How I Learned To Drive

Well, how I'm learning to drive. Answer: With a very very good teacher. My friend Anita is teaching me, and she is so calm, and she wants me to be safe, and she doesn't make me do anything too scary.

I drove for like, an hour today! It was unbelievable! I drove in the country and I drove in the city. I drove on Country Hills Blvd. and it wasn't even that scary. I made some left turns. I changed some lanes. I shoulder checked. I remembered to signal. It was freakin amazing. I never thought I would be able to do this. I can't believe what I am capable of.

This was only my second lesson, but it went sooo much better than my first. I mean, my first didn't go badly, but I was mostly only driving in a parking lot. My second I'm out on all these busy roads, and I wasn't panicking. And you know why? Cause I did a Shakespearean warmup, I warmed up my breath and my voice, and I was a hundred times more relaxed. Is there anything that vocal training can't help you with? Everything, everything in life starts with breath. It's all about breath. It's the first thing and the last thing we do, and it's everything in between. I'm gonna warm up my breath every time I drive, at least until I get used to it.

Thank you, David Smukler. Thank you, National Voice Intensive. Thank you, Anita.

Mass emails

Okay, I just gotta say something about this. What's the deal with everyone apologizing for mass emails? I'm in theatre. I get a lot of mass emails about shows people are in, CD release parties, poetry readings, things online people have done...

And every single one of them says, "Sorry for the mass email..."

You know what? I'm not sorry. It's the way word is spread these days. It's the way to get your stuff out there. And what's the problem with mass emails, anyway? It's not like I get these things and go, "What??!? The person that I've barely spoken to for three years isn't sending me a special, personal email to tell me about their art gallery opening?? I'm so offended."

Email is advertising. And if it's from a friend, or even an aquaintance, goddam I want to know about it. I enjoy reading people's news and updates, and you know what? If I don't, I can... brace yourself for this... NOT READ THEM. I can delete them. Whoooooaaa!

Part of the reason I started this blog is that I like people to have the option of getting to see another side of me. The side that's not intimidated by crowds and conversation, the side that calmly sits, and thinks, and writes. The last time I sent mass emails, I was travelling in Europe, and I didn't have a blog yet. So I sent a blog-like post every now and then. Not a lot. I was gone for four months, I think I sent maybe, maybe 6 emails.

And one person, who shall remain nameless, actually wrote me and said, "Could you please stop sending me these." I haven't spoken to that person since. I don't understand the logic. If what I have to say is of so little interest to you, send it to your junk mail. Or, you don't even have to do that. Delete it, sight unseen. I don't care! It's not going to hurt my feelings if you don't read my emails. But what is the point, in this day and age, of getting upset about mass emails? I don't understand people who think that way, and I don't understand why everyone's apologizing for every "impersonal" message they send. At least we're in touch. At least I know what people are up to. I like that. I wouldn't ever want it to stop.

SFU OD

I feel kinda barfy today. I'm forcing myself to have a smoothie because I can't imagine eating something like eggs, or anything substantial. If it's possible to overdose on a TV show, I did it last night.

I never realized it was possible to connect so much with characters on a TV show. This kind of TV wasn't around when I was growing up. Buck Shot was around.

I didn't sleep last night. At least, not until around 5 am. And I woke up to a discussion on the CBC about donating organs and tissues to science. That was followed by Bob Dylan's I shall be released. It's been a very cosmic 24 hours.

Six Feet Under

I finally made it to the end of season 5.

I knew it would destroy me before the end.

God damn. That show never let up, not once. Okay, once. There was that one stupid paintball scene with Keith and David, and that's the only time that show ever lost me. I thought it was gonna go downhill then, but it picked up again. It's a near perfect piece of art. On television. Go figure.

Next I have to rent Angels in America.

Yeah, that's what I'll do. I just cry every night for a week and then I'll go.

I want to talk about that show more, but I will never spoil it for anyone like the Globe and Mail did for me. All I can say is, WATCH IT. It will change your life.

No, there must be more I can say without giving anything away. That show became a parallel for my life for a while. You know there are those albums or books that come out exactly when you're ready to receive them, and you listen to the music or you read the words, and they allow you to see something about your life that you were just waiting to discover, but you didn't have the means? That's what that TV show did to me. It came along and I knew and identified with, not just one or two of the characters, but every one. It showed me that we are all struggling together with the same thing and that's that we're all going to die. We're all going to watch people die, we're all going to experience sorrows beyond comprehension. But that doesn't mean that we don't have to go on living, and go on dealing, and go on loving people.

These are things that I always knew, technically, to be true. But that show made me realize them in my core. It allowed me to find parallels, inside myself, to my own family and my own story, and it illuminated those relationships and experiences in a new light that I had not fully appreciated before.

I have lived through the deaths of my grandparents, and that's as close to death as I have come. Sure, they were hard for me, they still are. But for me they were more an experience of being there for my mother. I mean, that is the essential meat of what I remember of those times. And to try to understand grief, from the outside like that, is frustrating and well, kind of impossible. We only know from being inside of it. Six Feet Under helped to give me an understanding of how that pain transforms a person. So that I think I can recognize that transformative power, that grace, even if I have not felt it myself.

And that's just how it influenced me psychologically. Creatively, it was just one of the most thoughtful, well-crafted pieces of art I've ever witnessed. And it came around just as I was launching my own artistic journey. And Claire, the youngest child, the character who, let's face it, I have the most in common with, was an artist. So the show brought up all these questions that a young artist faces and it dealt with them all in an honest, no bullshit way.

That's why Six Feet Under was amazing. Because it managed to talk about and deal with life, death, art, all of the subjects that are taboo for a hit TV series... it acknowleged and celebrated life and all of its questions in a way that never became maudlin, and it never became melodrama, and it never took itself too seriously. It was just... true.

R.I.P. S.F.U.

There, it's done

Now doesn't that feel better?

I've picked both my pieces, spoken them aloud, I love them both, I love doing them, I love the different feelings that I get from saying each one, I'm confident that the feelings are different enough to be considered "contrasting" - that word has been the bane of my existence until now - and it's done. IT'S DONE!

Now I still have a shitload of work to do, but... I got up and did it. The Libran has made a decision! Oh frabjous day! Calloo, callay!!

I can't think about whether they're the "strongest choices" I could have made. They're pieces that I love and feel connected to. What more could anyone ask? I have to quiet that little voice that keeps saying, "Probably still won't get in." Well, it's true, the odds are against me. But goddam it they've had me back 5 years now. You'd think they'd get rid of me if they weren't interested.

And I get to audition in Toronto, on the Elgin stage!! It's a 1500 seat venue and it's beautiful. If that's not inspiring, I don't know what is.

Looking for love... in all the right places

It's time to work. It's time to stop worrying about my Stratford audition and work on my pieces. So why am I sitting here, checking and re-checking my email, reading other people's blogs, writing in my journal of procrastination?

I suppose it's fear. Fear of getting down to work. What is so frightening about work? I guess it's my ego. If I start to work, I will start to realize how much more work I have to do, and then I will start to feel like no amount of work will be enough. At least, that's how I feel about work before I start to do it. But when I do it, I have a good time. I love it. It doesn't matter how much there is to do when I'm actually doing it. It's only when I'm putting off the work that it feels overwhelming.

I'm hoping for an email from somebody, anybody, saying "You can do it. You're great!" But nobody even knows what I'm working on, so why would they email me? Nobody knows that I'm feeling insecure and afraid. That I'm auditioning for Stratford for the fourth or fifth time, and that this time feels like "it's now or never." I think, in the past, I auditioned just for the sake of auditioning. I never really believed I had a chance of actually getting accepted. But this time...

I don't know, it's not that I feel any different from before. I still feel the enormous odds against me. But I look back at pieces I've done in the past, and think how woefully underprepared they were. How lack of life experience prevented me from experiencing them fully. And I think, this time I know how to prepare. I acknowledge the imaginary life I have always been in touch with - maybe a little too in touch. As a child, my whole world was imaginary. Everyone real around me became part of my inner life as soon as I was alone. I think I'm only starting to be far enough away from my childhood to realize what a rare gift that imaginary life was. As a teenager and young adult, all I could see was how weird it was. When everybody else grew up watching TV shows and movies and playing video games, I made up stupid scenarios alone in my room, and recorded myself, talking to and voicing all the other characters in my "dramas". Now I think, "HELLO!!?" Is it any wonder I have a drive and talent for acting now? I've been doing it my whole life.

But the fear that crept in there in my adolescence is hard to get past. The belief that an imaginary life is a bad or weird thing, that I should have had more real friends and done more "real people" things like going to movies and Chucky Cheese and Calaway Park, that stays with me now, when what I most need is to embrace that odd past and use it, relive it even. Why did it come so naturally to me then to talk to people that weren't there, to make up scenarios that didn't exist - and why am I so afraid of doing it now? There's no-one listening. I'm alone at home.

But I take it as a good sign that I can even ask myself these questions. The new Flaming Lips album, which I've barely gone a day without listening to since it came out a month and a half ago, has a song that goes, "She's starting to live her life from the inside out. The sound of failure calls her name. She's decided to hear it out." The first lyric is how I feel about the work I'm doing now. The second lyric may sound defeatist to some. But my friend Rebecca whose blog is called "Adventure in Fear and Failure" - she would understand this lyric. Too bad she didn't make it through the whole Lips concert we saw in Toronto. They didn't play that song anyway. And any improvisors, at least the ones trained by Keith Johnstone, will understand that failure is a good thing. It was my failure to get into Stratford in the past that brought me to this point now. What will I make of it? How will I use it to take my next step forward?

The answer to these questions will only revealed when I get off this computer, get on the floor, feel the boards with my bare feet, feel the impulse that swells up inside me, and speak. Oh, and breathe. I always forget that one.

I guess the thing that's daunting about it all, is that, as a kid the imaginary life came easily to me. As I get older, it gets harder and harder to access. And it gets more and more technical, the process I have to go through to find the same state of being that, as a kid, I just inhabited all the time. So the solution is to embrace the technicalities, embrace the work, because it's the only way to stay connected to that feeling of being ten years old and being able to do anything.

What does the title of this post mean? It means when I get up from this computer, I will stop looking for reassurance and sympathy and love from the outside, from friends, from mentors, who are not in my world right now, and over whom I have no control. I will look inside myself to find the thing that will propel me forward into the unknown. That's love.

I will look at the quotation, framed on the wall of my parent's house, that says,

"The love you liberate in your work is the only love you keep."

Ahhh. I feel better.

Well, I guess I have to take back my last post. The nice assistant manager of my local branch reimbursed me for all the money that was taken, even though the fraud department had no solid evidence of skimming. So essentially, they are taking my word for it that I didn't get a friend to withdraw $2000 from my account, just to screw them over. Cause you know, $2000 is a lot of money to the Bank of Montreal. If everyone skimmed $2000 off their account, the bank would only have about a gazillion dollars surplus at the end of the fiscal year.

But I shouldn't keep taking the piss, the big bad bank actually cared about a small, insignificant customer like me, and gave me my money back. So thanks, BMO. Thanks for caring about the little guy.

Now I will have enough money to fund the 2006 Monster theatre road trip, from Vancouver to Toronto. My hard earned Trickster dollars will go towards gas, food, moustaches, and any other incidentals that come up as Monster Ryan and I trek across this great nation of ours, speculating on the possible life of Jesus between the ages of 17 and 30. No doubt we will encounter some characters with opinions of their own.

Next week I am in a junior high school, helping the kids to create a show about respect. I sometimes wish I could get a little bit more respect for this job that I do. The teachers and parents who see the process and the end result have, I believe, some respect for what I do. They recognize the difficulty of getting 30 kids to do anything as a group, let alone something worth watching. But the people in the "real" theatre community will never quite understand. Even the sympathetic ones. If they think of Trickster, they think of lame school plays about respect, and they don't see, during the day on Wednesday, the kid who turns from class misfit into King of Respectland, or whatever, and the expression that spreads across his face when he realizes that he's actually good at something. People that don't appreciate that aspect of my job will be stunned in 10 years when they get beaten out of a gig by a 20 year old whose life changed when this wacky theatre group came to his school in Grade 6.

This post is all over the place. But then, so is my brain. Soon Trickster will be over. My brain will go back to normal. Whatever that is.