mumblings

oh, hello blogspot eve...haven't seen you in a piece...

it may surprise you to know this, but i pray. i do (i almost wrote 'pry', but that's not what i'm really going for here - and i only do that if i must). every night before i fall asleep i pray. doesn't matter if i'm in my bed or a hotel or if i've passed out somewhere else entirely, i pray. hell, it doesn't really even matter to me that i'm not sure 'who' or 'what' hears my prayers, i pray. nightly. this is what i do.

generally speaking, it's the same thing every night and though the verbiage has changed, the meaning has been the same since college: safety, health, and happiness for the people i know and the people they know; good health and security and daily happiness for my grandparents specifically; and then if there's something else it gets tacked on at the end. generally these are 'asks'. the whole prayer is an ask, really. that i wish for the universe to keep my people (and the people of my people) well and happy and doing good stuff. and if i tell you 'you are in my thoughts and prayers' i damn well mean it.

this has worked out. i mean, everyone has their ups and downs, little (and sometimes big) moments of duress. you can't promise anything, of course, but it is my hope that my little prayer thoughts actually send little good things into the universe. and that these little good things somehow, magically work in the favor of those around me, and myself when i need it.

in that sense, it's sort of like that episode of friends (my god, i'm referencing friends) where phoebe says that there's no such thing as a truly charitable act since doing charity work or 'charitable' things always benefits the person doing them. and my little prayer thoughts help me sleep at night, so yeah...okay, she's right. it just doesn't feel like an asshole thing to do even if it is.

like i said, this has worked out. as sonny perdue prayed for rain (and gee golly, if we didn't get it in 2009), i have prayed for a little security, a little guidance on what it is i am doing and 'should' be doing. and i've gotten both. a lot of both, actually, in the last year.

i have been literally overwhelmed with things to do. in a really good way, since all of these things to do are things that i really enjoy doing. and all of them - in one way or another - have led to some element of self-discovery. this is good. of course, this also reinforces one of the main reasons i didn't want to go into acting back in the day: that self-improvement is the only improvement and it just seems like i should be improving the world at large instead of my own little bubble. that's another entry/round of therapy...

anyway - all of these opportunities, after receding slightly, have given me a moment to look around and feel really, really grateful. grateful for the opportunities themselves, but also to be surrounded by people who are willing to give me a chance on whatever. this is nice. it's really, really nice. and it is my belief that, eventually, i'll be able to help the people who have helped me in one way or another. that some of the generosity they've lavished on me will be shown to them ten-fold. this is my ideal version of the universe.

so i have tacked on a new permanent fixture to my nightly prayer: a thank you. generally to the universe (or whatever entity pulls the strings in the universe, if you prefer) for giving me stuff. stuff in terms of job/financial security (tenuous though it may be) and stuff in terms of whatever i get. because, really, you only get what you get and you can only change you, not what you get. that's it. and in an effort to be more proactively grateful, i am actively thanking the power(s) that be for whatever i get. and for having the brains to do whatever the hell i want with the various things given to me.

blah blah blah...

thank you. two little words. one big universe. Thank You for being so damn pretty, universe and for being so nice to me. be nice to everyone, okay? Okay.

good night.

letters make words

dear life,

i hate to disappoint you, but it looks as though we won't be talking again until march. it's not you...it's jsut that...

well, frankly, at this point i'm fairly certain that the 'you can have it all' NOW-ladies were not addressing theatre artists. no, as a matter of fact, i can't seem to have it all. i can have a career and earn money enough to provide basic necessities, which is fun and fulfilling in its own right, or i can have a life that i can't afford. there's no sharing.

sorry. just un-loading. it's not that i'm ungrateful - i'm not -it's just hard to be constantly working against a calendar/time and space, nu? Nu.

look, life, if i figure out how to pencil you in, i will. but in the meantime, can you just be happy that we're using our degree? like, daily and with the emphasis that we had in college obtaining said degree? can we? okay. thank you for that.

and enjoy Women + War.

evel

a series of open letters

dear life,

wow...it's been awhile, huh? well, guess what. i've had a series of startling revelations and apparently, i'm an actress. it's weird, i know.

what's that? oh, no...no i'm not 'an actress'...i'm just (at this moment in time) in demand to pretend to be other people. fictional people. more so than...well, ever, really.

it's super-bizarre no? yes. yes it is.

anyway, i wanted to let you know all that so that when you emerge from your theatre cocoon in a few months you're not totally blindsided by having to say things that are unscripted. and have real, actual interactions with people whom you've not seen in months and months. which reminds me...

gotta go, life. see you in january.

lurv
evel

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dear improv',

i miss you. can't wait to get back together.

lascivious wink...

hearts and stars,
evel

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dear brain,

i know...i know. i know that we've been stuck in windowless rooms with fake living spaces for a while. i know. and i know it's gonna be that way for a little while longer and i know you're getting a little stir crazy. it's okay. i still think you're great.

but, can we stop with the bizarre theatre-related anxiety dreams? can we? they're funny and all, great stories, but seriously - cut it out. i'd like to go back to all the other random shit that's equally funny and less prescient.

you're always with me. i like that about you.

gooo synapses!
evel

ps - please don't forget my lines!

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dear the tv show glee,

you suck. i hate you. i've watched two of you and you are really cloying and i am not a fan. also, why are all your female characters such grating stereotypes? and why doesn't jane lynch get more screen time/kudos for at least basing her stereotype in reality and making a really formidible and enjoyable villian?

and for that matter, why are my female friends putting up with this shit? stop watching bad tv. unless it's ANTM...

also, get a better sound editor - your musical numbers look like shit.

hates and skates,
evel

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dear dating,

i hate you, too. you're irritating.

grrrr
evel

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dear theatre,

thanks for giving me an excuse not to date. way to take a load off of me, no?

oh, and no thanks for reinforcing the concept of me being alone forever and never having enough money to retire/be financially independent.

and i reckon, thanks for smiling upon me the past few months.

i love you! i hate you!
evel

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dear vanity fair magazine,

look, i've never wanted to be famous...but now i'd really like to be interesting enough to be in you. in a non-scandalous way.

i'll work on it. but you guys are gonna have to lower your standards, okay? okay.

short-time reader, first time writer
evel

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dear fake chicken salad that i've been making and eating obsessively for the past week or so,

damn you're fine.

i want you inside me,
evel

i am dork forever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0&feature=player_embedded

this...this made me cry like a baby. like it was people i knew.

i don't know what's wrong with me.

i'm going to blame my period. can i do that? or is that too anti-fem?

i'm doing it anyway. i blame menstruation.

regardless...

what the hell is wrong with me?

archiving

so, i'm going back through OLD old blogs that i've kept and neglected for years, and i found this private entry on my old open diary (if you want to see me at the end of my college days and up until, like 2005-ish, maybe? Open Diary, Kermit the Hermit is where it's at). apparently i wrote this somewhere between my senior year of high school and freshman year of college. and at this point, i honestly have ZERO clue who it was abuot.

enjoy the oddity...

Sonnet 1
the king of my dreams has a song for me
a requiem for my heart, long since laid to rest.
i trudge and sway in rhythym wearily
for it is the one that kills me the best
his vibrato elixir rejuvenates my soul
as if all at once i am in his arms
then as the sun sets in a silvery ball
i know that in that dark i'll be safe from harm.
can the sun not rise, nor the flowers upturn?
how can i escape that beautiful land
and why do i feel such a heartfelt burn
if e'er he dare brush my hand
if you can hold on to the truth in the day
then send yourself to love's warm bay.

well, what the hell does that mean?

this week has totally kicked my ass. i don't say that a lot, but it 's true. i've been insanely busy.

so today, after completing 2/3 of my obligations, i took a nap. and i got the weirdest dream ever.

first, i was sitting in on a dress rehearsal of some kind for dad's. but it wasn't at the regular dad's space, it was at 'georgia state'. i put the quotes up because this is a georgia state building that's set WAY back on an isolated street with mostly warehouses and other industrial buildings. i have no clue why i was at this rehearsal, or what show it was (maybe i would eventually be a dresser?), nor do i even remember what was happening on the stage. i think i sat through notes and then went in the, apparently, cavernous back stage area to do something. but everywhere i turned i saw dudes wearing speedos and boxing headgear. and it wasn't *pretty* dudes in speedos - it was mostly really big dudes with really tiny butts. everyone was box shaped. and some of the dudes had icing of some kind on their butts. no clue.

and even in the dream it twigged me out, so i went to my car waaaaayyyy out in the back of the parking lot. i moved it and as i was going to leave i noticed some people blocking off the parking lot and getting ready to take money (they were a professor and students - that's when i knew it was gsu). so i decided to park next door and tell my people in the show 'i think they're using this building for something, we need to leave'. as i was walking back towards the building a group of my friends (who were, for the most part, not just 'dream friends' but actual friends that i have) were coming out of the building. so i got in one of their cars and thought they would take me to my car.

they didn't. they missed my turn (despite my protests) and kept driving in this industrial area until we hit a bowling alley. i no longer cared about my car, too much, as i enjoy bowling a god deal. so, we get into the alley, and the front part with the games looks like the inside of that creepy casino in alabama that i found so soul-crushingly depressing. but instead of slot machines it was ski-ball games that just were lit up like slot machines. anyway, one of my friends was like 'bowling, really?' and i said 'oh yeah! it's the most exciting game in the world!' and she said 'uh, bungee jumping?' which - even for a dream - came across as very 1990's sitcom sassy.

well, we get to like shoe rental/lane-claiming, and there's a big hallway that sort of slopes upward leading to the lanes in front of us. and as though to prove my claim of bowling's excitement, a 'champion' was in town. he was dressed in wranglers, cowboy boots, and a snap shirt and he was short and a little past middle age. anyway, he was rolling his autographed ball up the hallway, over and over again, trying to get a strike from the hall. and then a 'challenger' dressed identically, but taller and in a green shirt instead of brown-ish maroon started trying to roll his ball up the hallway. and then all of a sudden, this passel of western-themed hookers comes from NOWHERE and the challenger disappears, and the hookers give the champ the power to at least roll his ball out of sight up the highway.

once the hookers showed up, i started chewing bubble gum. like hubba-bubba or bubble-yum - big soft bubble gum. and for some reason, i decided four pieces of hubba-bubba in my mouth was a good idea. well, it was, until the hookers started talking to me. the madam (i suppose) asked me if i wanted to join them. first as a customer - i declined - and then as a new hooker - i also declined. but, i had 4 pieces of hubba-bubba in my mouth, so my words were all like 'mmph phrrm nphhh'. but they understood and moved on to keep cheering on the champ.

i returned to teh arcade area and a bunch of my girl friends were now watching this bizarre performance art 'rendition' of donkey kong. i remember thinking 'man i hope i'm getting this episode of the office on the dvr - two episodes in one week!'

so the donkey kong thing is happening and apparently that had something to do with masks - full head latex masks - being worn and shrinking on the dudes heads. this donkey kong act took 3 performers - one to be unmasked in the upstage/well-lit area moving side to side as donkey kong himself; one to sit in something that looked like a combination of a full 'strong-mad' suit and one of those swings that people hang from porches (that always looked vaugely cage-like to me) this performer would swing slowly back and forth in the downstage/poorly lit area off to one side a bit; and a third dude to jump around on the same level as the swinging guy, but on the other side of the stage. the third guy was the one whose mask would shrink. so, the donkey kong is taking place and jumping dude's mask shrinks almost off his head (it's like a little fez of a mask at this point), but rather than leave and be replaced, dude jumps on swinging strong-mad guy and just starts punching him, real slowly. i focused on the donkey kong performer and he had begun to move in slow motion and make noises like a broken machine.

i thought 'how can this be improvised?'

then one of my friends who i was sitting next to started to forcefully try and make out with me. i fought them off and woke up.

seriously, what in the fuck is that all about?

weird

so, i had therapy on thursday. i've been in therapy for jsut shy of 2 years, and it's been really, really helpful. and my therapist is this great little hippie woman who will occassionally refer me to the spirit animal guide. she's neeto. she has a glitter wall in her therapy room.

anyway, usually there's some sort of crisis for me to bring to her. either my neuroses are out of control and i'm freaking out about something, or i'm just generally depressed, or whathaveya, depending on what's going on in the rest of my life. and so, thursday, i was doing my little monthly inventory of 'things i should probably talk to my therapist about', and i came up totally empty. nothing. nada.

this is not usual. usually there's somethign, anything tp talk to her about, but no. things are good. in fact, i may go so far as to say things are great. really. i'm still dirt poor, but i've done enough finagleing and odd-jobbing that i'm okay this month, and am hopeful that i'll be okay next month, too. had a really nice audition on monday for a part that's not all yuck-yucks and comic relief. got invited to do a staged reading that once again is beyond the kinds of things on my resume, and i'm feeling really great about it. hopeful about an audition for a commercial that could potentially save me in a lot, lot, lot of ways. going to the parking lot carnival tomorrow after i see my parents and my grandma, and my sister is coming with me. baconfest is almost here, and i'm really digging teaching the outreach class. and i really like my classes at jackpie, too. and then, it was also a beautiful day, and it's finally starting to be spring here (i say finally knowing full well that the equinox was only yesterday, but let's face it, i'm ready for spring by jan 2). and i've been good at saving money and finding fun and cheap things to do. so i felt great going into therapy. and then my therapist said, 'well, let's not make an appointment for next month, you just call me when you need me. or if you start seeing someone so you can see him for longer than a month.'

wha?

wow. i'm not gonna go so far as to say 'i'm healed', but defnitely, it appears that i have made measurable, positive progress in my mental health. this is really cool. but then immediately after i left my therapist's i felt i should start making up problems so that i could make another appointment. luckily, i realized that was in and of itself crazy, and that i should be happy to save $80 a month.

so, yeah. it's weird. but in a really, really good way.

and that's that.