So, this past weekend I did seven/24 VI, the 24 hour theater circus that The Tin Ceiling puts on every year. At 8 p.m. on Friday, 14 writers arrived at the Strasser’s gigantic and beautiful house. There, we were paired off to write 10-minute plays. At the same time, seven directors were auditioning actors over at the Theater at St. John’s. About 8 o’clock the next morning, the directors were presented with our scripts and began to cast and call actors.
Sounds simple, non?
Yeah, right. Nothing like 14 insecure lunatics let loose in pairs to try to assemble some vaguely entertaining narrative fueled only by exhaustion, booze, caffeine, and French onion dip. Further, the writers are constructing plays with absolutely no idea who might be available to act in them; while back at the ranch the directors are evaluating actors with no clue as to what they might need for their play. Figure in the vagaries of potential writer’s block and the ever-present possibility that a writing team might devolve into a sullen standoff, and the project begins with all the needed ingredients for disaster. And this is even before the actors try to memorize 10 minutes of dialogue and blocking over the course of a long day in a largely un-air-conditioned building.
Good times, my friend, good times.
Despite all that, seven/24 is an amazing experience. I understand that over the years there have been some disasters—bad plays or bad actors or writer shortages—but generally when all is said and done some amazing things happen. While I do not know that I would count my seven/24 work this year as an unqualified success, I think it went well overall.
This was the second year I wrote for show. My writing partner was the Boy, which absolutely floored the both of us since it is most unlike Robert the Producer to pair up couples to write. It could have gone one of two ways. Either the Boy and I were going to work smoothly and well, or we were going to wind up wanting to participate in a murder/suicide by the end of the night. I am pleased, and unsurprised, that it was the former. Our idea came early and the writing went smoothly. We finished at 2, which is practically early in seven/24 terms.
I was, and remain, extremely happy with how our script turned out. I have often complained of late that so very many plays tend to be so very, very male. They have male characters pursuing male interests and being compelling and interesting while women are mothers or love interests or pawns. Ours was a very, very female play.
I would like to take another opportunity to give a hearty thanks to god for our director and our actors. Had we not had an awesome female lead, our play would have slurped bilgewater and the baby Jesus would have cried. Who am I kidding? I’m sure our play made the baby Jesus cry anyway, but I thought it was lovely.
I was able to put my finger this year on a phenomenon that affected me last year as well. Writing something and anticipating its performance fills me with dread. All day, I just wanted to lock myself in the ladies room and cry my eyes out. I felt exactly the same last year, and the only thing both events had in common was that I had participated in the writing of something that was going to be performed. In front of people. Who were, you know, alive.
This year I exasperated the problem by getting a bit more personal with the work. When all was said and done it sort of turned into a “break your own femur and suck out the marrow” thing. I asked the Boy, a far more prolific and talented writer than I, if I could look forward to this part getting easier. “Nope,” he responds brightly.
Gotta love a man who tells the truth.
Sadly, my involvement with the production did not end with saving our script to the designated seven/24 flash drive. Oh no, that would be too fucking simple. After falling asleep at 4 a.m., I got a call at about 9:30. It was my inestimable future roommate. “Can you act?” she asks. Sure. Why the fuck not?
Well. I’ll tell you why the fuck not. Just because one was up writing until the wee hours and lacks much in the way of recent theater experience DOES NOT, contrary to what one might expect, mean that one will get a small part. Sometimes, the vagaries of seven/24 being what they are, it just means one is going to play an old lady in a muumuu for 10 minutes or so.
Zombie Killer and the incomparable Becky wrote a terrifically clever and funny play about a dysfunctional mother and son relationship and time travel, but, as I pointed out to Chris late in the evening after several cocktails, it had so many goddamned words. So. Many. Words. I never got those fucking lines anywhere near to cold. When all was said and done, I’m mostly happy with how the show turned out, but I still worry I didn’t do the script justice.
So. Picture this if you will. Me rehearsing and blanking on, oh, about every other line. I am not wearing makeup, which is fine because I haven’t brushed my hair either. I’m sweating and I suspect I’m starting to smell. I woke up with an “Oh my god I wrote a play” feeling of dread, and added to that a sense of “Oh my GOD I’m going to fuck up someone else’s play.” I think my fellow actors hated me before all was said and done, and frankly, I don’t blame them. Hoo-muthafuckin’-rah.
I like to act, and being on stage that night was mostly a good time (except when I was realizing that I’d just fucked up). There is nothing like the immediate “Love me! Love me!” that a loudly laughing audience provides. However, I cannot say that I would call THAT part of seven/24 “fun.” It was a wonderful challenge. It pushed me, not so much as an actor, but just personally. And I don’t think I would ever want to do it again.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Going Soft
Today is one of those random weird St. Louis days where it feels like you’ve fallen asleep and woken up in another season. Today, St. Louis is proud to present fall, back by popular demand. It’s not bad at all, really, just a bit cool and breezy.
The loveliness of the day is helping me to keep my pervasive crabbiness in check. For over a week I’ve been waiting to hear about a promotion at work. Add to that waiting to hear about a recent audition. Throw in having to work Friday AND Saturday night at Pink Collar Wage Slave Job #2, and we should be rapidly approaching the point where Kate could gleefully punch a fucker in the throat.
Strangely, though, I’m doing okay. Anxious and extra-special whiny, but not seriously having a rage wallow. I must be going soft.
The loveliness of the day is helping me to keep my pervasive crabbiness in check. For over a week I’ve been waiting to hear about a promotion at work. Add to that waiting to hear about a recent audition. Throw in having to work Friday AND Saturday night at Pink Collar Wage Slave Job #2, and we should be rapidly approaching the point where Kate could gleefully punch a fucker in the throat.
Strangely, though, I’m doing okay. Anxious and extra-special whiny, but not seriously having a rage wallow. I must be going soft.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Who Would Jesus Hate?
Jerry Falwell dead of apparent butter overdose.
Crap.
Now how are we supposed to know which children's cartoon characters are gay, or who should be blamed for the tragic death of thousands?
Crap.
Now how are we supposed to know which children's cartoon characters are gay, or who should be blamed for the tragic death of thousands?
Sunday, May 13, 2007
On Anniversaries
Yesterday was, in a bizarre example of life’s occasional symmetry, the anniversary both of my marriage and of my divorce.
On May 12, 2001, I meringued up in a traditional fluffy white dress and walked down the aisle to meet the man on whom, it turns out, I had settled. Four years later at 2:30 in the morning on May 12, 2005, I realized that I was finished and that my marriage was over. Normally, I would call it May 11th due to my usual insistence that the next day doesn’t begin until one has slept and wakened, but that’s not important to this story. Whatever. Close enough, non? What does matter is that I can still remember the noise I made when I realized my marriage was over, indeed I don’t think I can forget it, but I don’t think I could ever reproduce it.
Let me pause here and say that I have never, for even one instant, regretted the fact that I’m no longer married to my ex-husband. Hell, I can still almost give myself a facial tic just by thinking about him.
Because unlike many of my fellow humans I do have a tendency to use my forebrain, I have made peace with the mistake that was my marriage and the . . . extraction . . . that was my divorce. The Ex was, at the time of our marriage, a drunk. I sort of knew it, but my wedding and marriage was all about denial, so I went right ahead. In retrospect, I met The Ex far too soon after what was, in essence,a bit of a nervous breakdown and a short but dreadful series of heart bruising and breaking. I didn’t need to get married; I needed an intensive round of the therapy.
That said, The Ex doesn’t get a free pass. He wanted to get married, and I was just the next woman who happened along. I think he knew less about who he was and what he wanted than even I did. Eventually, The Ex got sober. Once he cleared the whiskey cobwebs from his brain and soberly appraised the situation, he realized that he didn’t particularly like me. Which made me not particularly like me, either, but made me like him even less.
Like all things that are ultimately doomed a breaking point was eventually reached, and suddenly the Kate that I had somewhat lost reasserted herself. Realizing that my situation was fucked, my marriage was fucked, and the fool to whom I was married was completely fucked—I decided that it was time to leave. And to take most of the furniture with me.
There is some friendly back and forth among my friends and I as to whether or not he ever really loved me. Since I don’t think he ever really knew me, I say not really. In all fairness, I don’t know if I loved him enough for our marriage to have worked even had the halcyon period immediately following his sobriety continued.
In the moments when I do not feel like tarting up the truth in pretty ribbons and bows, I knew the person I was marrying pretty well. He had all the depth of your standard casserole dish. I failed to predict how out of control his drinking would get, sure, but I knew it was a problem because it was a familiar one (shout out to the family!). The problems we encountered after he stopped being a drunk were unanticipated, but predictable. Oops. His behavior changed, but only because he quit filling the echoing hollow of his empty inner-life with booze and began plotting to fill it with work and children for whom he expected me to care.
I married Mike because I didn’t think I was going to do any better. I divorced him because I realized that it didn’t matter if I could do better because I sure as hell couldn’t feel any worse. After Mike’s surprise at my announced decision wore off his relief was, as I recall, palpable. He wanted out as well, he just wasn’t strong enough to do it.
What took the longest time for me to come to terms with, indeed what still troubles me from time to time, was the fact that I was, after all, the kind of woman who would make these mistakes. I got married for foolish, selfish reasons. This led, inexorably, to divorcing. I failed not because my marriage ended, but because a stupid, weak choice necessitated my marriage ending.
That sound I made on that late, late night when I finally realized that my marriage was finished, that terrible, pained yip, was not the sound of me mourning the end of that relationship. No. It was the sound of realizing that I was not the person I thought I was.
Oh well.
Two years later I am okay with the person I am and okay with the mistakes I made. Not proud of them, or indifferent, but okay. I needed, I think, to fucking burn myself in all that. It seared off an awful lot of fluff. I hope that it didn’t temper me, that it didn’t make me hard; that’s not what I want. I would never want a stupid mistake made when I was young and raw to forever harden that part of my life. I don’t think it has.
I will not, however, be making that fucking mistake again.
On May 12, 2001, I meringued up in a traditional fluffy white dress and walked down the aisle to meet the man on whom, it turns out, I had settled. Four years later at 2:30 in the morning on May 12, 2005, I realized that I was finished and that my marriage was over. Normally, I would call it May 11th due to my usual insistence that the next day doesn’t begin until one has slept and wakened, but that’s not important to this story. Whatever. Close enough, non? What does matter is that I can still remember the noise I made when I realized my marriage was over, indeed I don’t think I can forget it, but I don’t think I could ever reproduce it.
Let me pause here and say that I have never, for even one instant, regretted the fact that I’m no longer married to my ex-husband. Hell, I can still almost give myself a facial tic just by thinking about him.
Because unlike many of my fellow humans I do have a tendency to use my forebrain, I have made peace with the mistake that was my marriage and the . . . extraction . . . that was my divorce. The Ex was, at the time of our marriage, a drunk. I sort of knew it, but my wedding and marriage was all about denial, so I went right ahead. In retrospect, I met The Ex far too soon after what was, in essence,a bit of a nervous breakdown and a short but dreadful series of heart bruising and breaking. I didn’t need to get married; I needed an intensive round of the therapy.
That said, The Ex doesn’t get a free pass. He wanted to get married, and I was just the next woman who happened along. I think he knew less about who he was and what he wanted than even I did. Eventually, The Ex got sober. Once he cleared the whiskey cobwebs from his brain and soberly appraised the situation, he realized that he didn’t particularly like me. Which made me not particularly like me, either, but made me like him even less.
Like all things that are ultimately doomed a breaking point was eventually reached, and suddenly the Kate that I had somewhat lost reasserted herself. Realizing that my situation was fucked, my marriage was fucked, and the fool to whom I was married was completely fucked—I decided that it was time to leave. And to take most of the furniture with me.
There is some friendly back and forth among my friends and I as to whether or not he ever really loved me. Since I don’t think he ever really knew me, I say not really. In all fairness, I don’t know if I loved him enough for our marriage to have worked even had the halcyon period immediately following his sobriety continued.
In the moments when I do not feel like tarting up the truth in pretty ribbons and bows, I knew the person I was marrying pretty well. He had all the depth of your standard casserole dish. I failed to predict how out of control his drinking would get, sure, but I knew it was a problem because it was a familiar one (shout out to the family!). The problems we encountered after he stopped being a drunk were unanticipated, but predictable. Oops. His behavior changed, but only because he quit filling the echoing hollow of his empty inner-life with booze and began plotting to fill it with work and children for whom he expected me to care.
I married Mike because I didn’t think I was going to do any better. I divorced him because I realized that it didn’t matter if I could do better because I sure as hell couldn’t feel any worse. After Mike’s surprise at my announced decision wore off his relief was, as I recall, palpable. He wanted out as well, he just wasn’t strong enough to do it.
What took the longest time for me to come to terms with, indeed what still troubles me from time to time, was the fact that I was, after all, the kind of woman who would make these mistakes. I got married for foolish, selfish reasons. This led, inexorably, to divorcing. I failed not because my marriage ended, but because a stupid, weak choice necessitated my marriage ending.
That sound I made on that late, late night when I finally realized that my marriage was finished, that terrible, pained yip, was not the sound of me mourning the end of that relationship. No. It was the sound of realizing that I was not the person I thought I was.
Oh well.
Two years later I am okay with the person I am and okay with the mistakes I made. Not proud of them, or indifferent, but okay. I needed, I think, to fucking burn myself in all that. It seared off an awful lot of fluff. I hope that it didn’t temper me, that it didn’t make me hard; that’s not what I want. I would never want a stupid mistake made when I was young and raw to forever harden that part of my life. I don’t think it has.
I will not, however, be making that fucking mistake again.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Corporate Happy Interview
So today I had an interview for a promotion at Pink Collar Wage Slave Job #1. I think it went okay, as I put on my happy employee gameface and did my level best to sound like someone who ultimately gives a shit about something besides my paycheck. One of the things I find so frustrating about job interviews at my (crappy) level of employment is how completely full of shit they are.
Looking around my job at present, I’m convinced that the following is a true and accurate transcript of the interviews of at least 3 of my co-workers:
Interviewer: So, what you’re telling me is that you’re functionally retarded, but not actually retarded?
Interviewee: *throws a handful of feces at interviewer*
Interviewer: Can you start Monday?
I wanted to sum up my qualifications as “Look, motherfucker. Some bad choices in my 20s have brought me here, to your mercy. Compared to the boneheads back in the cubes at the other office, I’m a goddamn genius. You should hire me for two reasons: 1: I’m smart enough not to embarrass you, and 2. I would kill myself if I had to do what you do every day so I’m absolutely no threat to you.”
Hooray. As it stands, though, I would like very much to get this new position if for no other reason than because it will bring me one step closer to being able to quit Pink Collar Wage Slave Job #2. Although Job #2 is a source of constant amusement, including explaining to the guy driving the crematorium van why I can’t announce his arrival on the overhead paging system, I’m ready to get back to the traditional single job configuration of the regular spoiled American.
Looking around my job at present, I’m convinced that the following is a true and accurate transcript of the interviews of at least 3 of my co-workers:
Interviewer: So, what you’re telling me is that you’re functionally retarded, but not actually retarded?
Interviewee: *throws a handful of feces at interviewer*
Interviewer: Can you start Monday?
I wanted to sum up my qualifications as “Look, motherfucker. Some bad choices in my 20s have brought me here, to your mercy. Compared to the boneheads back in the cubes at the other office, I’m a goddamn genius. You should hire me for two reasons: 1: I’m smart enough not to embarrass you, and 2. I would kill myself if I had to do what you do every day so I’m absolutely no threat to you.”
Hooray. As it stands, though, I would like very much to get this new position if for no other reason than because it will bring me one step closer to being able to quit Pink Collar Wage Slave Job #2. Although Job #2 is a source of constant amusement, including explaining to the guy driving the crematorium van why I can’t announce his arrival on the overhead paging system, I’m ready to get back to the traditional single job configuration of the regular spoiled American.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Gone Too Long
I have, I fear, been horribly remiss about posting of late. I was on such a roll, blathering aimlessly about anything that caught my fancy for more than a few fleeting moments. Then I went to Chicago which, you would think, might lead me on to ever greater flights of literary fancy.
Alas, no. Chicago made me wonder how I had utterly pissed away 30 years with nothing to show for it but a tiny house, an incontinent dog, and a nascent drinking problem. I did get a really good photo of me and the boy out of it. He’s so damn cute when he looks all tough guy. He was even cuter later when we were both completely geeking out about how damn cool The Sparrow was.
Seriously, though. I don’t know what has gotten into me. I’m less than inspired to write of late. Quite honestly, I think I’m so put out with so much stuff that I don’t even want to wade through the disgust to get to my computer to write about it.
You know things are well and truly fucked when you’re talking to a man with a toddler and a brand new, barely finished baby and he’s talking about humanity blowing itself up in 10 years. Personally, I have no great respect for this cat’s intellect or faith in the accuracy of his predictions for the future, but I do find it telling that at the point in one’s life when one should be veritably wallowing in hope and denial, enthusiastically lining all clouds in sparkly, shining silver, he looked into the innocent blue eyes of his newborn son and figured the poor little tosser would only make it to about 10.
And people think I’m a pessimist.
Alas, no. Chicago made me wonder how I had utterly pissed away 30 years with nothing to show for it but a tiny house, an incontinent dog, and a nascent drinking problem. I did get a really good photo of me and the boy out of it. He’s so damn cute when he looks all tough guy. He was even cuter later when we were both completely geeking out about how damn cool The Sparrow was.
Seriously, though. I don’t know what has gotten into me. I’m less than inspired to write of late. Quite honestly, I think I’m so put out with so much stuff that I don’t even want to wade through the disgust to get to my computer to write about it.
You know things are well and truly fucked when you’re talking to a man with a toddler and a brand new, barely finished baby and he’s talking about humanity blowing itself up in 10 years. Personally, I have no great respect for this cat’s intellect or faith in the accuracy of his predictions for the future, but I do find it telling that at the point in one’s life when one should be veritably wallowing in hope and denial, enthusiastically lining all clouds in sparkly, shining silver, he looked into the innocent blue eyes of his newborn son and figured the poor little tosser would only make it to about 10.
And people think I’m a pessimist.
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