Bloody Knackered Mate: An Update

In a drunken stupor last night I decided to try saying 'cheers' to the bartender when he handed me a beautifully poured french martini.  While this action caused my adrenaline to pump enough to make my ears burn, he just smiled and watched me turn to go back to my friends, completely unaware of the turmoil he had just witnessed. 

Oh yeah, personal barrier broken.  One step closer to not being an awkward yank.

In other news, I now happily drink beer, know the words to most Oasis songs and actually said 'reyt' in a conversation.  So, really, I'm not only loosing the awkward yank, I'm turning Northern.  

And I think I like it.

I Had to Start it Somewhere

So it started there...

Or here, rather:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSXWWrIxSB4

I have been listening to this song non-stop for months now.  Almost every day, I pick up my iPod and if it isn't the first thing I go to, it is in the mix I am listening to or eventually I start craving that strange whisper-singing that usually bothers the hell out of me.  I assumed that it was a combination of the great beat, the catchy hook and the amazing memories that I associate with it, but after I listened to it for the who-the-hell-knows time on my way home today something else hit me.

I get it.

I understand what she was looking for.  My parents aren't exactly 'loaded' but I have never had to worry about anything, so I've never really had something that was completely my own.  It always seemed like I got by based on who my family was.  Even if I fail miserably, my parents are able to pick up my pieces.

We in the upper-middle class wrongly, sickly even, romanticize the working class.  There is nothing great about wondering where your next meal is coming from, but at the same time, how fucking great to know that you are surviving on your own merit.  The strength of will that takes amazes me.  

I think of so many of the people I knew back home and everything they do is based on networking.  When I am at Waverly's, the posh golf course back home, all I see is falseness.  You have a hard time finding who your friends are because everything is based on social-politics (and when it isn't, you are paranoid as hell and often end up pushing them away with your neurosis).  You are always watched because heaven forbid you do something that would embarrass your family name.  You have a box that you are supposed to stay in and you better have a smile on your face while they fold it in on you.

When I moved here, I moved away from all of that.  I wanted what I saw the 'common people' with - a feeling of abandon, of liveness that only can come when you have nothing to loose.

I know I am just a tourist.  I always will be.  While I moved here to get away from the J-Crew crowd, I came here on a visa provided by a prestigious theatre school.  Talk about pretension.  

If things went completely wrong and the roaches were climbing the walls, I really could call my dad to stop it all.  Well, maybe not all of it, but he would certainly pay for the exterminator.  

I don't think they had it right.  I don't think poor is cool.  I think it must be hard, but rewarding and real.

How amazing to know that your daily actions actually count.  I just spent eleven hours working on a presentation about clowns.  I mean, I love what I do, but really?  What good am I doing?  Who the fuck cares?

Who am I kidding?  I care.  And worse is that I actually believe I can change things through theatre, for now starting with these clowns.

I am hopeless.  

Procrastination... Or Cool Bartonian Exercise?

You know when someone says something and you just have nothing to return with?  Or maybe you returned just fine, but you thought of something better later?  And you wish you could go back and say this one thing because somehow that would fix something?

In this class I took called Lyric Performance we had this exercise called something like "the spirit of the stairs," but it sounded cooler because it was in French.  The entire class was about being vulnerable onstage when portraying a character and somehow giving us a chance to reenact the moments where we had previously failed was going to open up some part of our desperate-for-attention little heads and make us really feel onstage.  Usually, I was totally happy to go with our teacher on his sometimes indulgently bazar exercises, but somehow, this one just rubbed me wrong.  I think I slacked it off and just made up a situation with my mother.  (Sorry Bob)

I have a point.  Not really, more that I would rather let my mind wander than do what I should be doing.

I was called a snake a few days ago.  Not in a really mean way, but a half serious joke made by a friend hinting at the condition of the female species.  While I generally agree with him (not about myself, thank you), I retorted that men were kittens.  It seemed that was game point.  Cool.

But I have something else to say.  Out of desire to procrastinate, I will try Bob's exercise.  And this is perfect because the original conversation was in text!

snakes, the lot of you

kittens the lot of you

Touche.

and besides - spinelessness being your problem and if i'm a snake, being nothing but a spine would be mine... sounds like we could help each other, yeah?

HEY-OH!  Game, Set, MATCH.  I feel so much better!  And there is even an added element of danger since this blog is connected to my facebook profile --- oooo, what if he finds out! 

I'm sure this is how bad pick up lines are created.  "Hey hot stuff, can I be your spine?"  Yeah, that is so hot, how do I keep 'em off me?  Good thing I left the conversation where it was.

Oh well, being indulgent is way more fun than trying to write a script.

Oh, Grow Up

Go with me on this one...

When someone tells you to 'grow up' it is most often a request for you to stop doing something.  With me so far?  For instance, when my mother finds me playing with the box of Lego I found in my closet she says 'grow up,' but what she means is 'stop embarrassing me in front of my imaginary jury panel.'  What is wrong with the joy of creating something?  Even if it is a mismatched color attempt at a truck or a really freakin awesome fortress (two walls makes it a fortress, not a castle), why should I not occupy my time building?  Oh, right, I will be 'normal' and go spend my afternoon in front of a television watching Friends.  

I take a more... I donno, awkward teen drama view of this 'growing up' thing.  

Don't stop playing with Legos.  You will get boring.

Growing up is not, or perhaps should not be, a process by which you systematically give up on things that you enjoy.  It is the slow and often agonizing process in which you experience things that alter your personality. It is as simple as when you figure out that wearing sandals to the 4th of July BBQ where there will be loads of open flames is not a good idea or as complex as when you are daft enough to apply to a prestigious drama school thousands of miles from home.  The sad part of this process is that it often tells you that to become normal you have to give up on things like hopes and dreams and fantasies and replace them with cold hard 'facts of life.'  You stop taking risks and even entertaining those daft ideas because now that you are all grown up, you know that risks sometimes carry consequences and you wouldn't want anything to shake your comfortable, albeit boring, life.

As we 'grow up' we build this wall of confidence and self-assurance around us.  I am more well-adjusted if my wall is higher than yours.  Within that wall are all the things we need to live a comfortable life.  A job that is well within my abilities where I get praise for my well-doings.  There is a decent house in a decent suburb with a dog.  I am a woman, so there should be a couple kids in there and a husband who my friends introduced me to and we 'just clicked.'  No need to risk anything by going outside the confidence wall.  The higher your wall is, the more convinced you are that you have it all and have no reason to want to see over the wall into the safety abandoned theme-park craziness that those of us who refuse to 'grow up' get to play in.

What is so wrong with scraping your knees a little?  Why can't adults climb a tree just for the sheer fun of it?  For the sense of kingship and accomplishment you get when you reach your goal?  Because 1.  we might fall and it would hurt and 2.  because someone might see us and judge us.

Pain and judgement.  Yeah, it is human to want to avoid those.  They suck.  Epically.

Except, you know that feeling when you shoot for something totally unreachable?  It is a feeling of exhilaration that cannot be matched by anything.  Well, maybe skydiving, but I haven't done that yet.  (Yet)  And then how much more do you appreciate it if you even graze the handhold of your goal?  

I have fallen on my face a lot.  Especially recently.  But that is okay.  Why not fail?  Why should I give up on my dreams, 'grow up' as they say, and move back to Oregon, get back with my ex, get married and become the good little lawyer's wife that everyone seems to expect me to be?  I shouldn't.  I should be where I am right now, sitting on my bed, single and typing to millions of people who will never read this, nor should even care.  But I am happy.  Happier than I have ever been in my life.  Because I jumped.  I didn't exactly land on my feet, but I would rather have a sprained ankle in Disneyland than perfect health in a box.  

I'm not growing up any time soon.  In fact, there is a tree right outside my flat block aching to be climbed.