Well played, 2010. Well played.

This year so far has been a doozy, and it's barely more than halfway over. Two of my neighbors at Cooper Artist Housing have passed away (one of them I was fairly close to) and a...colleague at Pike Place Market.

Today one I found out that a friend from the Market, Graham Callan, is in an induced coma so that he can recover from a staph infection. Okay, tough. That sucks, it made me tear up, and I'm keeping him in my heart and thoughts. Graham is close to my own age (early-mid thirties) has a big heart and is an incredible artist -- I'm lucky enough to have not just a few of his prints, but an original of his that his now-wife, Pixie, sold to me for a song. It's beautiful: he's a gifted, dark, and nuanced poet and visual artist.

My sister called about an hour or so ago to tell me that my mother's lung cancer, which she had beat and was in remission, has metastasized to her brain. There is nothing to do but make her comfortable. She's got about three to six months.

My relationship to my mother is troubled at best: there are times when I'm fairly sure that my parents, though they have a good marriage and are great partners to one another, really should never have had children. She and I haven't spoken since 2006, almost exactly four years ago. I just don't know what to feel or do.

My heart is pounding, hard.

An opening, a big move, and life goes on.

Oi. What a summer! Okay, the quick lowdown:

I'm in a show! Come see it, please.

I'm makin' a movie! Well, a short, with Gina Robertson, who is a former teacher of mine and also a lovely friend. A whole bunch of folks from the old Northwest Actors Studio days are involved (Tim Brandt*, for one, who is like family), so it feels like a reunion. We are planning a fundraiser during October with a screening, hopefully, this December. More details on both to come.

I moved into Cooper Artist Housing! I live by myself (James and I are still together, but not living together for the moment) in a live/work artist studio above the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. I'm a Delridge Girl once again. My cat loves it, I loves it...what a beautiful decision. It was one of the other things that fell together for me this year. Not living in the basement of a Capitol Hill tenement can only be a good for my health.

I also have some (theater, feminist, experimental) stuff in the works with some girlfriends...watch this space. I'm so excited about it that I can barely breathe when I think on it.

I'm pregnant with a play. I can feel it kicking.

30 is a good year so far.


*Tim has become a really lovely actor. He was before, but he is coming into his own now.

Long time no blog.

I know, I've been derelict: mea culpa.

First of all, James is fine. We were both pretty shook by the whole ordeal, but no one is dead, only two parts fell off the bike (which we retrieved, one from a nice homeless guy that James gave all his money* to) which starts. James himself had a badly-sprained hand and some scrapes and a rude** awakening. I had awful anxiety for the next few days and James had his first-ever panic attack. I should bake him a cake or something.

I actually got so anxious that my neck, shoulders, and upper back broke out in hives. No shit. They're fading now. Also, I've been fighting an eye infection. I'm not too worried; I used to get them all the time (stress! graduation!), so I can deal fine.

Since then, I have had a streak of good luck. Who knew?

Go Team Me:

I felt able to audition for the first time since That Whole Thing Where I Got Screwed Over by My Theater***. It was for a Macbeth and I have a callback tomorrow.

I got a commission through Etsy. The client is awesome and will give me dollars. In return I will give her hours of my time spent poring over yarn and button samples. Oh, and knitting. Can't forget the knitting.

I got blogged about re: Etsy and how awesome I am and why haven't you bought something from me? Just kidding. I know that only dudes read my blog. Not that I couldn't make you something nice too, you know.

Kidding!

I actually got a freakin' interview for a day gig. An e-mail interview, but "there's a good chance for a fit". And they wanted writing samples (copy and client communication stuff). This was my first interview, literally, since the last time that I needed to interview for a job that I got, which was...oh...three years ago? And since December I've sent out my resume out dozens of times. Lordy, lordy.

In other creative news that may or may not happen:

I'm thinking of writing a novel. Hm.

[Male friend's name redacted] and I are seriously considering a podcast. Hey, we're both smart, we're both wonks/geeks, we're both kind of cranks (him more than me), and we both think that we could do it better. Some of the topics we're considering: geekery& women (so...much...material...), geekery and knitters (I'm also forming a blog on this!), Israel and the Middle East in general (yeah, we'll narrow that down for you), and fact that BSG is clearly a product of the Bush era while Babylon 5 is clearly a product of the Clinton era****. Oh, and [redacted]'s name is redacted because he doesn't want to use his real name, for various reasons. If you know me well, you probably know him, too, or could at least hazard a guess. He does not, for some reason, read my blog (and/or keeps forgetting that it exists), so it's probably not you.


*A dollar.

**Read: terrifying.

***There may be an satisfying coda to this in the next year or so. That's all I can really say right now. No, I am not going to blow up the theater, even though I have thought about it. Repeatedly.

****This is a real coversation that [redacted] and I have had, which may, in fact, count as the nerdiest thing I have ever in my life considered in this here my brain. Additionally, please do not talk to me about the series finale of BSG. I have not yet seen it for reasons and reasons and don't want it ruined for me any more than it already has been by virtue of spoiler-ish posting on Facebook. Curse you all.

"A man is like a deck of cards..."

"...sometimes you get a King, but most of the time they're all Jacks."

James crashed his bike about two hours ago.

Let's start with this: he's fine. Mostly. There's probably nothing broken.

It's his own fault, but that doesn't make me feel any better. He was drinking at his usual, the Twilight, and he rode home, not following the adage "two wheels, two drinks". At some point on Westlake (not far from our place, about a five minute drive away) he got confused by a car driving too close to him, took a turn wrong, and hit a road divider going about 40-50 mph. He flew about 25 feet, so we're lucky that he just had a sprained wrist and a few scrapes. And then he rode home. I got out of a late-night bath to find him wandering around our kitchen with fat, bleeding lips, so I cleaned him up and put him to bed, over his protests that he wasn't good enough for me -- which are usual when he's drunk, now even more so. He's just in a lot of pain* (and minor shock) now but resting.

I'm surprised by how freaked out I am. Also tired and hungry.

Probably more later.


*And he's in bed moaning, so I'm trying to decide if I go to bed or sleep out here on the couch. Both have tactical advantages.

Out of pills!

Well, I ran out of bupropion and don't immediately have the cash dollars to refill it my prescription...so if I'm not so communicative over the next few days, or refuse to get out of bed no matter what...well, it's just the faulty neurotransmitters talking.

My tummy feels funny.

So I joined Facebook after meaning to for pretty much ever. I mean, MySpace's code is awful, it's ugly and distracting, and all my "grown-up friends" are on FB. Anyway, Jinny "invited" me so I did.

Now it's setting off some disturbing social anxiety. Usually the only people who know where I am and what's up with me are James, Ian, and maybe my sister. Those are the only people that I've been communicating with on a regular basis.

Now I have coffee dates with a few dear friends who I haven't seen in a long time, so, no regrets. Just tummy rumblins and adrenal surges.

I. Hate. Being. Cold.

There is no heat at our house right now.

I want to go take a walk, but I can't, because I'm waiting for the guy to come make heat happen again. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on a heating pad and my fingers are seizing up from the cold and trying to knit, embroider, or write in the cold.

Me = miserable.

At least this time it's not about me.

Today I didn't leave the house because:

Climate change is irreversible.

Jobs are dying.

Arts funding is dying.*

...and I think I might have caught a cold from James' mom.


*Sorry; I'm too depressed to link anything. You can use Google. Do it yourself.

My work space.

James pointed out that the area surrounding my computer contained, at some point the other night, rice cakes, Midol, and Hennessy VSOP.

This is a fairly accurate assessment of my current mental state.

Update: for the record, it is a (nearly) full bottle of Hennessy and the rice cakes are caramel flavored.

Mood.

This post pretty much summed up my feelings re: the Obama Administration:

Things will piss me off about Obama, I'm sure, and some things will elate me: but the baseline is changed from pissed off to happy, and that's a huge shift.

Via Slog.

Yeah, but still.

Not much going on today. I am too lazy or too depressed or too unfocused to upload the picture of the gloves, although I did discover the difficulty inherent in a right-hand-dominant person taking a picture of a glove that in on one's own right hand.

My insomnia seems to peak during one of two times of the year. I think we're in that time now. Twice this week I have laid down to sleep and gotten up 45 minutes or so later. Last night I got to sleep on my second try, around 4:30am.

I have been writing some during these times, though. I've barely been able to put a sentence together in the last year but I've written a few pages of dialogue and notes and such. I have a couple things gestating; it's been too full of a year to be able to process much until now.

I think that I also, for the most part, hate theater people. This might be (probably is) nasty emotional detritus left over from this spring, but still*. Mr. ARS once told me that, in his opinion, I wasn't an actor at all, but a writer. Keep in mind that he never saw me act, although he had a great deal of respect for me as a writer if not as an actor (or a person). Anyway, I have an awful fear that, ultimately, this will prove true, and I am sick with the notion that I will never perform again. However, I have been toying with the idea that, maybe, I'm a solo artist, and that's all it is. I don't play well with others**. Not that I'm an utter social maladroit. Merely a partial one.

Or I could just be in a complete funk (read: depressed) on account of the recent bout with not leaving the house, which in turn is on account of the high winds and flooding rains of the past two days. It's dark all the time.

But I did get paid! I did a nice custom order for a lady in Chicago: an over-elbow pair of fingerless gauntlets (hand-dyed, fair-trade Suri alpaca, vintage buttons and ribbon) for her 22-year-old daughter's Hanukkah and received her check and thank-you note today. She purposefully overpaid me, as well. That made me feel a hell of a lot better; apparently I am not yet completely worthless in the eyes of American capitalism!

Man, I gotta ease up on myself.


*James maintains that "yeah, but still" is the ultimate end to an unwinnable argument, the final, desperate gambit when you know you have been proved wrong but are just too contrary to admit it. It is a common phrase in our household.

**This is an awful pun. I'm sorry. Completely unintentional.

James.

James is sitting right next to me, watching me write this. He's refused to read my blog until I write about him.

Look, here he is:

See him? He's right there.

He says to mention that he's really good at "doin' it". Doing what, I'm not sure, but he's great at it. Or so I'm told.

Now he's just told me to go to hell and that we're breaking up.

Anyway, I am deeply in love with this guy and now we're living together.

And that's the short update. Long update comes later. Everything is fabulous* for a change.

Mmkay, must dash.

*His choice of words. Over "fantastic".

"...not like we thought it was!"

Jinny and I went to American Apparel yesterday.

I sort of hate contemporary fashion. I mean, I love fashion and the expression oneself through what one wears, the sociology of fashion, if you will, but...wow. Gold disco leggings.

It's not that AA (ha!) doesn't have quality basics, but their most fashionable pret-a-porter lines are just atrocious. I do see a few people wearing such things around Capitol Hill, men and women, and they are ugly. And tasteless. Blech.

It was amazingly beautiful out yesterday and it still is today. There is unseasonably warm May weather lately, leading to a "Severe Weather Warning" -- use sunblock! drink water! -- and other tips for the perpetually sun-deprived.

It's 88 out right now. And sticky. Unusual heat even for August, let alone May.

The oppressive heat seems appropriate: Big Love closes tonight, and I feel oppressed, heavy. Otherwise, I've had such a spectacular week.

This week I went to a fundraiser for a show that a friend is involved in and barely got in the door before I saw one of my former castmates inside, clearly involved in the same piece. I dashed away in a panic, quickly walking to the nearest bus stop and trying to get my heart rate back down. On my way through Fremont in the warm dusk, I stopped inside a small bookstore. Books are comfy; I understand them and feel at home with them. If I have an attack in public, frequently I manage to get around books to calm down.

I didn't do much besides skim spines as I walked around until I reached the poetry section, where, on impulse, I grabbed a fat, comprehensive Rumi translation and opened the book at random, reading the first lines that I came upon.

I thought, Yes! It isn't like I thought it was!

And I went back to find old friends, make new ones, and network. I felt powerful for the first time in a month.

When you eventually see through the veils to
how things really are, you will keep saying
again and again, "This is certainly not like
we thought it was!"

And now, because I owe the rest of you all one:

I just wrote about 3/4 of a great blog about how much my really good male friends rule, as an adjunct to my "men can fuck themselves" blog. It all got accidentally deleted. Poop. I don't want to re-write it. I'm going to give you the truncated version now, in which I give some specific shout-outs to a few of the wonderful men in my life:

My brother-in-law, Kenneth, whose long-suffering patience with my sister and I does not go unnoticed, and my nephew, Roscoe, aged 3 and 1/2. Little boy hugs for a magical auntie are a good reason to get up in the morning.

My uncle Tim and cousin Dave, who would very much like it if I came to visit for a long, long time in New Zealand.

Jared, the first man after I got outside the hospital to make me feel like a normal person, not a fragile thing in need of being saved. He once told me You'll be fucked up forever, but you won't always be fucked up. Which makes perfect sense.

My friend Devon in DC, who takes the time to respectfully pray for me and check in on me in a concerned (but not smothering!) manner even though he's about to go on the biggest adventure of his life: fatherhood. I'll be an auntie again!

E***, the lovely man in Paris who I miss so much. Plane tickets out there are not too expensive...unlike Wellington...

J-romy, the best ex-boyfriend ever. I'm sure glad that hurricane didn't kill him.

My mentor, Tony Curry, the gayest straight man in Seattle and a wonderful friend and artist.

And, finally, the man who indirectly inspired my tirade: Anthony.

Normally, I give the men I date cute little nicknames like "Mr. Grey" or "Very Nice Rock Star". I don't particularly like to be known for the men I have sex with, because I like sex and, while many of these men (and women, when that happens) are interesting, fun people, I wouldn't describe myself as serious about any of them. None of them are interested in being serious with anyone and are rarely warm people. Fun is different than loving.

Anthony is the first one who deserves to have a name. He is the first man that I've had a sexual relationship with in a long time who treats me simply as human. A female human, to be sure, because there is a difference, but still. He was a happy accident, as I haven't been in the mood to date around lately. I haven't felt like I had anything to offer anyone, and besides, how do you bring up mental illness casually in a date setting?

Them: ...and so I got the Belltown condo after I got back from Oslo where I was honored with the Nobel in Literature -- don't you just love Norway? -- but I still mostly live in the New York townhouse. And then I got shortlisted for the Booker while I was volunteering at an AIDS clinic in South Africa, but that was before I rescued those orphans from that downed prop plane in Bolivia...and what about you? What do you do? Would you like another martini? My treat.

Me: ...uh...I make stuff...and noise...you don't happen to have a Xanax, do you?

Right? What do you say?

When Anthony and I met neither of us were looking for anything, so we kept upping the ante trying to scare the other off.

Me: You should know that I'm mentally ill and I refuse to lie about it.

Anthony: Okay. I've been arrested seven times. No convictions, but once was for inciting a riot.

Me: Whatever. I was hospitalized twice for suicidal ideation.

Anthony: You know, I was in rehab for that once. Well, that and heroin. I mean, I tried to overdose...it was thing whole thing, see, I was nineteen...

Me: Well, I was in this December...

It went on like that all night the first time we met. I guess you're not supposed to tell the other person all your faults up front, but I find it pays off in the long run.

I find him utterly remarkable: sensate, strong, masculine, loving, and brutally honest, Anthony is very much a man who lets me be true to myself, does not try to control me, and would not allow me to control him. His laugh, I think, is how I knew that I could trust him: I'm so tired of dating or being friends with men who can't laugh. They give you a tight-lipped smile and chuckle every so often, but hardly ever do they let loose with a giant belly laugh. I find that if a person can't laugh and feel that limitless joy, he or she can't grieve, either, and are either shallow or always slightly sad yet frightened of their own tears. And if they can't face their own pain, maybe they can't face the pain of others. When you love a person, you have to love their sorrow as much as you love their joy.

The fact is, meeting Anthony gave me a new perspective. He's the first person besides my sister and my therapist to tell me that I'm handling my illness well, and that he admires me and is proud of me for it. He's one of the only men to treat me like a regular person instead of an invalid, not like I have --SHHHH -- CANCER. My girlfriends* like Patricia and Jinny and Becky get where I'm coming from, because they've been where I've been, and it's no big deal. But these men in my life? Forget them for the clueless fucks they are...until I had this good person who happened to be a man treat me as the strong woman that I knew I was and not the sickly girl that the rest of them saw.

So...yes, Virginia, there are spectacular and true men who can be concerned and caring for women without being condescending, patriarchal assholes with oedipal complexes. And I know the difference between the two when I encounter them. It has nothing to do with owning a dick, just being a dick. We're all people, just trying to make it in the world, but I want to make it on my own with no one trying to live my life for me. So if you were a man who felt wrongly targeted by my last blog...well, for a start, you probably didn't read it very carefully. I'm sorry if you took the wrong message away from it. Yet this is my personal forum, where I am allowed to have strong feelings on many subjects and this one has a context that I have yet to include here. If you knew me well then you'd know that I'm far too soft-hearted to stay very angry for long unless you personally hurt me very badly. So I'm not sorry that I wrote it, and I'm not sorry that I advocate for women's rights, and I urge you to wait until I write about the context to judge my anger.

Or, call or write me yourself.

*This is not to say that I haven't met discrimination -- because what I was talking about, ultimately, is discrimination -- from women, but it tends to be of a much different type. Perhaps I'll blog about that next.

Go. Away.

I don't know how it happened, but I've started to hate men.

And by men I mean you, over there, with the Y chromosome. All of you, save for maybe 5 or 6 of you. You're probably also white and have never been diagnosed as mentally ill. But you might have; what do I know?

I'm sick of all of you "worrying" about me. I'm sick of you thinking that you know what's best for me. I'm sick of you trying to control me. Sick of the snide remarks about my choices in life: sexual, chemical, financial, or emotional. These things are not your business.

I'm tired of hearing that I need to do this, that, or the other. I can no longer stand having to listen to your dramatic sighs and proselytizing. I don't want you to keep tabs on me. I'm an adult and I am capable of taking care of myself. I've probably been doing it longer than you have. If I need something, anything, from you, I'm completely capable of asking for it. Don't assume.

I don't care if you haven't realized that you're acting this way or not. Just go away until you know how to stop. I'm that tired of it. I have been listening to all of this for years and I bought into it until recently. Now I can't believe that I ever tolerated it in the first place.

Get a life.

Stop judging me.

I'm not singling anyone out: it's all of you unless you know otherwise or I haven't seen you in so long that it doesn't matter.

Because it bears repeating, stop judging me.

Yes, you are.

Few of the women in my life are doing this because they have (surprise, surprise) almost universally been where I have been. So they don't judge. They don't patronize. Most importantly, they don't treat me as fragile or a freak, the way you do. They get it. It should come as no shock that the majority of diagnoses for personality disorders are for women. That statistics says something important about the state of health care in this and other countries.

I wouldn't have believed this gender split if I weren't living it.

You know, I've really tried not to feel this way. But the overwhelming evidence that you all feel that you can run around deciding who and what I am -- again, all of you: how can it be all of you? -- is astounding. I mean, really, how did you get such a feeling of entitlement? You have no qualifications in regards to any medical diagnosis that I might have and the rest is simply none of your concern. Yet you are over-concerned with my life and well-being, to a disturbing, codependent level.

Your "help" is making things worse. Trust me. If you feel the need to talk about how much I should be listening to you and your ideas about how I run my life, call a professional. It's their job, not mine. My life is none of your business unless I make it such.

I'm not currently interested in apologies, either. Later on, when I've cooled off, sure. For right now, just go away.

Did I mention?

I'm adjusting to new meds, too. But I think they're going to put me on lithium along with the citalopram...oy...

Empty rings around your heart.

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

I was fired.

I'm not in the show.

It was hard.

It is hard.

Very, very hard.

And I don't know how to talk about it.

And I'm not far enough away from it not to be angry.

But I think it was wrong.

And now we ride the circus wheel
With your dark brother wrapped in white
Says it was good to be alive
But now he rides a comet's flame
And won't be coming back again
The Earth looks better from a star
That's right above from where you are
He didn't mean to make you cry
With sparks that ring and bullets fly
On empty rings around your heart
The world just screams and falls apart

But now we must pick up every piece
Of the life we used to love
Just to keep ourselves
At least enough to carry on

Why does my latte taste like the ocean?

I have wept in more coffee shops in the last year than the rest of my life combined.

Jake and I met at a Starbucks during lunch and talked about the possibility of me leaving the show. Today, a week before Big Love opens.

There isn't anyone to blame: I can barely function in rehearsal and Jake doesn't know how to tell me what I need to do to perform well. We're both at a loss.

It was strange to think, when I got cast, Oh, well, now I have to live until at least halfway through May. I can't let anyone down. But I'm still letting people down. I've never felt like I was doing a bad job before in a show, but I can't seem to get a handle on this character. And not just any character, the pivotal character of the show, the one on whom the entire spine of the play gently balances. I had a moment last night when I just cried out, sobbing in the stairwell of my theater, What am I doing? I must be such an idiot for thinking I could do this at all! Why am I here? Why don't I function properly inside, like other people? Why can't it make sense? Why, why, why?

It's exhausting, this constant crisis.

I'm meeting with Jake and Lou to work on whatever needs to be worked tonight. If I have to, I'll do it every night until we open.

I think I'd like to sleep a little now.

All this talk of love.

Sorry that I haven't posted more lately.

I'm in a show right now. Big Love.

I'm finding that this is the most difficult rehearsal process I've ever been through. My meds have been adjusted -- a higher dose -- and, after three months, I'm still anxious and rage-filled over nothing, shadows. If it doesn't work, I think they're putting me on Lithium, which scares me.

All I do is argue in rehearsal. Mostly with Jake, who is directing. Arguing with your director is one of the most unprofessional things an actor can do and I would have been fired by now if he wasn't my friend and didn't know what I was going through. Still, I have no answers to make it better and neither does he. Last night I cried because I got so frightened of getting hurt during a physical scene that I help things up for ten minutes. Then Jake and I went in the hall and argued more and I suddenly decided that I should never act again. Finally, Lou, our stage manager came back and held me for a bit and said that she understood everything that I was going through.

And then I got my face on and did a run-through for promo photos.

In the middle of all this, I met someone. I'll tell that story in another installment...

I'm feeling mighty lonesome
Haven't slept a wink
I walk the floor and watch that door
And in between I drink
Black coffee
Love's a hand me down brew
I've never know a Sunday
In this weekday room

I'm talking to the shadows
from 1 o'clock til 4
And lord, how slow the moments go
When all I do is pour
Black coffee
Since the blues caught my eye
I'm hanging out on Monday
My Sunday dreams to dry

Now a man is born to go a lovin'
A woman's born to weep and fret
To stay at home and tend her oven
And drown her past regrets
In coffee and cigarettes

I'm moaning all the morning
and mourning all the night
And in between it's nicotine
And not much heart to fight
Black coffee
Feelin' low as the ground
It's driving me crazy just waiting for my baby
To maybe come around... around
I'm waiting for my baby
To maybe come around

My nerves have gone to pieces
My hair is turning gray
All I do is drink black coffee
Since my man's gone away

Chicks before dicks.

Okay, so what I really have to do is spend more time with my girls.

I worked at the theater all this weekend helping Jake get stuff ready for tech week and then I went and hung out with Jinny and her son Storm Saturday night. Jinny and I had drinks in the kitchen and in the morning I came back and made brunch for the three of us. I'm still there right now, just chilling out, Sunday-style.

Life is so much better after having a good long vent with your lady friends. I needed this: I needed to get out of my head, forget about boys, and loosen up a bit. I guess I'm not breaking up with Balagan right now, either. I think we just had a weekend of make-up sex: I made curtains, moved flats, cleaned the Cabaret, put lamps and lumber in storage, stripped wires wearing a hand-knit angora sweater, and got down and dirty and covered in theater filth. And then I had a wonderful night.

The sun has come out today.

I love a good Sunday afternoon.