the middle of the work day, when you're suposed to be out having a good time, when you change the radio station in your car. She's got something that sets her apart, this not-always-benevolent-mystical-power woman. Sometimes you love 'er, sometimes you loathe 'er. She's a saint, she can take it.
Our Lady of Fifis has not been kind to me of late. She likes to throw me around a bit all the time, but these last two weeks have been more like a dryer on high heat. With, you know, some spikes also in the dryer. With me. Just to stab me. When they can.
So now I find myself with a shockingly typical Sunday night. I had the whole day off, I've gotten a little work done, and I am now looking ahead to the next week and what I need to do to prepare for it. I've done my grocery shopping, I've shaved my legs, I've even cleaned my room. Now I think I just need to take a deep breath and sit quietly for a while. I know that I'll probably be back in the dryer starting tomorrow morning, but tonight I'll just try to sit still.
(And hope that, eventually, she'll elect another poor sinner to pick on.)
Thursday, February 7
One of those nights
...where I actually had energy after rehearsal and no one to spend it on: the boys were working, the girls were in tech, one roommate was out and the other was cuddling her boyfriend. I've just been bopping around in my downstairs room for the last two hours, watching Carrie Underwood videos and feeling sassy.
I eventually made myself do my rehearsal report, but that just aggravated the situation. Now I want to brush my hair up all big and put on high heels and GO somewhere. This feels like I'm-a-teenager-trapped-at-my-parent's-house-and-I-want-to-go-daaaancing, not I'm-a-grown-woman-who-is-actually-pretty-sleep-deprived-and-should-rest.
These are the times I really miss having a gentleman caller.
Aaaand: I just remembered that there is whiskey in my closet.There is hope for the night yet. Carrie, sing on.
I eventually made myself do my rehearsal report, but that just aggravated the situation. Now I want to brush my hair up all big and put on high heels and GO somewhere. This feels like I'm-a-teenager-trapped-at-my-parent's-house-and-I-want-to-go-daaaancing, not I'm-a-grown-woman-who-is-actually-pretty-sleep-deprived-and-should-rest.
These are the times I really miss having a gentleman caller.
Aaaand: I just remembered that there is whiskey in my closet.There is hope for the night yet. Carrie, sing on.
Monday, February 4
In Summary
Ribbons of War closed today. Now it's just about returning some
cables and sending out some kickstarter incentives and we will be
D-O-N-E with this project. DONE.
(N.B: My mom used to have me yell the word "Done!" out loud when I finished a big project for school, starting when I was just a kid. I'd come in and show her my diorama or my big three page paper and she's smile and say, "Say the word." And I'd immediately yell, "DONE!"
I guess she foresaw the importance finishing things efficiently and thoroughly would play in my life. That, or she helped create this drive in me.)
The day has been up and down and all over the place, which is actually a fair description of my week. I was house sitting for a friend, Wednesday thru today, and I often under-rate how unsettling it can be to not go home for days on end. It was so nice to stay in this empty house and have some serious me time, but I'm glad I'm back in my own bed tonight.
I feel pretty drained by the week, and this day in particular. I have a new theory that if you're crying before 11a, the rest of your day is pretty fucked. I've tried and tested a few times these past two weeks. I want to make up some sort of "red sky at night, sailor's delight"-esque rhyme for it. To make it official, you know. Something like: "when morning tears brood, your whole day is screwed." Too many syllables right now, but I'll work on it.
I need to go to bed, because I am practically falling asleep on to my laptop. I guess I should make my "in summary" comment, but I have nothing particularly brilliant to say. I do know these things now:
- Sometimes, saying "no" is just another way of saying, "I"m actually really good at the job I have right now, and if you make me do more I will probably suck a little at both."
- Sometimes, you are made to feel small and irrational. You (I) should try hard not beat yourself for feeling those feelings, because it only makes you feel more irrational and even smaller.
- Sometimes, people care about you more than you think they do.
(N.B: My mom used to have me yell the word "Done!" out loud when I finished a big project for school, starting when I was just a kid. I'd come in and show her my diorama or my big three page paper and she's smile and say, "Say the word." And I'd immediately yell, "DONE!"
I guess she foresaw the importance finishing things efficiently and thoroughly would play in my life. That, or she helped create this drive in me.)
The day has been up and down and all over the place, which is actually a fair description of my week. I was house sitting for a friend, Wednesday thru today, and I often under-rate how unsettling it can be to not go home for days on end. It was so nice to stay in this empty house and have some serious me time, but I'm glad I'm back in my own bed tonight.
I feel pretty drained by the week, and this day in particular. I have a new theory that if you're crying before 11a, the rest of your day is pretty fucked. I've tried and tested a few times these past two weeks. I want to make up some sort of "red sky at night, sailor's delight"-esque rhyme for it. To make it official, you know. Something like: "when morning tears brood, your whole day is screwed." Too many syllables right now, but I'll work on it.
I need to go to bed, because I am practically falling asleep on to my laptop. I guess I should make my "in summary" comment, but I have nothing particularly brilliant to say. I do know these things now:
- Sometimes, saying "no" is just another way of saying, "I"m actually really good at the job I have right now, and if you make me do more I will probably suck a little at both."
- Sometimes, you are made to feel small and irrational. You (I) should try hard not beat yourself for feeling those feelings, because it only makes you feel more irrational and even smaller.
- Sometimes, people care about you more than you think they do.
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