My Own Craziness.

I watched an episode of House tonight where the patient kept a blog detailing every aspect of her life. The reason she started the blog, she explained, was because it was easier to share her feelings and thoughts when there wasn't a face attached. She asked Dr. Chase what his conversations were like with Cameron before they broke up...Was it just where they would go to dinner or how their days were or was it something meaningful? Later in the episode, her husband accused the blog of becoming like a performance and that his wife was writing to please her audience of readers.

I felt this strange mix of emotions for this fictional dying woman. And then I felt a strange mix of emotions for my dear blog here. I suppose that it is pretty apparent that I don't write about specifics here. You never really get a daily dose in the life or a complete anecdote of an incident. All of this is analysis, the story has been stripped to the morals and the themes and then bolstered with paragraphs of wordy diatribes that further obscure the details of the event that made me sit down and write. This approach to writing is nothing new and is a hallmark of many of my sophomore attempts to write a short story or memoir for creative writing class. I love details and deep thoughts but I cannot bring myself to detail an event or tell a reader what exactly happened. Perhaps I am preventing myself from being my own Holden Caulfield, the unreliable narrator English teachers warned me about in high school.

While some writers reserve their strangely analytical thought processes to remain in print format, I've earned myself the title of "delver". It's a hat I don't think I should wear as proudly as I do. I love to think aloud with people and to ask questions to get them to a revelation or myself to one. I like to think that there is a reason for everything and that that reason is influenced by a multitude of other nitty gritty things that I should be able to piece together. But this exploratory process is only done well with best friends...the kinds that doesn't judge you or look at you like your crazy, they may call you out but never tell you to stop the madness. So, yes, dying fictional patient who writes a blog but didn't die, my last conversation with my ex-nothing was indeed meaningful.

As for the writing for an audience thing, this is my Off Off Off Off Off Broadway in corn pasture Iowa way of sharing my thoughts. If I am writing solely to shed myself of the burden of my pent up psychosis, I type in this word document that is merely a collection of free writes. I pound out a page of thoughts, unfiltered words and cruise through pains and joys and whatever else told me to open that damn file. Speaking of which, I think my subconscious agrees that this should have been a free write because I have accidentally opened Word about five times since I started writing this.

I'm not sure what this entry says about me or what this blog as a whole says about me as a member of the blogging society. I'm also not sure what mind boggling thoughts are keeping me from falling asleep right now but I do know, beyond reasonable doubt that blogging is just boggling with the l moved.

Bangs, Baubles and Bumpers.

The woman who changes her hair is ready to change her life

- Coco Chanel

The night before we all left CLOC, my friend Brynn decided to cut her bangs. Embracing the wonderful state of limbo Brynny was about to find herself in as she reentered reality, measures were taken to show that she was indeed ready to face the changes ahead. Sometimes when we are faced with the possibility of change in our lives, an uncontrollable approaching switch in routine, we decide to change something that we are in control of. It's as if the process we fear the most is less scary if we are in control of some aspect of it. Brynn entered into a world of unknowns and fill in the blanks with positively fierce bangs. On a side note, for all of you non-CLOC kids, Brynn faced this monumental change with total and utter grace. She never once said that she was sure of anything but it never seemed life there was something she couldn't handle if it came her way. Brynn's strength and courage throughout the season and especially on this subject was one that I admired greatly. I hope the best for her and can't imagine anything less for such a wonderful human being.

My version of the hair transformation (I've beaten this mop up over the past months) was to clean the Batmobile inside and out. The thing that takes the most abuse and that I love so much never really gets my tender love and care. Today, impelled by some long dormant inner conscience, I decided to clean my car. If you know me and that janky mobile at all, you know the extent of this process and what a feat it was for me to clean of my own free will. With each cleaning measure it became more clear that if I could clean the Batmobile I could handle anything next year was to bring. The car, coming with me to Cincinnati for the first time, is a clean slate...she's still got all of the dents of my adolescence, the scarpes of my careless summer adventures but now she's all TLC's (with toothbrush cleaned wheels even) and ready for new shenanigans. I have no idea what's to come next year...I have no idea what I want to do as a career...I'm toying with about 800 bad ideas for both scenarios and all I know is that Brynn's bangs, my clean car and Coco Chanel say that anything is possible.

A Number.

I've decided that age is a very transient phenomenon. Our state of mind, our capacity to handle stress and change, our emotional responses to scenarios, all defining markers of a certain age, change drastically in every day life. There are so many times when I feel as though every fiber of my being is trying to be another age. I always feel so defined by my age and yet I hardly ever act 19. I suppose there are moments when I am embodying what it means to be a 19 year old, going off for her sophomore year of college but I hardly ever think to myself "You are being such a 19 year old right now." I can be five years old or twelve or fourty-two or really anywhere in between.

Age is a mental state. When you watch your best friend leave and feel alone, scared, sad and just overall want to throw a tempertantrum to get them back, you are 5 again. You're back to a time when screaming and crying either got you what you wanted or kept you amused until you forgot what hurt you and found somewhere else to focus your attention. When you send text messages to a friend in the room about another friend in the room, you are 14 again. You're back to a time when you are judgy just for the sake of being so and you are insecure enough to pick on everyone to make sure that you weren't the one getting picked on. When you're leaving childhood home and feeling a pang of lose, you are 18 again. You're back to a time when the real world was just some fantastical place that you wanted so desperately to be a part of only to realize that growing up meant leaving things and people behind.

So maybe age is a relapse into former mental states ingrained in you. Maybe its just you, the you now, deciding that the best way to handle what you are facing is to return to some familiar way of dealing. And perhaps, age is an addition formula. Each year adds to you and who you will become.

In each 19 year old, there is a five year old and a twelve year old and all those years in between.

Almost Like Being in Love.

As months and shows come to pass here at CLOC, this delusional way of life sets further into our psyche and habits. What at first seemed like an impossibly hectic schedule has become second nature to us. The friends we've made within the confines of this company have effortlessly become as close to us as those friends we've known exponentially longer. I think that by condensing a process that most of us know to take many more days than what we're given here makes the reality created here consume us far quicker and with an increased emotional intensity unmatched by any I've been a part of. We find ourselves receding deeper and deeper into the realm of CLOCadoon, a mysterious land that exists only for 9 shows, because trying to handle the facts of the real world on top of the stressors here feels impossible in the moment.

But reality has a strange way of rearing its head even in the recluse of CLOCadoon. It's funny how it works. I'm thinking about how much I wish I had a coffeemaker here and then I think about having one in my apartment next year, apartment with no furnishing, classes I need books for, friends who think I am dead...And down comes the carefully built Jenga tower protecting my fictional reality here. CLOC is just a summer and when I get out of here, I'm back in my real life, the life I've been utterly neglecting here in favor of emotional stability.

As the Jenga facade crumbles, one starts to question the newly exposed fantastical reality. The rosy colored CLOC glasses get removed, I don my all too real jade specs and objectively look at CLOCadoon as one would a travel brochure. I see me being unmistakably myself and being friends with people who are really and truly friends I value outside and inside of fictional lands.

I feel confronted with the fact that CLOCadoon will disappear into the mist and fog but the lessons I've learned and the people I've become close to will always be a part of my real world.

Every chapter of life, place you've lived, school you've been to, is its own mysterious land that arises only for a certain period of time. It will disappear and the people involved might fade with it but what matters is that it happened and served to change you and your 'real world'.

Punctuated Thus.

I made a very bold statement today. It went something like, “I am truly myself here” and just as soon as the words fell so effortlessly from my lips I started to weigh the gravity of the sentence. What does it mean to be truly one’s self? What does it feel like to know, entirely, who you are? Is knowing who you are meaning that you feel comfortable with the unknowns of your life and of your personality or is knowing being entirely sure? Do I know when I am truly myself or is that a case made by those around me?

As these questions swirled in my conscience, I started to think about all of the other times I’ve said that phrase. Each time was in a different scenario, in a different time of my life, in a different place entirely and I was almost entirely different every single time but each time I said, with certainty mind you, that I was myself.

I think that admitting that you are truly yourself at certain points in your life is a way to tabulate the portions of yourself that you have become comfortable with and have enough confidence to admit that you appreciate about who you are. Each of the times I said I was myself came as a marked decision that I was comfortable in the skin I was wearing at that moment. This year alone, I’ve said that loaded statement four times. The first time was at the beginning of the school year as I became friends with the CCM girls. That time, I was myself, the artist. The next time was when I became very close to two friends and considered them my best friends. That time, I was myself, feeling, emotional, dramatic. The third time, I was changing my major and accepting the fact that I care too much and am too weak to ever make it in the world of theater or stage management. That time, I was myself, the empathetic and unsure. This time, I am being goofy and five and not trying to hide any of my oddities to please people who are older than me. I am myself, the responsible child.

So each time we make the claim that we are entirely ourselves, we should consider ourselves self confident, if only for even that moment. Because for one small sentence, we are saying that we are proud to be living the life we are, exactly how we are. We human beings change, along with most other things in this world, and therefore the proclamation is saying that in this moment, this me is who I want to be and I am beautiful for it.

I can say the afore said because of the people I have met here at CLOC and how wonderful the entire company has been to work with. There is no reason I feel as though I need to be anyone other than who I am at this very point in my life. That is the greatest gift I can ask for from any group of people and artists.

Accustomed to My Face.

There is something about playing the role of Eliza Doolittle that makes men fall in love with you. Professor Higgins even warns the audience at the beginning of My Fair Lady by saying "by the time I'm finished with you, there will be men falling for you in droves." Little did he know, he would be one of the masses. But is the reason the male sex flips for the actresses who play this character all a by product of Higgins' creation or are there other forces at play with this cockney turned princess?

First and foremost, there is the character Eliza Doolittle herself. A strong-minded low class flower girl, Eliza originally takes speech lessons in order to better herself and her lot in life. But as the lessons continue, Eliza becomes malleable and meek in order to play the role of the Professor's lady. The classic enjenue changing for her leading man in order to illicit his affection. All too soon, however, Eliza realizes that regardless of how much she changes for the Professor, he cannot show her genuine affection. Lady Eliza is now colored by her strong cockney sense of self and independence. There is something very attractive in that transformation from baudy self-assured feminist (in a manner) to a strong-willed by socially attune lady. Overt cries for women's rights and treatment tend to scare men off whereas strong, confident women who believe in a certain moral system are valued by men who are not looking for a Stepford Wife.

Another character plays a vital role in this affinity for Ms. Doolittle because of his stubborn inability to accept his feelings for her. Professor Higgins, modern literature's narcissist, reminds men to treat a woman that matters to you like she matters to you. The male sex can sympathize with Higgins' inability to express emotions and yet feels a desire to protect Eliza from a man who is hurting her. Men wants women who love them and try to do things that please them but they also want women who are sure in themselves...or at least that's what I've observed...

That all explains why I believe men fall in love with the role of Eliza but what I am claiming here is that this affinity goes beyond the character and to the actress playing the part. Acting, to me, involves assuming the plight of your character to some degree. In the case of Eliza, one must be willing to undergo the rollercoaster of emotions toward self-confidence that the audience witnesses on stage every night. The by product of internalizing this transformation often becomes realizing that it is present in one's self. Most little girls want to be princesses and Eliza ends up realizing that she has been a princess all along, a self confident and strongly independent princess.

This analysis fails to address the role money and class play in Eliza's transformation as well as which men are attracted to this type of woman. Someday in a classroom, I'll have my students do a similar investigation but until then, I am missing a very large segment of Guys and Dolls blocking...

Bear Necessities.

Last night, well, this morning if we are acknowledging the passing of days, I finally sat down in my bed and wrote. It was 1am and I had just finished balling my eyes out. I think that part of the reason I cried so desperately was because I had hadn't had the chance to write for over a week while here at CLOC. I had been thinking and allowing my observations and feelings to flood my overtired brain until they finally claimed my sanity and I broke down into tears.

There has to be a million and half reasons why I was balling last night. One of them had to have been how overtired I was. I am running myself into the ground here. I can feel it in my body but most importantly I can feel it in my soul, the little part of me that needs moments of time to herself to type letters or blog entries, to read, to refresh myself. I've been moving at a pace that is so constructive for how I work but so detrimental to me as a human being. I can feel my ability to support all of my actors slipping between my fingers as the hours of work pile up.

Another reason I was crying is because I am so done with stage management because I feel so lonely. I think that that was the indicator during Peter Pan that I should not be in this field. During that production, I felt the weight of what it meant to be ostracized from the group of people you were working with. As CCM and my real world experiences started to build, the gap between me and the companies grew. And now, with all of that behind me and all of this CLOC stuff in front of me, I feel so alone and I cannot imagine doing this for the rest of my life. You have to be in a role of power and a role of respect and yet you need to be reachable by the people you are working with and yet you need to be working hours that doesn’t allow you to foster any social bonds. Here is where stage management fucks you over. I am way too dramatic and way too much of a softy for this theatrical world. I don’t have the fighting spirit that Heidi does. I cannot ever put the needs of a show in front of the needs of my cast members. At the core of my being as a human, I believe that the most important thing is for people to feel loved and respected. I think that theater tends to prize the product whereas teaching certainly prizes the process. I mean, of course, you have all of these schools that need to have acceptable test scores to keep funding and such but if you are a really good teacher you can get those scores through a process that focuses on the child. I know that this is going to be a very hard career choice and I know that I will make no money but I really, honestly, think that this is where I need to be and what I need to be doing. I need to be a teacher because I want to change the lives of children and make them feel this whole person thing. It’s something that isn’t valued when instilled in adults or people my age. That’s why me as a stage manager wouldn’t carry over into the real, professional world. I am built to work with people that I can make feel warm, fuzzy and loved.

Here I toe that line between professional theater and an opportunity for me to make these friends that I can make feel like real people who are loved and cherished for all of their talents. If nothing else, I love them for who they are and what they do and their happiness and well being will always mean more to me than the quality of the show we put on that god damn stage.

Well, dear CLOC and stage management, this writer is not dead yet. Actually, she just needed some material to stock pile and now she will be back full force. Typing in the middle of the night with no restraints, just flying fingers with absolutely no purpose but to empty this giant pit of emotions that is my brain and conscience.